It was as if she had been drenched in ice-cold water. Any thread of attraction she thought she might have felt had been effectively doused by his...she internally growled...infuriating arrogance. Was this why he thought he could take the painting? Because he could? Because there was no reason that he could see not to? Given all the things that it had cost her, she was fuming.
She took a sip of champagne from the glass on the table between them to buy herself some time. She was so mad she could have walked away. And quite possibly would have, had it not been for the suspicion that it was exactly what he’d intended her to do.
Sebastian could see that it was working. He might have intensely disliked pretending to be the pampered, pompous playboy but it was better than what had passed between them moments before. When he’d touched her cheek with the pad of his thumb and felt a shower of fireworks across his skin.
It had been enough. Enough to know that whatever it was between them, it needed to stop. Especially if he was to find out what it was that she wanted from him. Because for a moment there he’d wanted to kiss her almost as much as he’d ever wanted the Durrántez. And that was inconceivable.
He took a sip from the champagne flute and looked around the Orangery. Anything to momentarily dull the impact of Sia Keating’s stunning beauty. Was it only a few months ago in Paris that his best friend, Theo Tersi, had accused him of being jaded? Sebastian nearly choked on a laugh at the memory of it. He’d imagined it would take a few more years of indulging in a debauchery he’d welcomed with open arms a scant three years ago.
Though Sebastian wasn’t sure what the Greek billionaire vintner would make of his current situation. Especially since Theo had developed something horrifyingly close to a moral code since he’d married and now had a child on the way. And not just a child, but a royal child. Who would have thought it? Theo Tersi, husband to a queen, soon-to-be father to a princess.
Still, although Sebastian had not exactly been lying when he’d told Sia he didn’t need self-restraint, it didn’t mean he was unfamiliar with the concept. In fact, he’d been overly familiar with it from the age of eighteen when his world had broken apart and his father had refused, or been incapable, of doing a single thing about it. Having spent his late teens and early twenties pulling his family from the ashes of financial ruin that had crashed down upon him and his sister Maria with such suddenness it felt as if nothing would ever be real and lasting in his life ever again, he had spent the following few years amassing an empire that rivalled anything the Dukes du Luen had ever before seen in the history of their nobility. During that time the fact that he’d also provided a roof over his father and stepmother’s heads and a quite intentionally separate roof for him and his little sister, for whom he’d all but become a guardian, had left him feeling that he deserved to let off a little steam.
So he had. In whatever way he’d wanted, with whomever he’d wanted.
Although admittedly in the last few months, ever since the masked ball in Paris he’d accompanied Theo to, he’d not indulged. Perhaps that was why Sia Keating was having such a dramatic impact on him. Not because there was anything significant about her specifically—other than her beauty, of course—but simply because it had been quite some time since he’d lived up to his debauched reputation.
If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up like Theo. Married and with a child on the way.
Just like his little sister.
But he was careful. He’d shouldered enough responsibility to last a lifetime. There were just three people left on his list until this whole Bonnaire’s thing was completely resolved, and then it would be just him. Free to do as he wished, completely. And he chose to ignore the image that flashed in his mind of Sia Keating in a pool of royal blue silk sheets.
Which was presumably the only reason the question he asked came out of his mouth.
‘What do you do for fun, Henri?’
I honestly don’t know, would have been Sia’s reaction. But Sebastian had asked Henri, so she answered.
‘You mean besides having a drink with a notorious playboy?’
‘Are you trying to tell me that you’ve had drinks with other notorious playboys?’
This time the mock arrogance and outrage in his tone lifted her lips into a reluctant smile. Because, for some reason, for all its apparent mockery, his reaction had felt so much more real than his insistence that he had no self-restraint.
‘Are there so many of you?’ She dramatically shuddered. ‘Women be warned.’
‘No, I can assure you. There are none like me.’
And Sia was beginning to think that he was right. There was something about
the directness of his gaze, the way that his features almost seemed to relax when he was telling the truth. As if thankful for the brief respite from having to hold a mask constantly in place.
Sia turned her attention back to the question, feeling a slight ache in her heart as she did so. When was the last time that she’d had fun? When had she laughed until she’d cried, when had her stomach ached with joy and her chest heaved with an air so light it could have been helium rather than oxygen? Since she’d taken the job at Bonnaire’s she’d worked all hours she could, desperate to prove her worth. To prove that she wasn’t her father. Her salary hadn’t left much over after rent and travel, food and basics. The offset was that she travelled with work, she supposed—Sharjarhere, Greece, Istanbul, New York to name just a few. But in that time the few friends she’d gathered from school or university had gone their own ways. A few work colleagues had stuck—Célia in particular. But she was now happily married and working on starting a family. But even with Célia it had been a close friendship, but perhaps not one based on fun exactly.
‘It hurts that you have to think so hard to answer that question.’
Sia looked up to find him studying her once again, but this time sincerely, not for show, with his head angled towards his shoulder. She couldn’t quite take the whiplash change of direction their conversation was taking. One moment full of tease and taunt, the other full of painful introspection.
‘It is getting late. You have responsibilities? Work in the morning, I would imagine.’
The query hit a little too close to home. It felt a little as if he were pushing her, taunting her as if somehow he knew about her suspension and, despite the notion being fanciful, she couldn’t help the bitter words which fell from her tongue.
‘And what would you know of responsibilities?’ she bit out, the acidity painful on her tongue.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Very little. After all, apparently I’m the most notorious playboy in Europe.’
‘So humble.’