Playing the Billionaire's Game - Pippa Roscoe Page 0,19
in the pool room now, in the natural light, looked like honeyed cream, and thoughts of the deep tan of his own rough skin next to hers nearly unmanned him.
Instead he focused on the small holdall at the doorway to the room.
‘Is that all you brought?’ he asked without thinking.
It was the absence of movement that made him realise. Most people moved, flinched, reacted to a wound—verbal or otherwise. Sia seemed different, but in her silence he heard her response like a shout. It’s all I could afford. And he felt like an ass.
‘I’d like to look around.’
He gestured for her to do so and Sia was surprised. ‘You don’t want to...’ she shrugged ‘...give me a tour?’ The idea that she’d be let loose in his home was both a surprise and slightly frustrating. ‘I can just thoroughly investigate the entire apartment?’
‘I have nothing to hide,’ he said, taking a sip of his coffee.
‘Here. You have nothing to hide here,’ she replied, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice.
He quirked an eyebrow in question.
‘You have, as you’ve been quite proud enough to declare—a large number of hotels around the world, at least three residences, one in London, one in Siena and the other in New York. It is highly unlikely that you would offer me complete access if you had the painting here. However, in case you are attempting a double bluff, I’ll just take a turn,’ she concluded as she pushed back out of her seat.
‘By all means. And when you are done investigating, Benjamin will show you to your room. In the meantime, I have some very important luxuriating to be getting on with. But if you need me, I’m yours.’
His last words repeated on a loop in Sia’s mind as she made her way up the ridiculous amount of steps in the five-floor mansion that Sebastian called his London apartment. Despite her words about a double bluff, she knew he’d never offer her access like this if there was even a hope that she’d run into the painting. So it was unlikely that was here.
But as she walked the hallways lined with expensive art collections, priceless antiques and furniture, her disappointment gave way to awe, which in turn gave way to confusion. It just didn’t feel like him. It was incredible but staid, old, moneyed. It didn’t speak of the charming, game-playing playboy. There was no sense of fun in the décor. She had half expected to find a painting from the Dogs Playing Poker series hanging on the wall in between a Rembrandt and a Vermeer, but there wasn’t one.
And all this space... What did one person do with it? She pushed open another door into another empty bedroom. Each one was perfectly made up, clean, immaculate, as if waiting to be filled, and suddenly it struck her as a very lonely house.
Down another flight of stairs, the smooth curved banister cool beneath the palm of her hand, and it looked just like the two floors above it. Barely taking note of the impressive paintings on display any more, Sia wondered if Sebastian had grown numb to their beauty in the same way she felt herself becoming, and almost laughed. Less than a few hours in his world and she had stopped caring whether the next painting was a Picasso or a Degas. Though, even as she thought it, she peered around, hoping that it actually might be a Degas.
Smiling at the turn of her own thoughts, she pushed open a door that she quickly realised was not like the others. The sheets on the bed weren’t turned down with almost military precision, but were crumpled in a heap. The pillows still bore the impression of being recently slept on, and the air still held the scent of aftershave that was unnervingly familiar. A sound should have drawn her attention to the slightly open doorway in the corner of the room but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the impossibly large bed. She was in the midst of calculating just how many people it might be feasible to get on it when the flash of something at the edge of her sightline drew her gaze.
Once again, the man had a towel around his waist and far too much delicious skin on display. His muscles rippled as his arm towel-dried his hair and the breath caught in Sia’s lungs.
‘We really must stop meeting like this.’
She practically squeaked as she fled the room in a