Driving Her Crazy

SIX



Kent was so stunned by the admission he didn’t see another massive pothole until they hit it and they both bounced in their seats as the whole cab rattled and shook. He’d suspected from the beginning she knew Pinto somehow and her Leo slip had confirmed it, but never in a million years would he have thought this.

Sadie glanced at Kent as he drove along without a word. Back to the strong silent type again. Not something she needed right now. She needed someone to give her a pep talk. To tell her that what happened in the past didn’t matter. The clock had been reset and she would be fine.

God, anything would do, anything at all.

She just needed him to say something.

‘Nothing to say?’ she demanded after his continuing silence stretched her nerves to their limit.

Kent glanced at her, his brain still grappling with the bombshell. The number of questions he had probably outnumbered the stars in last night’s sky but he wasn’t going to get into this with her.

He looked back at the road. What she did with her life was her own concern. It was absolutely nothing to do with him.

He’d known her for three days and it didn’t matter that she was sitting in his car in a dress that oozed sex or that he wanted to pull over and have his way with her because that was never going to happen. They were doing a job together and when it was done they’d probably never see each other again.

So, she had a thing for older guys. If she wanted to sleep with men twenty years her senior then good luck to her.

Or to them anyway.

‘None of my business,’ he said, trying not to think about the twelve years that separated them.

Sadie glared at him. Kent’s lack of enquiry drove her nuts. She’d spent the last three days foraging for crumbs from him thinking it was just about his privacy, but maybe it was really that he didn’t give a damn about anyone else?

‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?’

Kent shrugged. ‘Who you’ve slept with is nothing to do with me.’

‘What, no, isn’t he a little old for you, Sadie Bliss? Or, how the hell did that come about, Sadie Bliss?’

Kent sighed. Sadie obviously wanted to talk about it and, as much as he didn’t want to know any more about her, there was a part of him that really, really wanted to know how a smoking-hot woman like Sadie ended up with a guy twice her age.

If Leonard Pinto had been buff and handsome he might have been able to see it, but Kent had seen the man’s picture and he doubted good old Leo would ever be asked to pose for a centrefold.

‘Okay, then, out with it,’ he said. ‘You obviously want to get it off your chest, so spill.’

Sadie looked out of the window, not in the mood to be humoured. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Kent glanced at her petulant profile and felt as if he were back in high school. ‘I’m not going to ask you twice, Sadie, so why don’t you tell me all about it? Tell me how a man who must be at least twenty years older than you came to be in a sexual relationship with a much younger woman.’

Sadie turned to face him, her eyes blazing. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

Kent raised an eyebrow. ‘Like what?’

‘The way you’re making it sound,’ she snapped.

‘Okay. So how was it, then?’

Sadie turned back to the window, watching the scenery flash by as she gathered her thoughts. ‘I took one of his classes at art school.’

Kent snorted. If Sadie thought that made things sound better, then she was much more immature than he’d originally thought.

‘So...he was your teacher? Isn’t that against the rules?’

Sadie sent him a scathing look. ‘I took the class for a term. We didn’t get involved until six months later.’

‘And how did that start? No, let me guess. He was impressed with your talent and offered to give you extra tuition.’

Sadie looked back out of the window. ‘I went to one of his exhibitions and we got talking. He took me out for drinks afterwards.’

‘And then he said come back to my place and take off your clothes, I want to paint you?’

Sadie ignored the sarcasm. ‘He was the most articulate and witty man I’d ever met. Sophisticated. Urbane. And what he didn’t know about the world and art and culture wasn’t worth knowing. And he was interested in me. This older, interesting man who could have had his pick of women was interested in little ol’ me.’

Kent frowned. Obviously her father’s desertion had had a lasting impact on Sadie. ‘Why wouldn’t he be? You’re an interesting person.’

Not to mention how very interesting she was to look at.

Sadie flicked him an oh-really look. ‘Yes, I’ve noticed how you’ve been completely enthralled by my life.’

Kent shrugged. ‘Don’t take it personally. I’ve been pretty uninterested generally the last couple of years.’ He swerved to avoid another crater-like pothole, then looked at her. ‘I can’t believe, though, that there weren’t a veritable glut of men your age that were also interested?’

She nodded. ‘Sure. In my E cups.’ Sadie looked back out of the window. ‘Guys my age tend to have conversations with my chest. Leonard didn’t. He looked me right in the eye.’

Kent felt an instant spike of guilt at his own fascination with her chest, but at least he could take comfort from the fact that every part of her seemed to fascinate him.

God knew her mouth was becoming an obsession.

‘So Leonard’s gay? Or bi, I guess.’

Sadie gasped and turned to stare at him. Where in the hell had that come from? ‘Were you dropped on the head as a baby?’

‘Hey, nothing wrong with that,’ Kent assured her. He could understand Sadie being attracted to someone who didn’t objectify her. ‘I’m just saying that any man who doesn’t at least check you out can’t be heterosexual.’

Sadie opened her mouth to blast him despite the traitorous part of her that felt curiously flattered. ‘Are you implying that all men aren’t capable of restraining Neanderthal behaviour and if they are then they must be gay?’

‘Heterosexual men check out women, Sadie.’ He shrugged. ‘I agree it’s appalling that some guys behave like morons and that subtlety isn’t part of their repertoire, but we’re pretty simple creatures really, genetically predisposed to appreciate the female form. It’s just as natural as breathing.’

Sadie wondered for a moment if Kent had checked her out. In that way. And if so, when? She hadn’t really noticed him gawking like the average male and he’d certainly never had one of those conversations with her breasts that annoyed her so much. In fact she’d have to say that Kent had displayed supreme lack of interest.

Annoyed at the direction of her thoughts when her mind needed to be on Leo, Sadie grappled to get back on the page. ‘Trust me, he’s straight,’ she said icily, seeking and holding his gaze for a moment. ‘Very, very straight. We had lots and lots and lots of sex.’

Which wasn’t exactly true. Leonard had been more into oral sex and they’d had plenty of that but he’d not been great at reciprocating. Still, he’d stimulated her in other ways, intellectually and artistically, so his low sex drive hadn’t ever been an issue.

Being his lover had transcended the physical.

Kent dragged his gaze back to the road as her doe eyes told him stuff he wasn’t sure he was keen on knowing. He really did not want to be regaled with stories of Leonard Pinto’s straightness.

Not as it pertained to Sadie anyway.

‘So did he paint you?’ he said, trying to shift the conversation.

Sadie nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I became his muse. Gave up art school, moved in with him so I could pose for him whenever he wanted. All hours of the day or night. It was...exhilarating.’

And it had been. His obsession with her had been heady stuff. It had also been exhausting. Living with an arty temperament had its downside, especially when she was struggling to find time for her own art.

Still, she’d have never taken that part of her life back.

‘He didn’t paint anyone else for nearly two years.’

Kent heard pride soften her voice. It sounded a little co-dependent to him, but Kent couldn’t blame the guy and a part of him hoped he might get to see one of those paintings.

He remembered wanting to photograph her this morning and, whilst he wasn’t a fan of Pinto’s nudes, Kent couldn’t deny he was curious to see a master’s take on Sadie’s curvy perfection. Had Leonard managed to capture the perfectness of her imperfect features?

Although quite how Pinto managed to be so productive with Sadie living in his house and stripped naked a lot of the time he had no clue. He knew for damn sure there wouldn’t be a lot of work going on if she was buck naked and posing for him!

His groin stirred and he clamped down on unproductive thoughts as he zeroed in on the most startling part of her story. ‘You gave up art school?’

Sadie nodded. She’d cut herself off from everything, even her mother. Completely isolated herself. Weeks would go by without seeing another soul and she’d revelled in it, satisfied with being the centre of Leo’s world, buying in to his control over her because she’d loved him and believed he loved her.

‘I was never really good anyway,’ she dismissed.

Kent blinked. That was the second time she’d written off her ability. ‘Says who?’ Art schools were notoriously difficult to get into—they only took talented students. It had taken him two years of applying before he’d been accepted into one to study photography.

‘Leo.’

‘And you believed him?’

Sadie rolled her eyes. ‘He’s Leonard Pinto. I think he knows a thing or two about talent, don’t you?’

Kent thought good old Leo also knew a thing or two about manipulation. ‘How old were you when you hooked up with Pinto?’

‘Nineteen,’ she said wistfully.

Kent paused as that info sank in. ‘And he was?’

‘Thirty-nine.’

Oh, yeah. Leo knew which side his bread was buttered on.

‘What happened?’ Kent asked. ‘How’d it end?’

‘Behind my back my mother gathered a portfolio of my work and put me up for a scholarship to my dream college in London. And I got it.’

Kent shook his head. And she still believed she didn’t have any talent? ‘I’m guessing Leonard was none too pleased to have his muse running away.’

Sadie looked away. ‘I hadn’t painted in over a year. Leo loved me, he didn’t want me to fail. He was right to point out that I’d lost my edge. That I wouldn’t last long there, that places like that require exceptional talent and dedication. That I’d probably only got in because of my association with him.’

Kent ground his teeth at Pinto’s disingenuous actions. Nice. ‘So you didn’t want to go?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘No. I did want to go. I’d been doing nothing for a year and I was getting restless. I just...’

‘What?’

‘It was hard. Leo saw it as a betrayal.’

Kent snorted. ‘I thought he loved you.’

Sadie looked away. No. That had been her mistake. She had loved him. Leo had never loved her. ‘I was torn and he told me the decision should be easy and as it wasn’t that I should go.’

Kent didn’t know what to say. Pinto sounded like a total arse. ‘Did you go to London?’

Sadie shook her head, she’d been devastated by the whole thing. ‘I needed to get away from art for a while. So I studied journalism instead. And here I am today coming full circle.’

‘So, why does Pinto want you for the interview?’

Sadie shrugged. ‘Curiosity probably. I think he thought I would fall apart without him. Whatever his agenda is, I’m determined to show him I didn’t.’

Kent looked at her, then looked away. ‘Well, that dress ought to do it.’

He slowed as he saw the sign for Casa Del Leone, the Pinto retreat, approaching, but not before he noticed that fabulous mouth break into a broad grin.

Neither of them spoke as they drove into the property. The house, complete with massive marble columns, looked as if it had been picked up from Ancient Greece and deposited by Zeus himself. It looked completely out of place in the middle of the Australian outback.

Kent whistled as he pulled the vehicle into the Grecian portico. ‘It looks like a pimple on a pumpkin,’ Kent said as he reached for his seat belt.

‘Wait,’ Sadie said, putting her hand on his forearm.

Kent frowned at her. ‘What?’

Sadie looked at the imposing marble entryway and massive wrought-iron door, her heart suddenly pounding loud enough to shake the columns to their foundations. ‘Do not let me get sucked in by him, okay?’

Kent’s frown deepened as he looked at her hand on his arm. ‘Please tell me after everything you’ve just told me, you’re not still in love with him.’

Sadie shook her head. ‘No...I don’t think so.’ Kent’s impatient look spurred her to clarification. ‘He was a big part of my life for a long time. He was like...an addiction or something. And addicts are never really cured, are they?’ She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to get a taste and...fall off the wagon.’

Kent’s gaze involuntarily followed the action of her teeth as they ate away her lip gloss. When he realised he was staring he dropped his gaze to her revenge attire. ‘I think you’re stronger than you think, Sadie Bliss.’

Sadie smiled at him, suddenly conscious of the warmth of him beneath her palm and the bunch of muscles in his forearm. She was surprised how good they felt. How the power of them did funny things to her insides.

He was so different from Leo. And not just in looks. Leo would never have calmly told her she was strong.

Leo had spent two years telling her she needed him.

‘Come on,’ he said briskly, because she was looking at him with those big doe eyes and the ridiculous urge to lean over and kiss her was growing stronger.

Neither of them needed that. Not now.

Not ever.

He undid his belt, her hand falling away. ‘Let’s do this thing.’

Leonard’s PA greeted them at the door. ‘Mr Pinto is in his studio and is not to be disturbed for another two hours. I’ll show you to your rooms and then take you on a tour,’ he said.

They spent the next two hours touring around the palatial house and grounds. Kent dutifully took photographs and Sadie asked all the standard questions. It was late afternoon when they were invited to freshen up and join Mr Pinto for pre-dinner drinks at six in the saloon.

Kent felt as if he’d just walked into the set of an Agatha Christie movie but he did as he was told, having a shower and getting changed into clean jeans and a casual skivvy. He took his camera with him as he headed for the Gone With The Wind staircase.

Sadie, who was still in her killer dress, met him at the top and they descended together. ‘I feel like I should be calling you Scarlett,’ he murmured.

Sadie laughed. ‘Why, Rhett, I do declare...’

Kevin fixed them both a drink and they all made polite conversation whilst they waited for the guest of honour. Leo turned up twenty-five minutes later.

‘Sadie!’ he exclaimed from the doorway.

Sadie, who had been chatting to Kevin, rose to her feet, her heart pounding again as the man she’d once loved walked briskly towards her.

‘Leo,’ she murmured as he swept her into a hug.

Sadie shut her eyes and waited for the familiar intoxicating rush she’d always experienced just from his presence. When it didn’t come she opened them to find herself looking directly into Kent’s gaze. He was standing near the large floor-to-ceiling French doors across the other side of the room in her direct line of sight.

He winked at her and she found herself suppressing a smile as Leo held her for a little longer than she was comfortable with.

‘My goodness,’ Leo said as he finally released her and held her away at arm’s length. ‘I think you’ve been living the high life. Where have all those lovely bones gone, darling?’

Kent watched Sadie’s smile falter and before he knew it he was striding towards them. The urge to punch Leonard Pinto in the face was one he was just able to suppress as he stuck out his hand and introduced himself.

‘Ah, yes, Mr Nelson,’ Leo said, grasping Kent’s hand. ‘Kevin mentioned that you were the photographer. It is indeed a great pleasure to meet you.’

Kent nodded. He supposed he should have returned the compliment, but Sadie’s smile in his peripheral vision was so brittle he thought it might actually crumble off her face and, frankly, Leonard Pinto’s handshake had been unimpressive.

Kevin handed Leo his standard gin and tonic and regaled Kent with his attempts at photography. Sadie listened to them on autopilot. She’d nibbled on an apple all day and the glass of white wine she was sipping was going straight to her head.

She tried not to let Leo’s opening comment get to her—he’d never been a particularly sensitive man—but she’d starved herself for days and knew she looked damn good. Not rake thin as she had been, but good nonetheless.

Would it have killed him to have given her a compliment?

Leo laughed at a joke he’d told and Sadie ran her eyes over him. He hadn’t changed. Maybe there was a little more grey in the wings at his temple, some more padding under his chin and around his middle, but he was the same. Tall and thin, with long arty fingers, curiously not paint stained as per usual, and bookish wire-rimmed glasses.

She waited for the rush of tangled emotions he’d always aroused and was relieved to feel nothing.

She switched her attention to Kent and his polite fixed smile. The comparison between the two men was striking. Kent was toned and broad and fit-looking compared to Leo’s obvious indoor physique. Kent’s spare, angular features were sharply contrasted with the gentle planes of Leo’s.

Sadie had never placed any stead on looks but with the two of them together it was hard not to compare. Kent looked like a Rodin sculpture—all symmetry and fluid lines. Leo looked like a kindergarten art project—something that you cherished because of an association but not something you wanted to just look at for hours.

‘The evening meal is served,’ Kevin announced interrupting Sadie’s reverie.

Kent watched Sadie nibble pathetically around the edges of her meal. It was all beautifully cooked by Kevin who seemed to be general dogsbody, but it just wasn’t his thing.

Small servings, big plates, posh names.

By the end of it Kent was still starving.

And Sadie must have been ready to eat the table leg.

More polite conversation was made about the local area and the history of the house until Kevin took away the last plate.

‘Would you like a tour of the studio now?’ Leonard asked them as he stood.

Kent looked at Sadie, a half-query in his eyes. Personally he’d rather drive to the nearest steak restaurant and order the biggest Waygu they had.

‘Sure,’ Sadie said, standing also, her head spinning a little. She was curious to see what kind of space he painted in now, in this marble mausoleum in the middle of nowhere.

Leo, ever the charming host, regaled them with stories as he led the way towards the back of the house. He opened a large double wooden door, flicking a light on in the darkened room illuminating the space inside and out.

The first thing she noticed was that the studio overlooked the man-made lake Kevin had shown them earlier. The next was how clean it was. She knew Leo, she knew him well, and when he was in the middle of a project—the studio was always a shambles.

The third thing she only noticed when Kent said, ‘Holy cow.’ She turned to look up on the wall behind her to see what had his jaw dropping.

A giant nude portrait hung there. Of her. And for a moment all three of them just stood and looked at it.

‘My best, don’t you think, Sadie?’

Sadie nodded as she remembered how many hours she’d sat for this particular painting. She felt her cheeks flush as Kent’s gaze continually darted over it. It wasn’t the same as seeing her naked in the flesh, she knew, but it was still her up there, lying reclined in all her glory.

Kent couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d hoped to see something like this. To see a true artist capture Sadie’s likeness. But this portrait was shocking. The Sadie in the painting was a far cry from the woman he’d shared a car with for the last few days.

She was very thin. Her bones stuck out, her curves were non-existent and her breasts were much smaller.

He looked down at her, horrified. ‘My God, were you ill?’ he asked.

Leo blanched at Kent’s blunt question. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he blustered. ‘She was much healthier then. Look at that bone structure. Those angles. She’s the very picture of female beauty, of what men desire in women. And she worked hard to look that good, didn’t you, darling?’

Kent looked at Leo Pinto as if he’d just grown another head. Suddenly Sadie’s eating patterns of the last few days, her ‘It’s complicated,’ made sense.

Leo had obviously been starving her for two years.

And facing him again as a successful, independent career woman must have taken a lot of courage.

Finally he understood her. Understood the celery sticks and the oversized T-shirts.

And he understood why. Leo Pinto.

She’d loved him to the point that she’d become someone else for him.

And he’d let her.

Toxic bastard.

He looked at a silent Sadie, then back at the painting. He hated it on sight. She looked like his ballerina nudes.

Thin and androgynous.

She did not look like Sadie Bliss.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Pinto,’ Kevin interrupted from the doorway, a phone in his hand. ‘It’s your agent—he says it’s urgent.’

Leo gave Kent a pained smile and ran his fingers down the back of Sadie’s arm. ‘I won’t be a moment.’

Kent watched him go, then turned back to Sadie. She was looking at the painting with an inscrutable expression and he couldn’t figure out whether it was admiration, indifference or revulsion.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

Sadie nodded absently, rubbing her arms, feeling suddenly cold and very light-headed. It had been interesting seeing the portrait again with time and distance on her side.

Interesting to see it through Kent’s eyes too.

‘You’ve been starving yourself to look like that?’ he asked incredulously, jabbing a finger in the general direction of the portrait. ‘You don’t seriously believe that men find bones and angles attractive, do you?’

‘I used to,’ she said. ‘Leo used to say I had the perfect face on the wrong body but that could be fixed.’ Spots started to swim before her eyes as she dragged her gaze away from the portrait she’d once loved so much.

Kent watched as Sadie swayed and he grabbed her upper arms in alarm. ‘You’re not okay.’

Sadie nodded as his strong, frowning face swam before her eyes. ‘Just a little light-headed,’ she dismissed, but reached for his arms for extra anchorage.

‘I’m not surprised. That’s what happens when you don’t eat anything. Come on, I have a Mars bar in my bag.’

Something told him there wouldn’t be anything so common in Casa Del Idiot.

‘No,’ she resisted. ‘Just give me a moment. It’ll pass.’

Kent shook his head as he looked back at the painting. The woman staring back at him looked utterly miserable. Thin for sure, but where was the vibrant woman of sass and spark he’d come to know the past few days? ‘That is a tragedy,’ he muttered.

‘Thanks a lot,’ Sadie half joked, looking up into his face. He was still holding her, his scratchy-looking jaw line in profile. ‘I was rather fond of my bony look.’

Kent looked down at her in alarm. Which was a mistake, because her mouth was so very, very near, her red dress like a beacon in his peripheral vision. That passionfruit smell enveloped him in a flurry of very bad ideas. He dropped his gaze to the plump pillows turned up towards him, thinking that thin was never a good look.

Not on bodies. Or mouths. ‘Trust me, curvy looks way better.’

Sadie could feel the heat of his gaze on her mouth. She shifted her hands so they were lying more comfortably against his biceps. ‘Leo always said that men lied about liking curves, that given a choice they’d choose skinny every time.’

Kent frowned. ‘God, he’s a pretentious arse.’

Sadie smiled, but Leo’s words still stung after all these years. She traced a finger absently around the bulk of a bicep. ‘He said no one would ever want me.’

Kent shook his head as her doe eyes blinked up at him. His pulse was pounding through his ears as her body swayed closer to his. He swallowed as desire bolted through his system. He shouldn’t kiss her. Not in a client’s house. And certainly not standing under a life-sized image of her in the buff. But she smelled so damn good and her lips were so damn near. Nearer as he moved his face closer to hers.

‘He’s wrong,’ Kent muttered.

Sadie’s breath quickened as his lips descended. She hung onto his words. Looking at her portrait again, listening to Leo’s rapture over it had sucked her back into a turbulent time in her life, but this man—this potent virile he-man, the polar opposite to Leo in every way—was telling her something different.

He was going to kiss her in this room, in front of that painting.

And she needed it. She needed to be desired for the person she was now, not the one she’d been.

The air crackled around them as their lips met. Kent felt no resistance, just her body completely aligning with his and her incredible mouth opening to him on a little whimper that reached right inside his gut and squeezed.

And then it was gone as a much hotter, deeper, more urgent need consumed him. The need to claim, to conquer, to lead. He sucked in a breath, pushing his hands into her hair and his tongue into her mouth, feeling the tentative touch of hers grow bolder.

But then voices getting nearer started to intrude and Kent suddenly realised where he was. He pulled away, her little disappointed mew and moist pouty mouth almost bringing him to his knees.

‘You okay?’ he asked, when she opened her big grey eyes, now the colour of slate, his arms steadying her.

Sadie blinked and nodded as she heard Leo enter the room even though she wasn’t sure she’d ever be okay again.