Priceless by Olivia Darling Page B

the bottle on his last visit.
    He took a sip and seemed to relax a little.
    “So, tell me what this is about,” said Serena. Having agonized while she rinsed out a glass for the whiskey about which chair she should sit in, Serena chose to sit down next to Julian on the sofa. She pondered puttingher hand on his, but decided against it. Hopefully her decision to sit next to him would make it easier to come out with what it was he wanted to say.
    “I know it’s a bit much coming around here so late at night. You’ve got to get up early to take Katie to school. But this thought popped into my head today and I’ve just got to put it out there.”
    “You’ve met someone else,” Serena jumped in.
    “What?” Julian was taken aback by Serena’s assumption.
    “I understand,” she continued. “I’m a single mum. I’m pushing forty.”
    Julian took her face in his hands. “Serena, I don’t want to stop seeing you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Far from it.”
    Then what did he want?
    “It could be that what I’m about to say to you is pure madness, in which case, I’d be grateful if you could promise me before I put my proposal to you, that if you’re not interested, you will never, ever tell anyone we had this conversation.”
    “Of course not,” said Serena. What was going on? Julian had on his face a look that Serena had seen on a man’s face only once before. When Tom had proposed. “Go ahead,” she said. “It’s just me here. Katie’s asleep.”
    “Okay.” he took a deep breath. “I want you to go into partnership with me.”
    Well, that was a very formal way to put it, but a smile still spread across Serena’s face.
    “I’m not yet divorced,” Serena reminded him.
    “What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “Well, if it doesn’t bother you, my still being married. If you’re happy to wait. Tom is certainly keen to untangle himself as soon as possible, and I … well, I thought Iwould never want to look at another man so long as I lived, but then you arrived next door and …”
    Julian cocked his head to one side. Confused.
    “Oh. Er … Ha! You thought I meant … Oh, God. No. No, no, no. Business partnership, Serena. I want to go into a business partnership with you.”
    “Right,” she said. “That’s what I thought.”
    She got up on the pretense of stoking the fire. When she sat back down again it was in the seat opposite Julian.
    “Carry on,” she said. Though she couldn’t possibly imagine what kind of business he thought they would go into. Open Trebarwen as a B&B perhaps, with Serena doing all the donkeywork, changing the beds and cooking the breakfasts, no doubt. She might have known that Julian Trebarwen saw her only as a skivvy.
    “What is it you want?”
    “You remember that painting you did for my mother?”
    “The dogs? Yes.”
    “I’ve got a confession to make. I didn’t know you were the artist behind that painting. I assumed it was something that had been in the family for years. And so, when Nat Wilde sent those kids from Ludbrook’s down to value Mother’s estate, I had them value that painting along with all the others. And they attributed it to Richard Delapole, which is how it ended up in the auction along with Mother’s genuinely valuable paintings and eventually sold for twenty-five thousand pounds.”
    “What?” Serena blinked at the mention of one of the region’s most famous early-nineteenth-century artists. “They thought my painting was by Delapole? That’s ridiculous.”
    “Apparently not. It was bought by an American collector. He paid another thirty thousand for a painting of my mother’s rather stern-looking maiden aunt. There isno accounting for taste. Which is not to say that your painting wasn’t good. Obviously, it was excellent. It fooled Nat Wilde, who has, so I was always led to believe, the best eye on New Bond Street.”
    “So, you told him he was fooled—”
    “Of course not! No. I mean, what good would