‘A seal, a stag antler, a tiger with cubs and a squid were stolen from the King and Cross Gallery. There’s been a lot of interest in netsuke lately, and consequently a lot of theft. They are also easy to transport, being not much bigger than the size of a golfball.’
‘If they were stolen, how did they end up in a hole-in-the-wall shop in Bali? They were covered in dust, forgotten. Nobody had looked at them for years.’
‘I can’t take a chance that these might be stolen. Didn’t you get any provenance?’
‘Gray, the guy said they were pawned. The owner never came back to pick them up and that was six years ago.’ Rowan rubbed her neck. ‘They are
not
stolen.’
Grayson was silent for a minute. ‘Well, if these are genuine eighteenth-century netsuke and aren’t the same objects that were stolen then I think you’ve got a heck of a find on your hands.’
‘So, it’s either really good or really bad news?’
‘Essentially. Can you prove how you paid for them?’ Grayson demanded.
Rowan’s eyes flicked to Seb’s face. He was listening to her side of the conversation with avid interest.
‘Yeah. Every cent. I drained my bank accounts to pay for them.’
‘That’s good. Of course you might take a financial hit if they
are
stolen, but if you can prove you paid for them then it shows you didn’t have criminal intent.’
‘Yay me. And they
aren’t
stolen.’ Rowan closed her eyes at the thought of waving goodbye to twelve thousand pounds. She rested her forehead on the dining room table and tried not to hyperventilate.
‘Of course if they are not stolen, then I think you’ve hit a massive pay-day,’ Grayson added.
Rowan heard Seb move from his chair and thought that he was finally giving her some privacy. Instead she felt his hand warm and big on her neck, gently stroking the tense cords.
She wished she could just lean back and soak up his strength, ask him to help her sort this out. But she couldn’t. She never asked for help...mostly because there had never been anyone around she could ask.
Besides, he’d just think that she was stupid and irresponsible... And because she liked his hands on her skin a little too much she swatted them away.
‘Do you have any documentation or photographs of what was stolen from that gallery so that I can compare them myself?’ Rowan asked Grayson.
‘No, that’s not my problem—it’s yours. I just know that it was those four subjects.’
And Japanese artists never did the same subjects. Damn Grayson! He was getting all paranoid and crazy without even knowing if the netsukes looked the same. Stupid man. Grayson was rich, but he wasn’t bright.
‘You need to do some research. Try to identify the pieces. Then we’ll talk again,’ Grayson said as Seb dropped his hand and walked away to refill his coffee cup.
‘You know you want them.’
‘And I’ll buy them—after you tell me that they are definitely not stolen.’
‘They are definitely not stolen.’
‘Smarty pants,’ Grayson said, before disconnecting.
Aarrrrgh.
It wasn’t as if she was a total amateur, Rowan thought on an internal eye-roll. She stared out of the window and tried to push her way through her panic to think the problem through.
‘I can smell your brains burning,’ Seb said, taking his seat again and pushing another cup of coffee in her direction. ‘Sip and spill.’
Rowan instinctively shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure something out.’ She pushed against the table to haul herself to her feet. This wasn’t Seb’s problem, she thought. It was hers, solely.
Rowan looked down in surprise when Seb’s hand snagged her wrist and tugged her back to her seat. ‘Sit down, drink your coffee and tell me what’s happened.’
‘Seb...I can deal with it. It’s fine.’
Seb shoved a frustrated hand through his hair. ‘That’s the problem, Rowan. You don’t need to deal with it on your own. Why won’t you let me help you?’
‘I don’t need your help! This is minor, Seb. I
needed
your help nine years ago. I needed lots of help then! Since then I’ve learnt to rely on myself.’
Seb flicked his thumbnail against his bottom lip. ‘Something happened that night—something more than any of us realised.’
Rowan shook her head. ‘What is your obsession with that damned party? It was at a club, I got caught with a baggie, I did community service for it... End of story.’
‘Really? I suspect you took the rap for that slick character you were so in love with. Jason... Jack...’ Seb clicked his fingers in frustration.
‘Joe Clark.’
He frowned. ‘The same Joe Clark who runs that sports betting company? The one that’s just been listed on the Stock Exchange?’
‘I presume so. His father owned a couple of betting shops, so it must be the same family.’
‘You haven’t kept in touch with him?’
Revulsion passed across Rowan’s face, accompanied by a visible shudder. Oh, yeah, there was a story here.
Rowan cocked her head. ‘What’s with the twenty questions? I feel like I’m back in the interrogation room at Sydney.’
‘You’re tough. You can handle it.’ Seb looked over the rim of his coffee cup. Her remote, distant façade was back in place and it annoyed him. She wasn’t cool and remote. She never had been. Loud, vivacious, spontaneous... He’d used to be able to read every emotion on her face.
‘Are you in trouble—again?’ If she was there was no way that he’d just sit back and watch her go through hell a second time. ‘Tell me.’
Rowan recognised that determined look on his face and realised that he wasn’t going to be shrugged off. And she felt...relieved. Glad to have an excuse to tell him, to tell somebody.
Another part of her wanted to show him—tell him that she
wasn’t
the ditsy, silly, crazy child who bounced from job to job, wafting her way through the world. Well, she did waft, but she worked as well. Being an art ‘picker’ took determination, time and a good eye. And hours and hours of studying jewellery, art, sculpture.
Maybe he could respect that—respect her?
Was it so wrong to want a little affirmation, a little admiration from a super-smart man? From anybody?
‘Criminal trouble? No. Financial trouble? Oh, yeah. And to make you understand I have to show you something,’ Rowan said, and walked out of the room to fetch her baby sculptures.
FOUR
‘I love this
one,’ Seb said, holding the chubby, joyful figurine of a Buddha in the palm of his hand. ‘Simply stunning.’
‘It’s a Hotei, also called a Laughing Buddha, symbolising contentment and abundance and luck.’ Rowan’s finger drifted over the Buddha’s cheek. ‘I love him too. I think he’s the prize of the collection.’
After Seb had spent at least fifteen minutes looking at the tiny ivory netsukes, pointing out details that she hadn’t noticed, Rowan rewrapped the carvings and put them back into their box. Closing the lid, she wrapped her hands around her coffee cup. She wondered where to start. At the beginning, she supposed...
‘After six months in Thailand I left and headed for Hong Kong, I had a job teaching English and was barely scraping by. One day, after I’d just been paid, I was on my way to buy groceries, and there was a little shop I passed every day, full of...curiosities, I suppose. Mostly junk, to be honest. I had some time and I went in. I was browsing through a box of costume jewellery and I found a brooch. I knew right away that it was special. The craftsmanship was superb. The owners thought it was paste but I knew it wasn’t. Don’t ask me how. I just did.’
Seb leaned his arms on the table, listening intently.
‘I went straight to the Causeway District and found an antique shop.’
Seb’s mouth kicked up in a smile. ‘Don’t tell me... It was solid gold and studded with diamonds.’
‘Better. It was Fabergé and worth a freaking fortune. I was lucky. The owner paid me a fair price. He could’ve ripped me off. I didn’t know what it was. The profit on that funded my travels for the next eighteen months, but I was hooked on the chase. I started studying antiques, jewellery, art. I realised I had an eye for spotting quality and, while I never found another Fabergé brooch, I
did
find Lalique glassware, Meissen pottery, minor works of art. I made some money.’
Well, that explained the deposits and withdrawals. Smart girl, Seb thought. Smart
and
gorgeous. A very dangerous combination.
‘Most of my capital is tied up in a house I co-bought in London which I am planning on...’
‘Flipping?’
Rowan tipped her mouth up. ‘It’s what I do.’
‘So, coming back to these...’
Rowan told him what Grayson had said and waited through his resultant thoughtful silence. ‘So, basically, you need to know whether these are previously undiscovered, undocumented netsuke or whether they’ve been stolen?’
‘They aren’t stolen. I’m pretty sure of that. But no one is going to buy them at the price I want without further information.’ Rowan rested her chin on her fist. ‘And obviously it also means that I’m going to be broke for a lot longer than I anticipated.’
Seb waved her money troubles away. Easy for him to do, Rowan thought.
‘So, what’s the next step?’ he asked.
‘Research. Lots of it. I don’t know nearly enough about netsuke.’
‘But you know that they are quality pieces? Do you need my computer skills?’
‘I don’t think so... I just need to trawl through databases of documented netsuke and see if I can find any of them.’
‘Well, if you need to get into places that you can’t get into...’
‘Is that what you do? Poke around in places?’
Seb shrugged. ‘At a very basic level.’
‘What exactly are you paid so much money to do?’
Seb tapped his finger against his coffee cup. ‘I guess you can call me a consultant. Companies hire me to evaluate their computer systems for vulnerabilities. So I go in there, try to hack their system—and pretty much always do. Then I point out where they have problems. Sometimes I fix the problems for them; sometimes they get their people to do it. Either way I get paid.’
‘Huh. So you use your powers for good and not evil?’ Rowan threw his words back at him.
‘Yeah.’
‘And you’d be willing to...poke around for me? Isn’t that illegal?’
‘Slightly unethical, maybe.’ Seb’s eyes were determined when they met hers. ‘Look, I’m not going to use the information for personal gain, and if it helps you out of a jam then so much the better.’
Rowan nodded her understanding, thought for a minute, then said, ‘Let me do some research. If I need your help, I’ll ask.’
‘Promise?’ Seb shrugged at her gimlet stare. ‘It’s just that you don’t have a great track record when it comes to asking for help, Brat.’
‘Promise. Can I borrow a computer?’
‘Sure. There’s a couple you can use in my office, or there’s a few you can use in my bedroom.’ Seb deliberately wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Rowan, as expected, rolled her eyes. Yep, time to bust her chops, he thought, and to banish the tension he saw in her eyes.
‘I am not going anywhere near your bedroom, Hollis.’
Seb leaned back in his chair. ‘Why? Scared you won’t be able to keep your hands off me?’
‘What? Are you mad? You’re like my...my...er...’
‘Don’t say brother,’ Seb ground out. ‘That would be too creepy for words.’
‘No...geez!
Eeuuuw!
’ Rowan shuddered as she banged her cup onto the table. ‘No talk of bedrooms!’
Seb liked the colour in her face and the snap in her eyes so he thought he’d wind her up some more. ‘Okay, can we talk about what happens in bedrooms, then?’
‘We could
never
have sex!’
‘Uh, yes...actually we could. You see, my Part A would slot into your Plot B—’
Rowan’s look was meant to freeze. ‘Stop being facetious! It’s a crazy idea! Yes, I think you’ve got some heat happening, but it would be a really stupid thing to do. We don’t even like each other.’
Seb stood up and ran a hand over her head. Then he placed one hand on the back of her chair and bent down so that his face was next to hers. She just folded her arms and lifted a perfectly arched, perfectly arrogant eyebrow.
Man,
that look made him hot.
‘Are you trying to intimidate me? It didn’t work when I was ten—what makes you think it’ll work now?’
‘I was just wondering whether you taste as good as you smell.’
‘You’ll never find out.’ Rowan pushed him away, stood up and put some distance between them. She placed her fists on her hips and tipped her head. ‘Back to business. So, if I ask you for help what is it going to cost me?’
‘What?’
‘Your computer skills? I’m already paying for my food and bed by being the housekeeper...’
Seb looked at the stack of dishes in the sink. ‘Not that you’ve done any housekeeping yet.’
‘Give me a break. I’ll get to it! So, what’s the price?’
‘We’ll work something out,’ Seb said, deliberately vague.
‘And that statement scares the hell out of me,’ Rowan retorted. ‘As per usual you’ve managed to drive me crazy, so I need to leave. I’m going to do some shopping, since there isn’t anything to eat in this house!’
‘Want me to come with you?’
‘I’ve been shopping on my own for a long time now. I think I can manage.’
Rowan made her tone even and unemotional, but Seb smiled at the twin strips of colour on her cheekbones. Her chest was flushed and her nipples were puckered against her shirt. Her mind and mouth might be protesting at the thought of them sleeping together but her body wouldn’t object. He could reach for her right now and he knew that she wouldn’t take much persuading...
Except that he wanted her to want this—him—with both her body and mind. He didn’t want her to have regrets, to think that she was coerced. That would be giving that smart mouth of hers too much ammunition to chew his ass off.
Rowan wasn’t known for playing fair.
‘Money.’ Rowan held out her hand and bent her fingers backwards and forwards. When he just looked at her, she sighed. ‘I can’t go shopping without money, Einstein, and I don’t have any.’
Right. Try to keep up, Hollis!
Seb reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and handed over a wad of bills. He had no idea how much was in there and it didn’t matter. Money was easy. She could blow every cent he had and he would just put his shoulder to the wheel and make some more.
People—it was people who baffled him, he thought as Rowan tucked the cash into the pocket of her jeans.
‘Keys?’ she asked.
‘To what?’
‘Your car. Or were you expecting me carry the groceries back in the basket on the front of a bicycle?’
‘There is no way I’m letting you drive my precious car.’ Seb walked over to a row of hooks by the door and lifted off a set of keys. ‘Here’s a remote to the gate and garage and the keys to Yas’s runaround. Use that.’
‘I can’t use Yasmeen’s car!’
‘It’s my car, and Yas uses it to do errands so that she doesn’t risk getting her own dinged.’ Seb tossed her the set of keys and Rowan snatched them out of the air.
Their glances clashed and electricity buzzed between them again. Except that this time—dammit—it wasn’t all sexual, wasn’t only a caveman impulse to score with a pretty girl. Rowan wasn’t just a pretty face and a spectacular bod; she’d be easier to resist if she were.
She had a brain behind those amazing eyes, a sharp sense of business and a talent to spot art. Being physically attracted to her was enough of a hassle. To be mentally drawn to her as well was asking for trouble.
Yet he was having to fight to keep from taking those couple of steps to her, pulling her against him and making her his.
Seb placed his fists on his hips and blew out a long, frustrated breath. He needed to think this through, to rationalise this attraction he felt to her. Needed to try to find out where these crazy impulses to get her naked were coming from. He believed in being rational, in analysing that which he didn’t understand.
And he didn’t understand what was happening with him where Rowan was concerned. He needed to get a handle on these unpredictable and swamping impulses he had whenever she was in the same room.
Like the impulse to strip her naked and bend her over the back of that chair...
Oh, man. He was in a world of trouble here...
‘Okay, well, I’ll be back later.’ Rowan flashed him an uncertain look and belted out through the kitchen door.
Seb gripped the back of a chair with both hands and dropped his head. What was wrong with him? He never went nuts over a woman—never, ever felt out of control. Sex was important and, like all men, he liked it—no, he loved it—but he had always been able to walk away. Always.
Until now. Until Rowan.
And she hadn’t even been back in his life for twenty-four hours. She had already tipped his world upside down and Seb shuddered when he thought of the chaos she could create in the immediate future.
* * *
He was still so annoying, Rowan thought as she went into the empty, cavernous hall of the supermarket and walked over to the fresh fruit section.
‘My Part A would slot into your Plot B—’
Seb’s words rattled around her brain. A stupid phrase that had lust whirling in her downstairs regions, that made her feel light-headed—oh, dear, that made her sound like a heroine from a historical romance, but it was the perfect word—and created an impulse to reach up and yank that sardonic mouth to hers.
She’d never felt the impulse to yank—
yank?—
any man’s mouth to hers, and that it was Seb’s that she now had the urge to taste went against all the laws of the universe.
She could not believe that she—cool, competent and street-smart—was acting like a horny teenager, about to collapse in a panting, wet, drippy, drooling heap at his feet.
It was humiliating. Really!
Rowan pushed a tendril of hair out of her eyes and blew air into her cheeks as her mobile chirped. Pulling it from the front pocket of her shorts, she did an excited wiggle when she saw the name in the display window.
‘Ro? Honey?’ The gravelly voice of her best friend boomed across the miles.
‘Why aren’t you in Cape Town, where I need you?’ Rowan demanded. ‘The one time I get back and you’re not here, Callie!’
‘Sorry, darling. I got delayed... He’s six-two and has soulful green eyes. And I need to see a designer in LA who can only see me next week. Or maybe the week after.’
‘Naff excuse,’ Rowan muttered.
‘So, how and why are you back home?’
‘It’s a long story.’
Rowan gave her a brief synopsis of her last couple of days. After thinking about and then refusing Callie’s offer of a loan, she sighed into the mobile.
‘Something else is wrong,’ Callie stated. ‘Come on—spit it out.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘In the last fifteen minutes I think you said Seb’s name once. Normally you would’ve insulted him at least ten times by now. What’s going on?’
And that was the problem with knowing someone for all your life. You couldn’t sneak stuff past them. ‘I don’t know if you want to know.’
‘I always want to know. Spill.’
‘I think I suddenly have the screaming hots for my best friend’s brother.’
When Callie stopped roaring with laughter Rowan put the mobile back to her ear.
‘Holy fishcakes,’ Callie said. ‘Sweetheart, when you muck it up, you do it properly.’
Rowan frowned at Callie’s uncharacteristically mild expletives. ‘Holy
fishcakes
?
Muck
it up?’
‘My temporary fling nearly had heart failure when I dropped the F-bomb yesterday; he’s a bit conservative. I’m cleaning up my potty mouth.’
Rowan laughed and winced at the same time. That would last as long as the fling did: until Callie got on the plane to come home.
‘Anyway, tell me about wanting to do my brother.’
Rowan grimaced.
Do
her brother?
Eeew.
Knowing that Callie wasn’t going to drop the subject without getting something out of her, she thought about what to say. ‘I’ve never had this reaction to anyone—ever! I just want to take a bite out of him.’
While she wasn’t a nun, she’d had some sex over the years. Sporadic, erratic, infrequent, but it had been sex. Two one-night stands, a few season-long relationships, and once a relationship that had lasted a year.
‘It’s about time you ran into someone who set you on fire. The fact that it’s Seb just makes we want to wet my pants with laughter.’