Playing the Billionaire's Game - Pippa Roscoe Page 0,56

night either. Was it because she no longer wanted to prove that he’d stolen the painting? Was that a good or a bad thing? He couldn’t tell. But now he had a different perspective on his past, along with the realisation that it wasn’t that he didn’t want a family or commitment in his future—but that because of his past he didn’t trust that he could ever have such a thing. But Sia was making him want it. Want it with her.

As he parked up in front of the door, Sia was almost halfway out of the car before it had stopped. ‘I’m going to stretch my legs before dinner,’ she said with a smile on her lips and in her eyes.

‘It’s not in the garden,’ he teased of the painting’s location.

She shrugged and turned, walking away. ‘But it is here somewhere,’ she called over her shoulder.

Sebastian didn’t see the way the smile slowly loosened on her lips, the way that Sia steeled her shoulders and spine before removing her mobile phone from her clutch, the way her jaw clenched as she checked the fourth message from Bonnaire’s on her answering machine.

‘Ms Keating. This is Michael. We’ve been trying to reach you for quite a number of days now. We have some questions to put to you and we would like to pin down a date for you to come in and speak with our investigative team. Especially given the company you have been keeping since your suspension. We expect to hear from you in due course.’

Her hand shaking, Sia deleted the messages before turning off her phone and slipping it back into her bag. They had suspended her for thirty days. She had been away less than half that. She had five days left of the fourteen that Sebastian had given them and her heart raced at the thought that time was running out. No matter how much she might want to, she couldn’t hide out here for ever.

Dressed in Sebastian’s shirt and an old pair of jeans she’d found in her suitcase, on bare feet Sia made her way out into the garden to a table laden with coffee, croissants and fruit. Smiling at the half-eaten croissant and half-drunk coffee Sebastian must have consumed in haste before heading out to see Maria an hour ago, Sia unfolded the English newspaper he insisted on having delivered to the estate for the duration of her visit.

Sinking into her seat, she poured herself a coffee, picked up the cup with both hands and inhaled the rich aroma as the heat from the china warmed her palms. It was already hot and barely into double digits, today was going to be...

Her thoughts trailed off as she caught sight of the image dominating the front page of the newspaper. A large black and white photo showed a handsome couple, heads bent, as the man stretched out his hand as if both protecting the woman and warding off the press. But it was the woman who caught her eye. Because Sia had seen her before and as her eyes skated over the accompanying article, the bottom dropped out of her world.

Abrani Heiress Weds Billionaire!

Despite recent concerns over the attempted sale of a fake painting, things are beginning to look up for Sheikh Abrani as his youngest daughter Aliah surprises the world with a shock secret wedding!

Rumours about possible pregnancy are yet to be addressed by the royal family, but an official statement is expected in due course.

The Sheikh’s youngest daughter might have been recently married, but less than eleven days ago she’d been sipping champagne with Sebastian Rohan de Luen, in a private club in Mayfair. ‘An old family friend’ he’d said, just before calling her beautiful.

Of all the people perfectly positioned to swap out the real painting for the fake, surely the Sheikh’s daughter would be at the heart. Something caught in her mind, the memory of Sebastian’s righteous recounting of the Sheikh’s sins, the least of which was the fact Abrani had literally gambled her hand away in marriage...and that was considered a good thing.

All this time, Sia realised, she’d been focused on Sebastian but not the people who could have helped him—like the artist who’d created the forged painting. In her mind’s eye she was back in David’s lab, the night the fake had been damaged, scanning the painting, the remaining brushstrokes, the technique that...that...

Her mind leapt from one painting to another, but quite possibly by the same artist. Astou Ndiaye,