Her Man with Iceberg Eyes by Kris Pearson Page B

Could escape?
Could try to recover her dignity? She sagged down onto the
cushions, finally hiding from Matthew behind her curtain of
hair.
    She’d not acknowledged his drawing. Would
not. Could not. She was totally drained with the effort of holding
still for so long, and from her pent-up emotions. She’d never
survived anything like that before. Hoped never to have to
again.
    She heard Matthew stand. The sketchpad
rustled up from the floor. And a warm finger landed gently between
her shoulder blades. As he stepped away he drew his finger slowly
downward, slid it under the thong, pulled, and let the elastic snap
back against her flesh. Her humiliation was complete.
     
    If Kate was a mass of nerves, Lottie seemed
not to notice.
    “Come and see how you’re looking.”
    Kate knew how she was looking—hot and
bothered, naked and knackered, mad as hell.
    She snatched up the sheet and wrapped it
around herself; then stepped over to the easel in front of the
wheelchair.
    Matthew had disappeared, and just as well,
too. The studio was full of sharp objects, just right for skewering
him...
    She surveyed the partly finished painting.
She saw her hip, the slope of her back, the jut of a shoulder, a
long thigh. Or did she? Translated into countryside colours she
almost disappeared. But it was a softly contoured range of hills
that Lottie played with—in contrast to her more usual dramatic
landscapes.
    “I wouldn’t know it for a Janssen,” Kate
said, relaxing a little now she saw the way she looked. She
compared the painting with the photo. It was her and yet not her.
    “Can I rip the other one up?” she asked
hopefully.
    Lottie nodded, and poked around on the table
without finding it. “Maybe on the floor?” she asked.
    But when Kate bent and looked, there was no
sign of the first photo. Still, the studio held so much mess you
could probably lose the Titanic...
    She wriggled into her clothes again as a
drained-looking Lottie took care of her brushes and palette
knives.
    Kate drew a deep breath. If she was supposed
to be looking after her famous charge, now was the time to start.
“It’s probably time for your painkillers,” she suggested. “And
shouldn’t you be resting, so soon out of hospital?
    Lottie gave her a faint smile. “Ya. I do that
next, I think. For two hours maybe? And you wake me up with
coffee?”
    Kate surveyed the messy kitchen area. “I’ll
have a little tidy-up while you’re lying down. Just kitchen work,”
she added, when Lottie looked alarmed.
    “The kitchen—okay, but not the
paintings?”
    “I wouldn’t dare touch them.”
    She helped Lottie from the wheelchair onto
the bed, brought her pills and a glass of water from the attached
bathroom, and got to work. Collecting up mugs and glasses and
plates was kitchen work—even if they were scattered out amongst the
paintings. She restored a small amount of order, ignoring the
dishwasher, and scrubbing energetically at long-crusted items. She
presumed the plates and glasses Matthew had brought up to the
studio should go back downstairs. She included them in her wash-up
and carried them away. He was busy in his office—something whirred
as she tried to slip by.
    “Kate.”
    Darn. Either he had eyes in the back of his
gorgeous head or his hearing qualified him as a guard-dog.
    She stopped one pace inside the door.
    “I’m sorry you didn’t think my drawings were
good.”
    She flinched at the memory of his eyes on
her. At the wanton woman he’d turned her into. “Your drawings were
excellent. I just wasn’t comfortable with the subject,” she replied
stiffly.
    He looked at her for a long moment. “I
thought the subject was utter perfection.”
    “Don’t. Please don’t. You tease me and make
fun of me and it just makes things so difficult.”
    “What things?” His voice was dangerously
quiet.
    “Helping Lottie. Being in the house. I’m only
here until Sunday and then I’m gone.”
     
    Something hot and angry flared in his