LITMIR.BIZ

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open.

      Not that that was what she was doing.

      Sadie glanced at her watch again and, after readjusting her bag on her shoulder, she headed out, her heels clicking against the tiled floors. This was the first time she would be meeting Carrick’s important clients and she wished she could definitively tell them that the painting was a lost Homer.

      Not only because that news would set the art world alight—authenticating a “sleeper,” a previously undiscovered painting, would be a kickass star on her résumé—but also because her job would then be over and she could remove herself from the temptation that was Carrick Murphy.

      But she was many weeks, possibly months, away from submitting her final report. There was still so much data outstanding, including the results of the paint analysis. She was tracking down leads with regard to the labels on the back of the painting and she’d yet to receive any replies from the many galleries where Isabel and her family routinely bought art.

      Establishing an artwork’s authenticity took time. Sadie hoped Carrick’s clients understood this.

      Reaching the door to the conference room, Sadie lightly knocked and stepped inside. Because she was currently enjoying the luck of a blind mouse in a cattery, the room was empty except for Carrick, who stood by the large window, looking down onto Boston Common. He turned, that lethal smile flashing, hinting at that shallow dimple in his left cheek, and Sadie’s heart kicked up a beat. Yep, there went her blood to that special place low in her womb, and heat meandered through her body.

      Chemistry was a hell of a thing.

      “Sadie.”

      Her name, rumbling out of Carrick’s mouth, had never sounded sexier. Sadie sighed and just managed to stop herself from putting her hand on her heart.

      Pulling her eyes off him, she placed her bag and her folders on the conference table and managed a quiet “good morning.”

      “Isabel’s heirs are running late. They should be here in fifteen minutes or so.”

      Damn. What would they talk about while they waited? The weather? The painting? How amazing, strong, powerful and masculine he felt when he slid inside her...

       Slade! So not helpful!

      Thinking that she had to aim for sophistication or, at least, to act her age, Sadie walked over to the window, keeping a healthy distance between her and Carrick. Because, you know, chemistry...

      Sadie saw him cast a glance over her outfit as she walked across the room and wondered if her boldly patterned red and orange dress was too arty and too bohemian for the conservative, upmarket offices of Murphy International.

      She didn’t care. She wasn’t a black-suit-and-white-shirt-wearing type. She was an art lover and connoisseur, someone who needed color like other people needed to breathe. Carrick would get used to her clothes and if he didn’t...

      Tough.

      She’d changed for one man, toned down her clothes, swallowed her thoughts and opinions and designed her life around a man who’d repaid her by having numerous affairs with everyone from her cousin to her masseuse. She would never dim her shine again, not for anyone.

      Sadie looked past Carrick’s very broad right shoulder to his stupendous view. The afternoon sun was starting to sink and the light held a touch of the same rose-pink Degas used for the dancers’ tutus in his work Dancers in Pink. Or was it closer to the color of that rose Renoir painted in Gabrielle à la Rose?

      Ooh, now she saw a hint of orange...

      Carrick’s knuckles rapping on the window brought her back to the present. She expected him to look annoyed, so his amusement was a surprise.

      “Something happening on the common I should know about?”

      Sadie took a moment to make sense of his words. She shook her head and waved at the window. “I have this habit of seeing colors in terms of art.”

      Confusion flashed in those grape-green eyes. “I don’t understand.”

      Normally, she didn’t try to explain, but for some inexplicable reason, she wanted Carrick to understand her obsession with color. Maybe if he did, they’d have something in common, a connection.

      Something other than sex...

      Seeing his interest, she looked down onto the busy street, trying to find an object to make her point. A woman cut across the common, wearing a yellow coat.

      Sadie gripped Carrick’s sleeve, her fingertips digging into the corded muscle of his forearm. She wanted to let go, but she could feel his heat, smell his clean, fresh skin.

      “That woman, the one wearing yellow, do you see her?”

      “Yeah.”

      Her fingers remained on his arm, as if stuck there with superglue. “Name the first painting that comes to mind where the artist used that color.”

      Carrick didn’t hesitate. “Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.”

      “Too easy. Try again.”

      “Andy Warhol’s banana on the sleeve of The Velvet Underground’s record?”

      “Nope, try again,” Sadie suggested.

      “Jeez, you’re tough.” Carrick’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Gustav Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer?”

      Okay, that was a really good answer. “Better,” she reluctantly admitted.

      Carrick’s laughter was low and rumbly. “Think you can do better?”

      Please. “It reminds me of that untitled Mark Rothko work sold in New York a few years back.” She cocked her head to the side. “Or maybe it’s the color of The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis by Rembrandt.”

      She felt Carrick’s eyes on her profile, and she couldn’t look at him, not sure if she wanted to see whether he was impressed or not.

      “You know your art,” Carrick said.

      “I have a PhD in art history, so I should,” Sadie replied, her tone crisp. Then she realized that she was stroking Carrick’s arm like he was a cat with a particularly luxurious coat. She looked down at her hand, blushed and yanked it away.

      “Sorry, along with color, I’m also a textile freak. And your suit is so soft, so...touchable.”

      Yeah, sure, the fabric was wonderfully soft, but that wasn’t the real reason she was touching his arm.

       Stop thinking about that night, Slade, and take your hand off his arm.

      Sadie moved away from Carrick, folded her arms and hauled in a deep breath, telling herself to act like a professional.

      Carrick stared down at the Common and they silently watched the Boston residents taking advantage of the cold, clear afternoon. After a minute of silence, Carrick pointed to a woman dressed in a fuchsia-colored coat and walking two elegant, very well behaved Great Danes.

      “The pink coat of the woman walking the Great Danes is the same color as the floor in Matisse’s The Pink Studio,” he said.

      “Or the pink in O’Keeffe’s It Was Yellow and Pink.”

      They could talk about art, thank goodness. It was a neutral subject, something they were both passionate about. And far safer than their other mutual interest: their fascination with each other’s bodies.

      “I also think it’s the same color as your nipples after I lave them with my tongue.”

      It took Sadie a few seconds for his words to sink in and she flushed, immediately catapulted back to that night and the shooting, aching ribbons of pleasure running through her, heating her from the inside out. Sadie couldn’t look at him; she knew that if she did, if she saw the passion in his eyes, she’d fly into his arms and

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