Free The Billionaire Affair by Diana Hamilton Page B

press. But, like most of the other pieces of any value, it had gone. Irritation pricked her. Her professional appraisal was unnecessary. The few pieces of any value would be obvious to anyone. Ben Dexter had got her here under false pretences.
    But why?
    Automatically, her hand lifted to the latch on the oak-boarded door that led to the old wing. These rooms, over the kitchen regions, had been forbidden to her as a child. ‘Full of spiders and creepy-crawlies,and the floorboards are rotten,’ Dorothy Skeet had warned, and she’d been eight years old before she’d plucked up the courage to poke her nose in.
    Now all was changed. Crumbling timbers had been replaced with silvery oak beams and sunlight streamed in through the windows, enriching the colours of the Persian rugs on the polished floor of what was clearly the sitting room of the suite Ben had reserved for his own use, the attractively furnished room dominated by the painting that had thrown them together again. First Love.
    She caught her breath, her heart starting to thud. If Michael hadn’t recognised the lost Lassoon masterpiece for what it was, or if Ben hadn’t wanted to own it, then her life would have gone on smoothly, the old, painful yearnings would never have resurfaced so strongly because she and Ben would not have met again.
    Her bones tightened rigidly as she stared up at what could have been her mirror image. She and Ben had spent a couple of blissfully happy, ecstatic months together and his betrayal had been cruel. But it had been twelve years ago, for pity’s sake. It should have been written off to experience, forgotten.
    But it hadn’t.
    â€˜You approve?’ His voice was silky-soft.
    Caroline gave an involuntary jerk of her head, startled out of her tormenting thoughts. Then she turned reluctantly to face him, her violet eyes huge in the delicate pallor of her face.
    He was looking particularly spectacular in a beautifully cut dark blue suit, crisp white shirt and sober tie. At the back of the house she hadn’t heard his car draw up outside. If she had she would have taken evasive action. As it was she could only answer his question, ‘It’s your painting, it’s up to you where you hang it. Though I hope you have some sort of security system.’
    â€˜There speaks the prosaic Caroline Harvey.’ He was smiling, just slightly, but his eyes were cold, like splinters of polished jet. ‘But let’s take the larger view, shall we? Don’t you agree that the portrait should be here, back at home, as it were?’ Laughter was lurking in the curl of his voice now. It incensed her.
    â€˜Rubbish!’ she said stoutly. He was playing games with her and she wasn’t going to let him amuse himself at her expense. ‘You’re talking as if that’s a portrait of me hanging on that wall—and you know damned well it isn’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me—’
    â€˜But it could be, couldn’t it?’ he inserted smoothly. ‘You, as I remember you. After I’d read the article about its discovery, saw the photograph, I knew I had to have that painting and hang it here. As a reminder that things aren’t always as they seem. The sitter looks like you, but she isn’t. Just as you, when I knew you, weren’t what I thought you were.’
    â€˜That’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black if ever I heard one!’ she said in sharp retaliation. This was a man with a serious grudge. Had he resented so badly that letter saying she never wanted to seehim again? Was his ego still smarting over being dumped for once, after all this time?
    This was getting far too deep for her. She was leaving. This very minute.
    â€˜Mr Dexter,’ she said, schooling her voice to what she hoped would pass as icy coolness. ‘There is no point in my being here any longer. My professional services weren’t required in the first place. As far as I