Prince of Montéz, Pregnant Mistress. Sabrina PhilipsЧитать онлайн книгу.

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      With thanks to Penny,

      for her art expertise and her much-valued friendship.

      And to Phil,

      whose enduring patience continues to astound me.

      Chapter One

      HER heart was beating so loudly in her chest that Cally Greenway was convinced the whole auction room could hear it. Drawing in a deep breath, she uncrossed then recrossed her legs for the umpteenth time and tried to dismiss it as a flurry of anticipation.

      After all, tonight was the night she had been waiting for. She looked at her watch. In less than ten minutes, the dream she’d worked so hard for would finally be a reality.

      So why did it feel like her whole body was going into meltdown?

      Cally closed her eyes and trawled her mind for a legitimate explanation as the penultimate lot, a heavily sought-after Monet, reached astronomical heights. Yes, that was it. She might be a restorer of art, but the art world—epitomised by nights like this, where beauty and expression became about money and possession—left her feeling out of her depth. She didn’t belong at Crawford’s auction house at the most prestigious art auction in their calendar, she belonged in overalls in her studio.

      That was why she couldn’t concentrate, she argued inwardly as she tried to encourage the hem of the silky black dress she’d borrowed from her sister back towardsher knee. It absolutely, categorically, had nothing to do with the fact that he was here.

      Cally castigated herself for even having noticed him arrive, let alone entertaining the idea that he had anything to do with the physical symptoms that were assailing her. There was no way any man could have that kind of effect on her, least of all one she’d never met before.

      Well, technically. She had seen him once before, when she’d attended the sale preview two days ago, but she hadn’t actually met him. ‘Met’ implied that there had been some interaction between them, which of course there hadn’t been. He was classically handsome, and the expensive cut of his clothes—along with his very presence at an event like this—suggested he was filthy rich. He probably had some meaningless title like ‘duke’, or ‘count’, which altogether added up to him being the kind of man who wouldn’t give a woman like her a second glance. Which was absolutely fine, because she had no desire to meet someone that arrogant and conceited anyway. One man like that had been enough to last her a lifetime; she had no desire to meet another.

      So why was it she hadn’t been able to drive the intensity of his deep blue eyes from her thoughts, ever since she’d walked into that sale room and had seen him standing there like Michelangelo’s famous statue come to life? And why was it taking all her willpower not to steal another glance over her shoulder to the second row in the back right-hand corner of the room? Not that she had plotted the layout on an imaginary piece of graph paper and knew his exact coordinates, or anything. Why would she? Because every time you look round he slants you an irresistible, one-sided smile which sends the most extraordinary shiver down your spine? an unfamiliar and thoroughly unwelcome voice inside her replied, but immediately she silenced it.

      ‘And finally we come to lot fifty. A pair of paintings by the nineteenth-century master Jacques Rénard, entitled Mon Amour par la Mer from the estate of the late Hector Wolsey. Whilst the paintings are in need of some specialist restoration in order to return them to their original glory, they are undoubtedly the two most iconic pieces Rénard ever painted.’

      Cally drew in a deep breath as the auctioneer’s words confirmed that the moment she had been waiting for was finally here. She closed her eyes again, trying to visualise the air travelling up her nostrils and blowing her errant thoughts aside. When she opened them, the wall panel to the right of the bespectacled auctioneer was rotating in a spectacular one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn to reveal the stunning paintings, and the breath caught in her throat in awe.

      She remembered the first time she’d ever seen them, or rather a print of them. Not long after she’d started secondary school, her art teacher, Mrs McLellan, had held them up as an example of how Rénard dared to push the boundaries set by his contemporaries by having a real woman as his subject rather than a goddess. The rest of the class had been lost in a fit of giggles; between the two paintings, Rénard’s Love by the Sea went from fully clothed to completely naked. But for Cally it had been a defining moment in her life. To her the pictures spoke of beauty and truth, of the two sides of every story—of herself. From that moment on, she had known unequivocally that her future lay in art. A certainty matched only by her horror when she had discovered that the original paintings were shut away on the country estate of a pompous aristocrat getting damp and gathering cigar smoke, rather than being on public display for everyone to enjoy.

      Until now. Because now they were owned by Hector Wolsey junior, whose horse-racing habit had caused him to demand that Crawford’s auction house sell his late father’s paintings immediately, before they’d even had the chance to say ‘in-house restoration team’. Which meant the London City Gallery had been frantically trying to raise enough money to buy them, and had been lining up a specialist conservator