for the bed.” Tears filled her eyes as she picked up one of the slashed paintings. “This was always one of my favorites.”
The small painting depicted a wild coastline, high cliffs with the sea crashing in on the shore below. Possibly a North Wales coastline? “One of your father’s?” Seth guessed.
Diana sighed. “Yes. Unfortunately I didn’t inherit enough talent from either of my parents to be able to paint or write well.”
Seth shrugged. “Your drawings of the man following you were pretty accurate.”
“But lacking in any original talent.”
She made the statement as if reading it from somewhere. Which Seth would guess she possibly had; no doubt the teachers at her school had expected the daughter of Stephen and Stella Baxter to show some of their flair with art or words and been sadly disappointed when that hadn’t turned out to be the case. A fact that would probably have been noted in her school reports.
Seth’s mother had been too busy drinking and his father gambling to care what he did or whether he excelled at anything, let alone read their son’s school reports. The teachers at his schools had been too busy trying to maintain some sort of discipline in the overcrowded classrooms to give a damn either.
Which was perhaps as well, because the talents Seth had discovered he had weren’t ones that could be utilized in a schoolroom. He had the army to thank, and the friends he had made there, for the fact he hadn’t used those talents on the wrong side of the law rather than inside it. Most of the time, he acknowledged self-derisively. He wasn’t averse to bending the law if he had to in order to get his job for Grayson Security done.
None of which was of any help to either Diana or himself right now.
“How do you know my drawings are accurate?” Diana suddenly prompted with hard suspicion.
Seth answered her honestly. “The man from those sketches was in the lobby of your hotel this morning.”
She stared at him wordlessly for several seconds before dropping abruptly onto one of the slashed chairs as if her legs would no longer support her. “And you don’t think perhaps you ought to have mentioned that before now?”
He grimaced. “I thought about it…”
“But using your superior judgment, you decided against it,” she guessed knowingly.
Seth bit back his annoyance with her snarky comment, knowing it wouldn’t help this situation for him to lose his temper. “I decided it served no purpose to do so, yes. Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he snapped irritably at her accusing stare. “I didn’t know it was him until we got to your room and I looked at those sketches. He would have seen the two of us together, so I’m pretty sure by the time I’d got back downstairs, he would have scuttled back under whatever rock he had crawled out from.”
Diana had a feeling he would too. She just felt so…so helpless. And still completely in the dark as to what these men could possibly be looking for, both here and in her hotel room in England.
The only thing she had of value was the painting she still held tightly against her chest. Had of value. Because the painting was destroyed beyond repair, and so worth nothing in monetary value. As a personal gift to her from her father, it was still priceless.
And she still had absolutely no idea why these things were happening to her.
Except to know her life currently felt as if it was on a downward spiral, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Chapter 5
“Better.” Diana looked about the tidied sitting room with satisfaction. It was far from perfect but did at least resemble the charming room that had attracted her into renting the apartment in the first place. That, and the fact it was situated just off the main thoroughfare of the Champs-Élysées.
There was nothing she could do about the ruined pieces of furniture, except to tell the landlord she would replace them. Everything else had now been either picked up, swept up, or
The small painting depicted a wild coastline, high cliffs with the sea crashing in on the shore below. Possibly a North Wales coastline? “One of your father’s?” Seth guessed.
Diana sighed. “Yes. Unfortunately I didn’t inherit enough talent from either of my parents to be able to paint or write well.”
Seth shrugged. “Your drawings of the man following you were pretty accurate.”
“But lacking in any original talent.”
She made the statement as if reading it from somewhere. Which Seth would guess she possibly had; no doubt the teachers at her school had expected the daughter of Stephen and Stella Baxter to show some of their flair with art or words and been sadly disappointed when that hadn’t turned out to be the case. A fact that would probably have been noted in her school reports.
Seth’s mother had been too busy drinking and his father gambling to care what he did or whether he excelled at anything, let alone read their son’s school reports. The teachers at his schools had been too busy trying to maintain some sort of discipline in the overcrowded classrooms to give a damn either.
Which was perhaps as well, because the talents Seth had discovered he had weren’t ones that could be utilized in a schoolroom. He had the army to thank, and the friends he had made there, for the fact he hadn’t used those talents on the wrong side of the law rather than inside it. Most of the time, he acknowledged self-derisively. He wasn’t averse to bending the law if he had to in order to get his job for Grayson Security done.
None of which was of any help to either Diana or himself right now.
“How do you know my drawings are accurate?” Diana suddenly prompted with hard suspicion.
Seth answered her honestly. “The man from those sketches was in the lobby of your hotel this morning.”
She stared at him wordlessly for several seconds before dropping abruptly onto one of the slashed chairs as if her legs would no longer support her. “And you don’t think perhaps you ought to have mentioned that before now?”
He grimaced. “I thought about it…”
“But using your superior judgment, you decided against it,” she guessed knowingly.
Seth bit back his annoyance with her snarky comment, knowing it wouldn’t help this situation for him to lose his temper. “I decided it served no purpose to do so, yes. Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he snapped irritably at her accusing stare. “I didn’t know it was him until we got to your room and I looked at those sketches. He would have seen the two of us together, so I’m pretty sure by the time I’d got back downstairs, he would have scuttled back under whatever rock he had crawled out from.”
Diana had a feeling he would too. She just felt so…so helpless. And still completely in the dark as to what these men could possibly be looking for, both here and in her hotel room in England.
The only thing she had of value was the painting she still held tightly against her chest. Had of value. Because the painting was destroyed beyond repair, and so worth nothing in monetary value. As a personal gift to her from her father, it was still priceless.
And she still had absolutely no idea why these things were happening to her.
Except to know her life currently felt as if it was on a downward spiral, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Chapter 5
“Better.” Diana looked about the tidied sitting room with satisfaction. It was far from perfect but did at least resemble the charming room that had attracted her into renting the apartment in the first place. That, and the fact it was situated just off the main thoroughfare of the Champs-Élysées.
There was nothing she could do about the ruined pieces of furniture, except to tell the landlord she would replace them. Everything else had now been either picked up, swept up, or
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