Sinful Temptation by Ann Christopher

him. “Ignore me.”
    With that, she finished taping a box closed, swung it around and headed to the studio’s back room, giving Talia a suppressed smile and a wink as she went.
    Cooper stared after her, a vague frown marring his brow. “Excuse me,” he finally said to Talia, and then wandered off to join his brother as they studied the paintings.
    Which left Talia semi-alone with Tony.
    “What’s going on?” she asked, not bothering to hide her open suspicion.
    Shrugging, he took his time answering, and her nerves stretched accordingly. He had to know that she was freaking out and overwhelmed in the presence of a couple of men who could give her career a huge boost with little more than a snap of their fingers.
    “We told you. We wanted to take a closer look at your work.”
    “Why? Slow week? Did you run out of Picassos and Monets to buy and sell?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “What exactly, then?”
    “A couple things. First, a wall in my Hamptons estate was damaged in the storm a few months ago.”
    “And you decided to come down here and share that news flash with me?”
    “Not that news flash, no. This one—a huge mural depicting scenes from The Odyssey was destroyed. My mother, who was a Greek professor, commissioned that mural, and she loved it. Therefore, it means a lot to me, and I’d like it to be replaced.”
    Talia blinked, letting all that information sink in.
    Oh, no.
    Oh, no.
    Freezing her poker face into place, she waited for the rest, although she already had the terrible feeling that this conversation was going to culminate in a Godfather -esque offer she couldn’t refuse, no matter how much she knew she should refuse it.
    “Is that so?” she murmured.
    They seemed to be locked in an impromptu game of chicken, each trying not to waver or show weakness first and undermine their own bargaining position.
    He watched her with narrow-eyed interest for a beat or two, waiting for some further reaction, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. For reasons she couldn’t identify, it felt crucially important never to reveal weakness of any kind to Tony. If she did, she feared he’d swallow her alive in a single gulp.
    When she didn’t say anything else, his lips curled with what looked like reluctant admiration, as though he’d realized that, like him, she was a player.
    She tried to look bored, which was hard given the way her heart thudded with the strain of waiting.
    “Additionally,” he continued, now studying the tips of his neat fingernails as he crossed his ankles and leaned against the table, “we’d like to commission a mural for the lobby of Davies & Sons. The main building over on—”
    “—Madison Avenue,” she finished for him. Like she hadn’t had her nose pressed to the sleek glass windows of the auction house millions of times, desperate for a glimpse of the artwork inside.
    One heavy brow rose, mocking her. “You’re familiar with it? Excellent. We thought that would be a great place to showcase an edgy new painter. We want something that’ll make people stop and stare when they walk in the building. You feel me?”
    Oh, she felt him, all right. She also couldn’t breathe.
    “We figure we could unveil the new lobby mural at our fiftieth-anniversary gala the week before Labor Day. The artist we choose will get a tremendous amount of exposure. Of course.”
    Of course. Bastard.
    Finished dangling his rotten little carrot in front of her starving face, he looked up and straightened his posture. There was a glint in his eyes that looked suspiciously like amused triumph, but, to his credit, he didn’t smirk.
    “Know anyone who might be interested?” he wondered.
    Interested? She was damn near frothing at the mouth.
    It took everything she had to shrug and keep her face blank.
    “I couldn’t say,” she lied.
    “Really?” That quirked brow of his rose higher, and her fingers itched to rip it off his amused face and stomp it beneath her foot like a fuzzy