Page 56 of What a Lord Wants

He dragged a hand through his hair to keep from reaching for her, although he couldn’t have said at that moment whether to shake sense into her or strip her bare. “Do you think that makes a difference, just because you’ll no longer be right in front of me, posing for me? Do you think the sight of you isn’t already engraved on my mind?” The feel of her soft curves beneath his hands, her jasmine scent, the honey-sweet taste of her on his lips…Christ. “For God’s sake, Eve! Do you think I can so easily separate you from my art? If I could—if it were that simple, to control my passions—” He raked his gaze over her with a look that surely set her flesh on fire beneath the burning intensity of it. “Nothingwould stop me from making love to you.”

With a soft breath, her stunned lips parted silently beneath his outburst. Both at his confession of exactly how much he desired her and her realization that he would never let himself have her.

Suddenly very tired and knowing he couldn’t make her understand the very real threat she posed, he rubbed at his forehead and the headache forming behind his brow. “Go dress.” This argument was over. “I’ll make certain you arrive home safely.”

Looking away, she gave a stiff nod.

He knew as he watched her step behind the screen to dress that she would never return to this place, never again let him paint her or sketch her. That their relationship had irrevocably changed, and already he grieved its loss.

But hadn’t he known that the moment he gazed across Lord Hawthorne’s ballroom and saw her?

The rustle of fabric only increased his frustration. If he had met her any other way except as his model, he might very well have been lulled by her enticements. He could show her how intimacies would satisfy that longing for adventure and freedom she craved. Then they could have gone their separate ways, without giving the other another thought.

But she wasn’t just a woman to be bedded and forgotten. She’d become part of his art and could never be disentangled from it now. She’d reenergized his career and inspired him to create on a level he’d never achieved before.

If he gave her his passion, what would be left for his art? A woman like Eve would demand all or nothing.

He glanced up to find her slipping out from behind the screen. The sight of her jarred him.

Gone was the plain, coarse dress she usually wore to the studio, and in its place was a muslin dress of tiny yellow flowers against a white background. Her hair—that tumbling mass of curls that so mesmerized him—was pinned in a tight knot. She looked every inch like an innocent Mayfair miss.

Dear God, how had he not noticed who she truly was before that night at the ball?

Because he hadn’t wanted to notice.

“You’re a liar, you know.”

He arched a brow in deflection. “Most peers are.”

Her expression remained somber, not finding that at all amusing. “Apparently, so are certain artists.”

Thatbarb hit home.

Not letting the sting of it show, he leaned back against the worktable and folded his arms across his chest. The posture of a man who couldn’t care less, when beneath he was seething.

“You’re not refusing me tonight because I was your model.” The quiet calm with which she said that unnerved him. “You’re refusing because you always keep your distance.”

He gave a bitter laugh and gestured a hand at the chaise. “I couldn’t have been any closer without ruining you.”

“Notwith your heart. You keep it distant.” She touched her fingers to his chest, right to his heart that leapt wildly beneath her fingertips. “Always. Because you refuse to mix your passion for your art with the passion of love—”

“Of sex,” he corrected pointedly. About this, he wanted no misunderstanding. What she wanted from him could never be love. Because loving her meant having to put her first before all things, including his art. That was a sacrifice he wasn’t willing to make.

“My point exactly. You’ll never be a truly great artist because your heart is stopping you.”

His breath caught in his throat. He was stunned at how closely she’d come to repeating Giuseppe’s words from that night all those years ago. The anger and anguish she now stirred inside him was just as fresh as then.

“What do you know about art?” he bit out. “You don’t know what it takes to create a masterpiece.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” She lifted her chin, and sorrow darkened her face. For him. “But if I know just one thing, Dominick, it’s how to live passionately.”

She dropped her hand to her side. The loss of her touch rushed over him like ice water. Then she walked away toward the door.

“No need to escort me out.” She put up a hand and stopped him as he followed her to the door, that small gesture cutting him to the quick. “The carriage is nearby. I’ll be fine without you.”

Those last words pierced him, with more meaning than she intended.

She paused to take a lingering last look at the studio. Her eyes glistened in the candlelight as she choked out, “Goodbye, Dom.”