Elizabeth Power - For Revenge or Redemption? (Romance HB)

OPENING nights are always nerve-racking, Ms Tyler, the red-haired young woman with the clipboard told Grace reassuringly, pinning a microphone to the pearl-grey lapel of her designer jacket. But this gallerys going to do well. I just know it is! Her raised eyes skimmed a wall of contemporary paintings, signed prints and ceramics in the tall, glass case immediately behind Grace. Were doing the exterior shots first, so you wont be on for a while yet. She tugged gently at the lapel, running deft fingers over the smooth sheen of the expensive fabric, brushing off a pale strand from Graces softly swept-up hair. There! The cameras going to love you! the woman enthused.

Which was more than the press did! Grace thought, remembering the hard time they had given her after her split with her fianc, wealthy bankers son Paul Harringdale, four months ago. Then the tabloids comments about her had ranged from butterfly-minded and fickle to the tall, slinky blonde who wasnt capable of making the right decision if her life depended upon it. It had all been cheap reportingand the fact that that last remark had come from a journalist who had pursued her romantically without success wasnt worth losing sleep overbut it had hurt nevertheless.

Good luck, someone said in passing as the doors opened and invited guests, critics and members of the art world started pouring in.

Thanks. Ill need it, Grace laughed over her shoulder, realising it was her friend, Beth Wilson, a curvaceous and vertically challenged brunette, as she liked to call herself; at four-feet-eleven, she assured everyone that life for her was always looking up. Also loyal and efficient, she was the woman Grace had appointed to run her small London gallery while she carried on with her main objective in life, which was to try to keep afloat the nationally renowned textile company that her grandfather had founded and which had run into serious problems since his death just over a year ago. And with no moral support from Corinne.

Since inheriting her husbands share of the company, Corinne Culverwell had made it clear that she wasnt interested in being actively involved in the business. Now, with showers of congratulations and good wishes seeming to come at her from every angle, Grace darted a glance around her as the launch party got under way, wondering why her step-grandmothera name that always seemed inappropriate for a woman who was barely three years older than herselfhad claimed that a prior engagement at the last minute prevented her from coming tonight.

Directing two well-wishers to the table where the champagne was being served, Grace noticed the camera crew packing up outside. She had to stay focused, she told herself firmly, steeling herself for the interview that was now imminent. Stay calm. Relaxed.

Hello, Grace.

A prickling tension stiffened her spine as those two softly spoken words dragged her round to face the man who had uttered them.

Seth Mason! She couldnt speakcouldnt even breathe for a moment.

She would have recognised him from his voice alone, a deep, rich baritone voice with no trace of any accent. Yet those masculine featuresstrongly etched and yet tougher-edged in their maturitywere unforgettable too. How often had her dreams been plagued by the stirring images of that hard-boned face, those steel-grey eyes above that rather proud nose? The slightly wavy, thick black hair still curling well over his collar, with those few stray strands that still fell idly across his forehead.

Seth Her voice tailed away in shock. Over the years she had both longed and dreaded to see him again, yet she had never expected that she would. Especially not here. Tonight. When she needed everything to go right for her!

From his superior height, his penetrating gaze locked onto hers and his firm, well-defined mouththe mouth that had driven her mindless for him as it had covered herstwisted almost mockingly at her discomfiture.

How long has it been, Grace? Eightnine years?

II dont remember, she faltered, but she did. Those few fateful meetings with him were engraved on her memory like her five-times table. It had been eight years ago, just after her nineteenth birthday, when she had thought that everything in life was either black or white. That life was mapped out for her in just the way she wanted it to go and that anything she wanted was hers for the taking. But she had learned some hard lessons since then and none more painful than the ones she had suffered from her brief liaison with this manwhen she had discovered that nothing could be taken without there being a price, and a very high price, to pay.

Dont remember, or dont want to? he challenged softly.

Flinching from the reminder of things she didnt want to think about, she took some consolation from realising that they were concealed from most of the party by the tall case of ceramics. She ignored his velvet-sheathed barb and said with a nervous little laugh, Wellfancy seeing you here.

Fancy.

Quite a surprise.

Ill bet.

He was smiling down at her but there was no warmth in those slate-grey eyes. Eyes that were keener, more discerning, if that were possible, than when hed beenwhat?twenty-three? Twenty-four? A quick calculation told her that he would be in his early thirties now.

The tension between them stretched as tight as gut, and in an effort to try and slacken it she tilted her small pointed chin towards a display of watercolours by an up and coming artist and asked, Are you interested in modern art?

Among other things.

She didnt rise to his bait. He had an agenda, she was sure, and she wasnt even going to question what it might be.

Did you just walk in off the street? His name certainly hadnt been on the guest list. It would have leaped out at her instantly if it had been. Nor was he dressed to kill like a lot of the other guests. He was wearing an open-necked white shirt beneath a leather jacket that did nothing to conceal the breadth of his powerful shoulders, and his long legs were encased in black jeans that showed off a lean waist and narrow hips, a testament to the fact that he exercised regularly and hard.

Now, that would be rather too much of a coincidence, dont you think? he supplied silkily, although he didnt enlarge upon how he had managed to cross the threshold of her little gallery, and right at that moment Grace was far too strung up to care.