Playing the Billionaire's Game - Pippa Roscoe Page 0,24

front of her. But she would lose if she did look and lose if she didn’t. At least by not doing so she could cling to the belief that it made her seem as if she didn’t care.

Despite the traces of aviation fuel on the wind, there was something startlingly fresh about being in the middle of this flat, sparse private airfield outside of London. And Sia had to acknowledge that she felt much more awake and refreshed than she would have thought.

She’d imagined that in spending the night in Sebastian Rohan de Luen’s townhouse she would have tossed and turned into the early hours, her mind whirling. But the moment her head had hit the pillow she’d fallen into a deep dreamless sleep. Before being woken up by Sebastian’s servant. Or house man? She still didn’t know what to call him.

All of which had meant that she hadn’t spent the night wondering whether she should or shouldn’t be going to the Caribbean with a suspected art thief, a confirmed international playboy. She’d been in too much of a daze to do anything other than agree when he’d first told her. And this morning?

If she said no she’d return to her flat in Archway, with no job for a month—and in all probability no pay either—and she’d be no closer to proving that she hadn’t made a mistake. No. The only way she could ensure her professional reputation remained intact was to find the painting, and the only way she could do that was to follow him wherever he went.

She purposefully turned away from Sebastian, who was looking more attractive than anyone had a right to in a pair of aviation sunglasses, jeans that lovingly hugged his thighs and a dark blue long-sleeved Henley. Despite the casual look, everything exuded more money than she could earn in a month. She was on the verge of asking what they were waiting for when three dark, sleek town cars pulled onto the runway in an almost hypnotising procession.

They pulled up in a line beside the small jet and a man got out of the back of the middle car with a large black duffel bag handcuffed to each wrist. Sia watched, incredulous, as the man nodded to Sebastian, walked up the stairs, deposited the bags apparently in the back of the aeroplane and returned to the back of the middle town car, upon which all three of the sleek vehicles resumed their balletic procession and left the airfield.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she approached the stairs.

‘What?’ Sebastian asked, clearly finding it difficult to keep the laughter from his voice.

‘You did that on purpose.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything in those bags more important than kitty litter,’ she ground out.

‘To a cat owner without kitty litter they’d be pretty important,’ he said, following her up the stairs and into the cabin.

As she poked her head into the surprisingly spacious area in the cabin and she rolled her eyes at the ridiculous duffel bags, each strangely strapped into a seat, her mobile phone vibrated in her pocket for the fourth time that morning.

‘Please,’ said Sebastian, ‘don’t let me stop you.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Are you sure? It could be important. And you won’t be able to answer it in flight.’

She retrieved her phone and switched it off in front of him. But the problem was that she knew it probably was important. It had to be for Bonnaire’s to have called her four times in the last hour and a half.

But they had suspended her. They had suspended her, and it didn’t feel right. After the conversation with Sebastian the night before, she’d played the last meeting with her boss over and over again in her head. Why hadn’t David been able to access her folders from the initial assessment? Why hadn’t Abrani had the authentication papers to hand? He’d said he’d passed them onto Sean, but it was highly irregular to separate the papers from the painting. And she’d not seen them when she’d got back to Bonnaire’s. And now she couldn’t access the files to see if they had ever been there. But if they weren’t, if they never had been...then Bonnaire’s and Sean would have knowingly auctioned a painting without authentication papers, which was not exactly illegal. But the certificate of authentication acted like a sales receipt. It meant that they couldn’t be sure that the Sheikh had come by the painting through legal means.