Page 69 of A Touch of Dark
Suddenly, his face is parallel to mine, which allows him to speak directly into my ear. “It means that I know when you’re lying.” He lets me go and I scramble away from him, smoothing the front of my gown with trembling fingers.
“Well, try this one on for size: Goodnight.” I storm toward the main room of the greenhouse only to falter over the threshold. He hasn’t moved from his chair. Maybe that little fact makes me brave enough to utter one last taunt. “Let’s say I was interested in ‘negotiating.’ What would you offer in exchange?”
I’m ready for something truly wicked. An insult that will justify more than a slap. A kick between his legs. A punch. Something vile enough to warrant assaulting a blind man and ruining what little shred of gratitude I may feel toward him once and for all.
“It’s simple,” he says, sounding more than willing to take the bait. “I’d give you whatever you wanted.”
“W-what?” I shake my head. No way I heard that right.
“I said, you could have whatever you wanted. Within my means, of course.”
I force out a haughty laugh the likes of which would make Sharla from accounting proud. “So if I asked you to get on your knees and kiss Heyworth Thorne’s feet, you would?”
“I’d consider it.” He doesn’t even cringe at the prospect. “Though there is no telling what I might do to him after fulfilling your request.”
Fair enough. “What if I asked you to give me your fortune?”
He shrugs. “I’ve had nothing before.”
I blink. “Your studio?”
“Property,” he tells me the same way another man would sayplastic fork. Referring to something easily disposed of and replaced.
“What if I asked you to paint me every night for the rest of my life?” I ask. Though he had already expressed a fleeting interest in shortening it.
“Really, Ms. Thorne, I would have thought you’d have some imagination.”
“Oh, Mr. Villa, I’m afraid my imagination couldn’t come close to a man so desperate to get laid that he’d…”
Do anything.
“Understand one thing about me, Ms. Thorne,” he says, flattening his hands on each corresponding knee. “I know at least ten women within a block radius alone who I could call to, as you put it, ‘get laid.’ Sex isn’t what I want from you.”
I’m frowning. “Then what?”
“The same thing I was after when I met Daphne from Moscow. I was curious how her accent might sound when she orgasmed. In exchange, I paid to have her family relocated and supplied with the adequate documents. I wanted to experience a woman with age, hence I gave Catarina from Madrid a quarter of a million dollars. Marnie from Kentucky had never experienced, as she put it, ‘kink.’ In exchange, I jumpstarted her career as a successful model in Italian vogue.” He ticks them all off like accomplished chores.Daphne. Catarina. Marnie.
I know without having to ask that each starred in a painting of his. One of them could be the figure hanging on my wall.
“Everything I do, I do for my art. Human nature cannot be copied. It must be experienced.”
And, for some reason, he wants to “experience” me.
“I’m sure your previous ladies had a wonderful time, but I’m not for sale.” My voice shakes, but damn it, I don’t care.
“I do not purchase women.” He sounds genuinely insulted by the idea. “Every encounter is a mutual one. And I can assure you that the curiosity went both ways. I’m sure you’ve thought the same thing, even in that sheltered head of yours. Can the blind man fuck?”
“Don’t mock me,” I hiss.
With equal vitriol, he says, “Don’t underestimate me.”
“You should take your own advice. Maybe I want my first time to be with a man who gives a damn about me, hmm? Have you considered that?”
A man who could understand my night terrors. Who could hold my hair when storms have made me vomit. Who wouldn’t run at the mere mention of Simon.
It’s a laundry list I stopped wishing for years ago. And I won’t even consider how many boxes Damien has already check marked.
“A man who gives a damn,” he repeats. “What about a man who gives adime? My men earn a salary of no less than a grand per day.”
