Flirting With Forever (46 page)

“ ’Tis good of you to do this.” Peter laid in some vermil ion and watched it spark in the light. The early morning sun flooding in from Washington Road cast a beautiful pink-gold gleam on his canvas.

Cam shifted on Peter’s long brocade couch, stil giddy from the night before, tilting her head toward the window as Peter had directed, but also to see the fat, gleaming emerald on her finger. “Wel , when Mertons agreed to sneak the painting of Nel out of your Covent Garden studio for a night, impact on the tangent arcs aside, I could hardly say no.”

“That was a bril iant idea. With the painting in hand, Charles wil sign the edict and Ursula wil get my name. I can’t tel you how much that means to me.”

“I’m glad you told me. I wish I had known before.”

“I just hope Stephen doesn’t notice the painting’s absence. Mertons says he’l have it back to London tomorrow and on its way to Charles the next.”

“That Mertons … He’s an enigma.”

“I think I’ve decided he’s a romantic at heart. Besides, he told me the Guild was in such disarray when he broke the news last night—had to roust the chairman out of his bed at midnight—he probably could have reversed the outcome of the Thirty Years’ War and no one would have noticed.”

“Do you think Nel wil mind?”

“I doubt it. Her nakedness has been wel admired over the years, and there have been, shal we say, countless monuments erected to it. One naked painting more or less wil not be missed by our Miss Gwyn.”

Cam laughed and then shivered, remembering the monument that had been erected to her last night in Peter’s warm, dark bed. She stil didn’t know if Anastasia was going to get the executive directorship, and it didn’t matter.

She’d told Packard last night her resignation stood, and Bal immediately offered her twice the salary to curate his stuff. “My own museum,” he’d said to her dreamily. “I’m seeing ‘The Bal Col ection’ in big lights. Tasteful, but big.”

“Can I get a peek?” she said, and Peter obliged by turning the easel. What had been Barbara Vil iers and then Nel was now Cam, the reddish brunette waves interwoven with orange and gold, the nose made just a touch more retroussé, and the gray eyes streaked with blue. It was amazing what could be altered with a few masterful touches of paint.

“But if you’re only changing the face,” she said, “I don’t understand why you needed me naked under here.” She gazed down at the black dressing gown she held tightly around her.

Spots of color appeared on his cheeks. “
Hmm,
aye, that’s a fair question. Wel , when Charles asked for a painting of you in a, um, mythological setting in exchange for signing the marriage edict, he was quite clear he wanted everything to be as accurate as possible.”

“Everything?” Cam repeated, confused.

“Everything.” Peter’s eyes trailed down the gown, and a smal , shameless curve appeared on his mouth.

“Ah. I see.” She felt her heart start to thrum. “I should think at this point you could do it from memory.”

“One might think that, that is, if one didn’t recal that you were clothed from the waist down the first two times we made love and bathed in darkness the third. I beg you not to consider this a complaint,” he added quickly. “But there is a certain question,” he said, looking at his palette, “with women of your coloring as to what, er, shade would be appropriate.”

“Is there?” she said drol y.

“Oh, indeed there is. There is cinnabar, red ochre, raw umber and even ivory black—any or al could be required.

That is the question men—I mean artists—grapple with. Al of this you shal learn when we begin your lessons.”

“My lessons? I wasn’t aware I needed any lessons.”

“In certain areas, no. In fact, in certain areas I would almost defer to your expertise.”

“Almost?” She smiled.

“But in painting, aye. Your work shows good promise, and I wil teach you to be great. Peaches, plums and oranges to the end of your day, milady. We shal be overrun with stil lifes.”

She grinned. The Bal Col ection with Jeanne as her assistant and painting lessons with Peter. Could life be more perfect?

“But for now …” He tilted his head toward the gown.

Cam flushed to her toes. She took a deep breath, stood and turned away. She fumbled with the belt. She could feel his gaze on her and the fire that always comes from sporting at the edge of danger. The belt fel loose, and she brushed the flaps open. Screwing up her courage, she lowered her shoulders and let the gown slip.

“Ah.”

She caught the silk on her wrists before it fel completely, and looked over her shoulder at him. “What?”

His eyes danced over the view this movement had bestowed upon him. “The blackness of the gown wil turn you gray. Toss it over there, please.”

The basket where he pointed seemed a long way away.

Nonetheless, she tossed the gown and turned.

And with a deeply contented smile that made her smile as wel , Peter reached for the cinnabar.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

On May 2, 2007, the
London Times
reported that research undertaken by wel -known fine art auction house, Christie’s, suggests that the sitter in a Peter Lely masterpiece may not be Nel Gwyn, perhaps the most famous mistress of Charles I , as long believed. An in-depth analysis of the painting, a reclining nude, led Christie’s to conclude that the sitter is actual y another of Charles’s mistresses.

Experts, however, continue to disagree. The painting was original y discovered behind a secret sliding panel in Charles’s bedroom, three years after his death.

—G.C.

Turn the page for a sneak peek at

Gwyn Cready’s

next romantic time-travel romp,

Aching for Always

Coming soon from Pocket Books

BOARDROOM, BRAND O’MALLEY MAP COMPANY, PITTSBURGH

“What
do
men see in maps?” Joss O’Mal ey asked fondly as she watched her friend’s four-year-old son, Peter, staring intently at a framed antique map from his not-quite-steady perch on top of a lateral file cabinet.

“Key to the past?” suggested Peter’s mom, Diane Daltrey, the former chief financial officer of Brand O’Mal ey Maps, lifting her eyes for a moment from the quarterly cash flow statement over which she was poring.

“Hints of the unknown?” Joss offered, thinking of her own fascination.

“Does this have a Skul Island?” Peter said enthusiastical y, waving his beloved light saber. “I’l kil Hook if he finds the treasure first.”

“Or perhaps it’s something slightly less poetic. Speaking of which”—Diane let her fingers come to rest on the calculator—“things aren’t looking so good here.”

“I know we’re a little strapped for cash,” Joss said, biting a fingernail, “but that’s not so bad, right?”

“Right,” Di said drily. “I mean, how important is money?”

“I’m heading up to see Rogan. I need a number,” Joss said.

“
Another
loan?”

“It’s not a loan exactly.”

“Honey,” Di said, “when a man’s already agreed to the price for a company and you’re going back to ask for more, that’s either a loan or insanity. Peter, please take the highlighter out of your mouth.”

Peter, who had jumped off the lateral file, sighed and, with a Day-Glo green pout, handed the marker to Joss.

Joss frowned. “Should we—”

“Not poisonous,” Diane said without looking up. “Wel , not too poisonous.”

Peter tugged the arm of Joss’s blouse. “Did you know that if you suck enough highlighter, your pee turns green?”

“Actual y, I didn’t know that.”

“It’s true. Green works best.”

“I’l keep that in mind.”

Diane flipped the page of the report, and Joss, who had long ago decided that running a barely surviving company was nothing compared to raising a four-year-old boy, said,

“I real y appreciate you coming in.”

“Oh, please. If I didn’t get out of the house sometimes, I’d go nuts.”

Joss looked at Peter, slashing his saber like a miniature Zorro. “Yeah, I can see where a trip like this would be pretty relaxing.”

Rogan’s admin stuck her head in the doorway. “Mr.

Reynolds wil be ready for you in five minutes.”

If only I’l be ready for him, Joss thought. She gave Di a look.

“I’m close. I’l have the number by the time we’re up there.”

Di tucked the report under her arm and stood, her fingers stil running furiously over the calculator. Peter trailed behind, protecting the rear from pirates and Sith lords. If Joss couldn’t make payrol , she’d have to lay people off. Di had been the first to go six months earlier, raising her hand to save the jobs of others. Now Joss used her only when she could afford to.

They reached the elevator, and Joss pointed to the UP

button so Peter would know which one to press.

Joss prayed Rogan would be amenable. He’d been looking only to buy her father’s company, Brand Industries, and the name of her mother’s—Brand O’Mal ey, the most famous name in maps—for use on his GPS devices, but he was a good guy and he’d understood Joss’s desire to keep her thirty-two-person business, her only inheritance from her mother, afloat and under her control.

Since her mother’s death not long after Joss’s eighth birthday, Joss felt like her life had been laid out strictly to ensure that she’d be able to assume control of the firm when she turned eighteen. She’d interned here every summer in high school. Then, despite having been interested in literature, she’d pursued a dual major in business and geography in col ege while she worked ful time, learning the ropes from the very able managers. At age twenty, even before she’d graduated, she’d accepted in practice what she’d already had in theory—the top executive role, and for the past three years, as the sales of paper maps dropped, she’s been doing everything she could to keep these fine, hardworking people—and herself

—employed.

The elevator arrived and they got on. Joss lifted Peter to the rows of buttons. “Eighteen,” she said, and pointed to the correct one. Peter poked it and then leaped to the floor in front of the mirrored wal s, pointing the saber at his image with a sneer. His mother, lost in her calculations, pressed her clipboard against Joss’s back to make a notation.

“So, how are you going to effect this miraculous largesse?” Di asked.

“The loan, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Rogan owes me a favor.”

“A fifty-thousand-dol ar favor?” Di said.

“The number’s
fifty
thousand?”

“The number’s at least fifty thousand. I’m stil checking.”

“Crap.”

“Crap,” Peter repeated happily.

“Oops.” Joss shot Di an apologetic look.

Ann, the institutional sales manager, got on on fifteen.

She looked a little pale, not a surprise, Joss thought, given that her six-year-old son had just been put on dialysis. Ann waved and said to Joss, “Say, I understand congratulations are in order. The wedding’s next week, isn’t it?”

Joss gazed down at the diamond sparkling languidly on Joss gazed down at the diamond sparkling languidly on her finger, so large as to almost be worthy of being a pirate’s treasure itself. “Yep. No point in waiting. When it’s right, it’s right.”

“Yes, and you’l need to hurry with your office,” Di said.

“The caterer needs time to set up the tables.”

Ann’s brows shot up, and Joss waved away her worry.

“I’m not having my reception in your office. Di thinks that just because I’m getting married in the Founders’ Room upstairs, it’s an al -business wedding.”

“It’s the conference room for the Sales department,” Di said curtly.

“It’s a gorgeous space.”

“Wel , in any case, I’m sure it wil be beautiful,” Ann said as she exited on sixteen. “Congratulations.”

“Now, should we al wear business suits to the ceremony,” Di asked, “or is that just you?”

Joss sighed. “It’s not a business suit. It’s a skirt.”

Di gave her a look.

“Okay, a business skirt—but it’s Chanel!”

Di just didn’t understand. Simple and straightforward was how Joss wanted things. Businesslike.

Peter asked Joss, “Wil I get to see your wedding?

Mommy says I can only come if I dress like the mail-delivery guy.”

“Your mommy’s hilarious. And, yes, you know I couldn’t get married without you, pal. I’m counting on you to give me away.” She returned her thoughts to the problem at hand.

Fifty big ones. At
least
fifty big ones. “I think,” she said to Di, “I’m going to have to resort to something more than a favor for fifty thousand.” Joss gazed at herself in the mirror, then unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. “I’m going to have to try a little more—”