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‘No.’ Ivy shrugged. ‘Her choice. And I don’t mind. Sacha never felt like a real mother to me. I was brought up by my father. That was her choice, too.’
‘But you came for her tonight.’
‘She always made the effort to come to events that were important to me.’
‘Like what?’
‘School concerts, graduation. Whenever I wanted both parents there for me.’
‘Will you be staying the weekend with her?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’d rather go home.’
‘Which is where?’
‘About a hundred kilometres from here.’
She wasn’t about to identify her location to him. The farm’s website gave it away and he might have read it when he decided to use their service for his rose gifts.
‘That’s quite a drive late at night.’
‘It won’t be late. People drift out of here after a couple of hours.’ She gave him an ironic grimace. ‘You whisked me off before I could get a brochure detailing the paintings from Henry. Did he give you one?’
‘Yes.’ He took it out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her.
Ivy withdrew her arm from his and checked the numbers of the nearby paintings against the list in the brochure, determined on deflecting his physical effect on her. ‘Right!’ she said briskly, pointing to number fifteen. ‘This is Courtyard in Sunshine. Do you like it?’
He folded his arms and considered it, obligingly falling in with her direction. ‘Very pleasant but a bit too chocolate-boxy for me.’
Privately Ivy agreed, but the painting already had a red sticker on it indicating a sale, so somebody had liked it. ‘Okay. Let’s move on. Find something that does appeal to you.’
‘Oh, I’ve already found that,’ he drawled in a seductive tone, compelling Ivy to shoot a glance at him.
The bedroom-blue eyes had her targeted. It was like being hit by an explosion of sexual promise that fired up a host of primitive desires. She had lusted mildly over some movie stars, but in real life … this was a totally new and highly unsettling experience. She didn’t even like this man … did she?
‘You’re wasting your time flirting with me,’ she bluntly told him.
‘There’s nothing else I’d rather do,’ he declared, grinning as though her rebuff delighted him.
Ivy huffed at his persistence. ‘Well, if you must tag along in my wake, you’ll have to look properly at every painting or I’ll lose patience with you.’
‘If I buy one or two of them, will you have dinner with me?’
Had Ivy not been wearing such dangerous shoes, she would have stamped her foot. As it was, she glared at him in high dudgeon. ‘That is the most incredibly offensive thing anyone has ever said to me!’
He actually looked taken aback by her attack. The dent in his confidence gave Ivy a wild rush of satisfaction. Jordan Powell wasn’t going to find her easy.
He frowned. ‘I thought it would please you to have your mother pleased tonight.’
‘My mother has enough talent to draw buyers to her work or Henry wouldn’t have it hanging in his gallery,’ she retorted fiercely. ‘She doesn’t need me to sell myself to have a successful exhibition.’ Her chin lifted in proud defiance of his obvious belief that anyone could be bought. ‘I wouldn’t do it anyway.’
He grimaced an apology. ‘I didn’t mean …’
‘Oh, yes you did,’ she cut in. ‘I bet you think that all you have to do is offer your little goodies and any woman will fall in your lap.’
The grimace took on an ironic twist. ‘I wouldn’t call them little goodies.’
He might not have meant to put a sexual twist on those words, but Ivy felt her cheeks flame as an image of his naked body bloomed in her mind. ‘I don’t care how big they are,’ she insisted vehemently. ‘Why don’t you go on back to your mother? I don’t fit into your scene and never will.’
And having cut his feet out from under him, Ivy fully expected him to go. It would be the most sensible solution to the warring urge inside her to take what he was offering. Just to see, to know, to feel …
Which would inevitably end badly with her being discarded as he discarded all the rest.
CHAPTER FOUR
JORDAN was faced with a decision he wasn’t used to facing. No woman had ever told him to leave her alone. No woman had ever thrown so many negatives at him, either. Maybe Ivy Thornton wouldn’t fit into his scene and he should walk away, stop wasting his time with her.
But he didn’t want to walk away.
He liked her thorns.
They made her more intriguing, more challenging than the women in ‘his scene’. And the fire-power coming from her incited visions of passion, lifting her desirability to virtually a must-have level. Just the sight of her had excited him. His fingertips itched to graze over every hidden part of her pale, almost translucent skin, not to mention stroking through the red-gold hair guarding her most intimate places.
Missing out on that … no.
He had to win her over.
‘Never say never, Ivy. Things can change,’ he said mildly, hoping to undermine her hard stance.
‘I can’t see that happening.’ The fascinating green eyes flashed scepticism, but the tone of her voice was not so fierce.
‘It was crass of me to link buying your mother’s paintings to my invitation to dinner and I apologise for the offence given,’ he went on, projecting absolute sincerity. ‘Please take it as a measure of how much I wanted you to accept, how much I wanted to spend more time with you.’
She frowned. After a few moments of cogitation, she gave him a narrow look that telegraphed he was on shaky ground, but her words granted him a second chance. ‘Well, if you still want to accompany me around the gallery, I’ll go that far with you.’
Triumph zinged through his mind. He only just managed to keep his smile appealingly rueful. ‘I shall monitor my conversation with rigid regard to your sensibilities.’
It drew a laugh. ‘I don’t think you can hide your true colours, Jordan. Getting your own way must be habitual. You have all the tools to do it. Wealth, looks and charm to boot.’
He affected a helpless expression. ‘None of which appear to carry any weight with you.’
She laughed again, shaking her head at him. ‘I can’t deny you’re entertaining.’
He grinned. ‘So are you, Ivy. I’ve just found a masochistic streak in myself. You can put me down as much as you like and I’ll pop up for more.’
The green eyes sparkled. ‘I might test that.’
He suddenly saw her in a black leather corselet, high-heeled boots laced up to her thighs, a whip in her hand. With her white skin and red hair, it made a fantastic vision. ‘Are you a dominatrix?’ he asked, seized by an irrepressible curiosity. He wasn’t into that kind of kinky sex, but with Ivy he might give it a try.
‘A what?’ She looked aghast.
‘I thought you could have been suggesting it with your “test” remark. Sorry. Had to ask. I do like to get my bearings with people, and you’ve completely knocked me off them.’
Her cheeks flamed again, the heat glow making her green eyes even greener. Her colouring was so entrancing, Jordan felt a considerable flow of heat himself though it was concentrated below the belt, not above it.
‘I’m certainly not a dominatrix,’ she stated emphatically.
‘Good! Because I’m not really a masochist.’ And he much preferred the idea of controlling the sexual games he played with Ivy, not the other way around.
She planted her hands on her hips. ‘And just how did this conversation get to the bedroom? Do you have sex on your mind all the time?’
‘Most men have sex on their minds most of the time,’ he informed her with an ironic grimace.
‘Do you think you can lift yours off it while we look at paintings?’
‘Difficult with you dressed as you are, but I’ll do my best.’
‘Try hard.’
‘I shall.’ He whipped the brochure out of her hand, checked the number of the next painting and directed her attention to it. ‘This one is called Waterlilies. Much more to my liking. Reminds me of Monet’s great works. Have you ever been to Monet’s garden at Giverny, Ivy?’
‘No.’
‘It’s marvellous. Inspirational. After seeing what he created there, I was determined to bring something like it to every one of the retirement villages I’ve had constructed. There’s nothing like a wonderful garden in bloom to make people feel good. Best environment you can have.’
The leap from sex to gardens was diverting but for Ivy the damage was done. She couldn’t lift her own mind from thoughts of how he might be in the bedroom. He had wonderful hands, long and elegant, and she couldn’t help imagining that their touch would be sensitive. Ben’s had never really been gentle enough. With him she had often wished … though their relationship had been very companionable and she might have married him if he’d been more understanding during her father’s last months.
No chance of marriage with Jordan Powell.
Only bed and roses.
But the bed part might be an experience worth having.
Maybe she would never meet a man who would be happy to share their lives. Ben had been the only possibility and she was already twenty-seven. For the past two years there had been no one of any real interest on her horizon. Jordan Powell was interesting, though not, of course, in any lasting sense. But for a while.
It was tempting and becoming more tempting by the minute.
He bought Waterlilies.
Henry put the red dot on the frame of the painting, congratulated Jordan on a fine buy, smiled at Ivy as though to say she had done well by her mother, and moved off, probably hoping she would do more on the sales front with a billionaire in tow.
‘This was not a bribe, Ivy,’ Jordan assured her. ‘If you weren’t at my side, I would still have acquired it.’
‘What will you do with it?’ she demanded, wanting proof that his liking for it was genuine.
‘Hang it in one of the nursing homes. It gives a sense of serenity. I’m sure the residents will enjoy it.’
Her curiosity was piqued. ‘You seem to care about the people who buy into your properties.’
‘I like them. They’ve reached an age where impressing a person like me is irrelevant. They say it how it is for them and I respect that.’ There was a glint of cynicism in his eyes as he added, ‘Honesty is a fairly rare commodity in my world.’
Yes, it probably was, Ivy thought, and wondered if the high turnover of women in his life was related to some form of deception on their part. Although that was putting them in the wrong and she shouldn’t assume he was not. Undoubtedly Jordan Powell had his shortcomings when it came to relationships. She suspected he had a wandering eye, for a start. The last time she’d been in this gallery he’d sought an introduction to her when he was with another woman.
Sliding him a searching look, she asked, ‘Are you honest yourself, Jordan?’
‘I try to be,’ he answered. The wicked twinkle reappeared. ‘On the whole, I think I deliver whatever I promise.’
He was definitely thinking sinful pleasures.
Ivy’s stomach fluttered in sinful excitement.
He cocked a challenging eyebrow. ‘What about you?’
‘Oh, I always deliver what I promise,’ she said. The reputation of her business depended upon it.
‘Ah! A woman of integrity.’ He rolled the words out as though tasting them and his smile said he liked them.
Ivy was beginning to like him. She had managed to keep her father at home where he’d wanted to be during the last months of his life, but if he had gone into a nursing home, one of Jordan Powell’s would definitely have been the best choice. Sacha had done a painting of roses to hang in his bedroom, but her father would have liked Waterlilies, too.
A sudden welling up of sadness brought tears to her eyes. ‘Let’s move on. There might be something else that appeals to you,’ she said huskily, turning aside to draw Jordan with her as she blinked rapidly and took a deep breath to restore her composure.
Gentle fingers stroked the hand resting on his arm. ‘What is it, Ivy?’ he asked caringly.
She shook her head, not wanting to explain.
‘Something upset you,’ he persisted. ‘Was it my comment on integrity? Did you think I was being flippant? I assure you …’
‘No.’ She summoned up a wry little smile. ‘Nothing to do with you, Jordan. I was thinking of my father.’
‘What about him?’ There was concern in the eyes that searched hers.
Ivy was touched by it. Her heart swelled with the sense of caring coming from him. Maybe he simply wanted to dispose of the distraction from him, get it out of the way so he could pull her back to what he wanted, but it tripped her into spilling the truth.
‘Sacha’s last show … when we first met here … It was soon after my father had died. Your mention of nursing homes reminded me of how hard it was for him at the end.’
‘What did he die of, Ivy?’
‘Cancer. Melanoma. He had red hair and fair skin like me and he was always having to get sun cancers removed. It made him fanatical about protecting my skin.’
Jordan nodded. ‘So that’s why you have no freckles.’
The comment made her laugh again. ‘I’m a slave to block-out cream, hats and long sleeves. And you look like a slave to the sun—’ with his gleaming olive skin, ‘—which should make you realise I definitely don’t fit into your scene.’
He grinned. ‘I have no objection to hats, long sleeves and particularly not to block-out cream. In fact, I think it would give me a lot of pleasure to spread it all over your beautiful skin. It would be criminal to have it marred in any way.’
