She grabbed her shoes. Began walking back to the stairs, almost stumbling as she went, she was so unsteady. He didn’t follow, just remained standing on the pebbled beach.
‘I’d like to see what you do,’ he called out from behind her, almost like an afterthought. ‘Your drawings.’
Now it was her turn to nod.
Though she tended not to allow anyone to see her work until it was finished. As though if someone witnessed what she was doing, the magic would suddenly be gone. ‘Once I have something to show you.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
She wasn’t sure why she found that so hard to believe.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE’DMADEAserious error of judgement. It had been days since those moments at the lake where some kind of enchantment had overtaken him and he’d brushed his lips across Louisa’s perfect, tempting throat as she laughed. Lost any sense in the moment. Took her perfect mouth with his own.
Why do I want...to be bad...so badly?
That same phrase could apply to him as well. From the moment his lips had touched her skin, he’d been a condemned man. Doomed to crave more of her. Her gasp, the breathy moan. The way she’d opened for him. Tongue tentatively touching his own. It was all he could think about. Whereas Louisa?
He wasn’t sure. Fearing he’d frightened her. He knew passion and desire, and believed she’d been as affected as him. The colour high on her cheeks as she’d slid down his body. The way her breath had hitched. Nipples obvious points against the soft fabric of her dress. Except, now, it was as if she’d disappeared. Locking herself away with her artwork. Barely coming out for meals as if she’d been avoiding him. All he knew was that Louisa was keeping to herself. So absorbed, it was as if he didn’t exist.
He needed to apologise for it, fix it somehow, even though he wasn’t sorry at all. His body craved more of her. His mind? Matteo shook his head, trying to get the persistent vision of her head thrown back in his arms, her laughter, from it. How he’d imagined her head thrown back, not in laughter, but in ecstasy...
He couldn’t. Shouldn’t.
Why?
That one word had run through his head like a broken record. They were both adults. Clearly attracted to each other.
Why, why, why?
He could add more words to that single one his brain locked onto, like some kind of chant.Sheltered,innocent. He’d lost his own innocence years ago. Life teaching him how cold and cruel it could be. Yet that afternoon on the lake when he’d shown Louisa her first beach, he’d simplytaken.Thinking more clearly, as he was now, for someone who’d lived her life locked away it must have come as a shock. He should apologise. Her avoiding him, becoming fearful of the world, was not part of his plan.
Eyes on the prize, Matteo.
Louisa had her whole life, now in front of her. A world she needed to see. A right to reside she needed to relinquish. He wasn’t going to get that by seduction, as tempting as she was.
Matteo made his way to the space he now called her workroom. Knocked gently. Opened the door when there was no answer because she might be avoiding him, but theyneededto talk. Perhaps she was walking about the grounds. She seemed to love the gardens here. He’d catch flashes of her gleaming copper hair in fiery contrast to the trees and shrubbery, but when he went to find her, she’d be gone. Disappearing like a ghost.
It was beyond frustrating. As was the way she’d been so non-committal about him seeing her artwork. It wasn’t as if she’d said no.
It was that she hadn’t really said anything at all.
He walked to her drawing table, art supplies neatly put away. The sketchbooks that she drew in, stacked beside it. He looked at a few scraps of paper tacked to the table, almost like a mood board. Sketches of ink pen, a little frog in a crown. A frog with personality judging by the way that crown sat slightly askew. An almost...smirk on its wide froggy mouth. Her attention to detail, the frog’s princely little outfit. A red fitted jacket that looked like velvet though how she’d achieved that with pen, ink and what appeared to be coloured pencil was beyond him. Little yellow-and-blue-striped bloomers. His spotted skin. It was extraordinary.
He smiled. Wanting to find out more about the story she illustrated. To his shame he’d not paid much attention, and this was such an integral part of who Louisawas. Committed to her work, clearly taking pride in it, worried about deadlines.
He glanced at the carefully stacked sketch pads.
‘Her work’s really something.’
The words of that contractor who’d packed away her things. He’d almost berated the man for looking but why should this artwork be hidden? Yet another temptation in his path, yet this wouldn’t hurt anyone if he gave into it. A quick scan of her illustrations and he’d leave. Continue looking for her. Which one to choose? He grabbed the sketch pad at the top, one with a beige cover. Placed it on the tabletop and opened.
These drawings were different from the sketches tacked to her desk. No whimsy about them at all. Pages filled with dark ink and nightmare creatures hiding in the shadows with twisted faces and evil grins. Hands reaching out of the darkness.
Nightmares.
That night of the storm. The cry that had him out of bed. Had that been Louisa? A heat rose inside him, like anger. He wanted to know what had caused the fear and horror he saw on these pages. Tofixit, somehow. Matteo kept turning more pages, and the pictures changed. Drawings of people now, or disembodied parts of them at least. Hands, feet, eyes. All in exquisite detail.
