Page 29 of What a Lord Wants

Thanks goodness she’d had a sheet draped over her then. While she lay bare beneath, he pulled back the sheet a few inches at a time, revealing only a small part of her to his eyes so that he could paint her yet not expose her completely. Now, almost all of the initial color layers were complete, except for those bare spots of canvas at her breasts and between her legs that she hadn’t yet dared to reveal.

Today, she was back in stays and breeches only because he would have been painting her left arm, with no need of the sheet, had the sun been shining.

She looked at the softly swirling lines on the page that resembled currents in a stream. “What are you drawing?”

“A fruit bowl.”

She arched a brow. “Perhaps you should rethink any plans you might have of becoming an artist, as well.”

He laughed. Then, with his concentration seeming not to leave the page, he confessed quietly, “My family certainly thought so.”

“Impossible. You’re famous and brilliant. You’re—” As she waved her hand to indicate the studio and all it represented of his masterful reputation as an artist, she froze, suddenly remembering hisotherreputation.

“Vincenzo,” he finished wryly for her. “And all that name represents.”

“Yes.” Although now that she’d come to know the man so well, she was beginning to doubt the rumors that swirled around him. “But surely, they’re proud of you.”

“They never wanted me to be an artist in the first place. Oh, dabbling in oils would have been a fine enough hobby, as far as they were concerned, but they had no idea when I moved to Italy that I’d dedicated my life to it,” he continued. “I can’t imagine what they would think of me now.”

“They don’t know?”

“My brother and sister-in-law died two and a half years ago, my father ten years before that.” He said that so casually that her heart skipped with surprise. “And before that, I hid most of my work from them. They had no idea how much it meant to me. How much it still means.”

Grief for him swelled inside her. His artwashis life. How awful it must have been for him to have to hide who he truly was.

She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No need.” His muscle tensed beneath her fingers, but he didn’t shrug her hand away. “Had they known, it would have only caused even more problems between us. They certainly wouldn’t have tolerated my lifestyle. They would have expected me to give it up, and I would have refused.”

“But it’s not true, is it? You’re nothing like the man the rumors claim you are.”

“I used to be. And worse.” He glanced at her, in that way he had of studying her when he was sketching her. Odd that. Because he wasn’t sketching her. As far as Eve could tell, he was drawing ocean waves. “Aren’t you afraid to be alone with a man of my notoriety?”

“You’re not the only one with a tainted reputation,” she murmured, turning her attention to the page…and to whatever it was that he was drawing.

“Which is why we’re so perfect together.” He smudged the lines with his thumb. His voice turned somber, and he didn’t lift his gaze to look at her. “We’re reaching the end of what I can paint of you from beneath a sheet, you know that.”

Deflated, she sat back, letting her hand fall away. She’d managed to delay it, yet it was inevitable. Soon, she would have to stop coming to the studio, and he would replace her.

“We won’t be able to avoid complete nudity then.” Thank goodness he didn’t look up at her as he said that. “Or at least, uncovering the most intimate parts of you in turn.”

She bit her bottom lip. She knew how much this painting meant to him, and she’d been racking her brain trying to come up with ways for him to finish it without her…or at least, withoutallof her. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually.”

Then hedidlook at her, surprised, before turning back to the drawing. “Oh?”

“We could hire someone for those parts.”

“I have hired someone.”

“Someoneelse. You know…like a decoy.”

His hand stilled on the paper, all of him freezing for a beat as her words hit him. Then a slow smile curled at his lips. “So we’re duck hunting, are we?”

She crossed her arms and arched a brow. “I’dset the hounds on you right now.”

He laughed, then shook his head. “Hiring another model wouldn’t work. It would be like putting the head of a china doll on the body of a wooden soldier. The parts are all there, but trust me,” he half-purred as he raked a languid gaze over her, “it’s not at all the same.”

“Why do you even need me for those parts?” she countered in a whisper, unable to speak any louder. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to look away from his eyes as they stared into hers. “I mean, surely you’ve seen enough women…without clothes…” She nervously cleared her throat, unable to read his thoughts in his gaze. “You don’t needmyspecific parts. You could paint from memory, I should think.”