Paul’s mouth turned back contemptuously. ‘So that you can take over my place in Eve’s life?’ he scorned. ‘Maybe I’m a shark, Gardener, but you’re a barracuda!’
‘How unpleasant.’ Eve’s grandmother shuddered once he had swept arrogantly out of the room.
‘But necessary,’ Adam assured grimly.
‘Oh, goodness, yes,’ she agreed, giving him a warm smile. ‘What a horrible young man he really is.’
More horrible and more devious than Eve could ever have imagined. She had trusted him with her power of attorney in good faith, had listened to his advice that it was the best thing to do. Naïveté, and believing herself in love with love—she could surely never have loved Paul if she had ever really known him!—had made her blind and stupid.
She didn’t particularly care about the money, and, as Marina said, despite Adam’s earlier misgivings, Ashton House belonged to their grandmother and couldn’t be touched.
But it really was time she grew up.
CHAPTER TEN
‘BEAUTIFUL. Just beautiful.’
‘Perfectly lovely,’ agreed another man.
‘I’m glad we came,’ said his companion.
Eve smiled at Sophy. ‘Once again you’ve been proved right. The exhibition is a wonderful success.’
Sophy smiled mischievously. ‘I have news for you, those two men aren’t talking about your paintings, they’re talking about you!’ she confided with relish.
Eve spun around, and sure enough the two men in question weren’t looking at any of the paintings on the walls, but at Eve herself.
Once she would have blushed at such openly appreciative stares, but the last five months she had attended so many interviews, been photographed from every angle possible, received such effusive flattery for both her work and herself, that she merely smiled at the two men, nodding acknowledgement of their compliments.
She took a glass of champagne off the silver tray as a waiter passed, sipping it appreciatively, Sophy following suit as she looked around the crowded gallery.
The exhibition in London had gone ahead amid a blaze of publicity concerning the revealed identity of The Unicorn. And while a certain amount of people, like the two admiring men across the room, had come here out of pure curiosity, the majority were seriously interested in her work and what it had to say.
‘Is Adam coming tonight?’ Sophy was watching her with narrowed eyes as she turned towards her.
‘I’ve sent him an invitation.’ She nodded, the calmness of her reply in no way revealing the aching loneliness of the last five months without him.
But it had been a loneliness of her own choosing. It would have been too easy, loving Adam as she did, to allow him to ‘take over Paul’s place in her life’, as the other man had accused so scornfully, but she had needed the time alone, to grow, to learn about herself as a person without someone constantly there for her to lean on, to become emotionally independent for once in her life.
It had been a difficult thing to do, more difficult than she could ever have imagined, for it would have been so easy to turn to Adam for loving support. But five months later she knew the painful process of becoming completely independent had been worth it.
The question was, would Adam feel the same way about his own enforced loneliness?
When she had first told him what she intended to do, he had been adamant about not leaving her, especially when she had admitted to loving him; but she had finally persuaded him into believing she had to have this time, needed it desperately.
But five months without a single word of communication other than her invitation for tonight was a long time. Would he even bother to make an appearance? she wondered with inward concern.
She got her answer to that as he stood tall and handsome in the entrance to the gallery, his gaze moving slowly about the room until it came to rest on her. Eve felt her heart lurch with the gladness of seeing him again, but his expression revealed none of his emotions as he turned briefly to the couple who stood directly behind him, the elegantly beautiful woman, and arrogantly handsome man, instantly recognisable as his
parents.
Eve turned to Sophy as she too watched Adam across the room. ‘Sophy——’
‘Leave them to me,’ the other woman assured her firmly, putting down her own empty glass to pick up two full ones on her way to Adam’s parents, pausing briefly in the middle of the gallery to greet Adam as he strode forcefully by.
Eve’s hand tightening about the stem of her champagne glass was her only outward sign of tension.
Adam stopped mere inches in front of her, so dearly familiar in the black evening suit and snowy white shirt, his hair that glorious deep golden blond, his eyes dark and unfathomable.