Free The Portrait by Megan Chance Page A

was barely recognizable as a woman's form—and he saw that beside each spot he'd named, she'd scrawled a color. Naples yellow by the shoulder, vermillion for veins, ultramarine shadows . . . They were all there, every one he'd mentioned.
    Behind him he heard an aborted snicker, a cough. Jonas stiffened. Miss Carter was watching him with same expression she'd worn that first day, when she'd looked at him and smiled that uneasy smile and told him she didn't have an easel. He saw that same naive expectation in her eyes now, only this time it was more intense. This time it seemed to demand something.
    It made him uncomfortable, it made him think of yesterday, when she'd faced him and asked to sketch. Like then, he felt the overwhelming urge to humiliate her, to weaken that innocent strength.
    Slowly, deliberately so, Jonas smiled. "I see," he said in his coldest, quietest voice. "What a good idea that is, Miss Carter. Words for colors. I had no idea you wished to be a writer."
    She looked taken aback. "1—I don't."
    "No?" Jonas thinned his smile. "Then perhaps you could tell me how those words resemble art?"
    She seemed confused for a moment, and then he saw the dawning in her eyes, the flash of awareness, along with a strange disappointment.
    "Perhaps you heard nothing 1 said yesterday," he went on.
    "No," she protested in a low voice. "I heard everything you said."
    "Really? Then perhaps you should try utilizing your knowledge, Miss Carter." He drew his hand away from Clarisse's breast, pointed to the sinew of her throat. "For example, perhaps you'd care to tell us what color you see here."
    There it was, that expectation again. She leaned forward, looking thoughtful, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she studied the place he pointed to. "It's pink," she said.
    "Pink?" Jonas lifted a brow. "Pink how, Miss Carter? Pink-white or pink-yellow? Do you see blue there, or purple? Green or brown?"
    It seemed to take her an eternity to answer. "Pink- yellow," she said finally.
    "Pink-yellow?"
    She nodded.
    "And here, Miss Carter?" He moved lower, to the hollow at the center of Clarisse's collarbone. "What colors do you see here?"
    "Purple." Her voice was more confident now, a bit bolder. "Gray."
    Not confident enough. Jonas smiled. He lowered his hand. "What about here?" he asked, stopping at Clarisse's nipple. "Tell me the color here."
    He waited for her reaction. Waited for shyness and nerves and the pink heat of embarrassment. He wanted it. And for a moment, just a moment, he thought he had it. He watched her freeze, saw her stiffen almost imperceptively, and he felt the pure rush of elation, thought This is it. She'll run now. She'll run—
    But instead she gave him an unblinking stare. Instead, she licked her lips and said easily, "Pink. And— and brown."
    There was not a trace of humiliation in her voice. His elation fell away, and in its place came anger and disappointment. Damn, he'd been so certain she would run, and her stoicism now enraged him, the way she lifted her eyes to his, the determination and hope in her expression. It frustrated him more than anything else she could have done, sent the blood racing hot and furious in his veins, and before he could stop himself, before he even knew what he was doing, he stalked over to stand behind her.
    "Draw," he demanded, hearing the harshness of his voice echo in the thrumming of his blood. "Draw Clarisse. Now."
    She tried to turn to face him. But he grabbed her shoulder and kept her facing the easel, and after a few breathless moments she did what he wanted. She leaned forward and touched the charcoal to the paper, made one tentative stroke alongside the scrawled words, added another for shading. Before she could draw a third, he wrenched the charcoal from her fingers, ignoring her quick inhalation, her half-spoken protest.
    He leaned over her shoulder, and with quick, certain motions he drew the lines—one and then a second, another to show the roundness of Clarisse's