Lee Wilkinson - Ryan's Revenge

Virginia’s heart pounding like a trip-hammer, her breath coming in shallow gasps, she stared into Ryan’s tough, hard-boned face. A face she knew as well as her own. A face she had often looked into while they made love.

He put out a hand, and with a proprietary gesture brushed a loose tendril of curly hair back from her pale cheek.

“My dear Virginia, there’s no need to act as if you’re afraid of me.”

“So you did catch sight of me in the gallery. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Ryan’s voice was ironic as he told her, “I thought I’d surprise you.”

LEE WILKINSON lives with her husband in a three-hundred-year-old stone cottage in a Derbyshire village, which most winters gets cut off by snow. They both enjoy traveling, and recently—joining forces with their daughter and son-in-law—spent a year going around the world “on a shoestring” while their son looked after Kelly, their much-loved German shepherd dog. Lee’s hobbies are reading and gardening and holding impromptu barbecues for her long-suffering family and friends.

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

WARM June sunshine poured in through the open window, a beneficence after the late and miserably cold spring. In nearby Kenelm Park a dog yapped excitedly, shrill above the continuous, muted roar of London’s traffic.

Glancing from her second-floor window, Virginia saw between the trees the flash of a bright red ball being thrown, and smiled, before returning to her cataloging.

A moment later the internal phone on her desk rang. Reaching out a slender, long-fingered hand she picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’

Helen’s voice said formally, ‘Miss Ashley, there’s a gentleman here asking if we have any paintings by either Brad or Mia Adams. I’ve explained that there are none listed, but he’d like to know if we’re able to acquire any.’

During the past ten years the Adams’ work had become widely sought after, and Virginia had grown used to the idea of her parents being well known—at least in the world of art.

‘I’ll come down,’ she said.

Helen Hutchings, a nice-looking forty-year-old widow, handled casual sales of the good contemporary art that the Charles Raynor Gallery displayed, while Virginia dealt with specialist requests or queries.

Checking that no wisps of silky ash-brown hair had escaped from her neat chignon, and donning the heavy glasses that changed her appearance and made her look considerably older than her twenty-four years, she left her office, slender and business-like in a charcoal-grey silk suit.

The long oval gallery had a balcony running around it and was open to the skylights, where today the oatmeal-coloured blinds were in place because of the bright sunshine.

Peering over the wrought-iron balcony rail, she saw that a few people, mainly tourists she judged, were browsing. At the far end, she caught a glimpse of a tall, well-built man with dark hair who was standing by the reception desk.

His stance was easy, anything but impatient, yet he had an unmistakable air of waiting.

As she reached the stairs, which at the bottom were roped off with a crimson and gold tasselled cord that held a notice saying Private, he turned to glance in her direction.

Ryan.

There was no mistaking that lean, hard-boned face, the set of the shoulders, the carriage of that dark head, the strong yet graceful physique.

Though it was much too far away to see the colour of his eyes, she knew quite well that they were midway between dark blue and violet.

Her breath caught in her throat. Virginia stopped dead, gripping the banister rail convulsively.

Even after her flight from New York and her return to London she had been afraid of seeing him, on edge and wary of every tall, dark-haired man who came into sight.

Only over the last six months or so had she started to feel relatively safe, confident that she had left the past behind her.

Now it seemed that her confidence had been premature.

Her heart was beginning to pound and, a rush of adrenalin galvanising her into action, she turned and fled back to the safety of her office.

Sinking down at her desk, her stomach churning sickeningly, she prayed that he hadn’t seen and recognised her.

If he had, Ryan wasn’t the kind of man to walk quietly away. Remembering how he’d said, ‘I’ll never let you go,’ she shuddered.

In spite of all that had been between them she had left him. Unable to bear the pain of his perfidy, afraid to confront him for fear of what damage it might do to the family, she had run without a word.

He wouldn’t easily forgive her for that.

But if he hadn’t recognised her, the situation could be saved…

Hoping against hope that Charles was back from his early afternoon appointment, she reached for the internal phone.

There was no answer from his office, which was on the ground floor, and she tried the private showroom and then, in mounting desperation, the strongroom.

When, his voice sounding abstracted, he answered, ‘Yes… What is it?’ Virginia could have wept with relief.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but could you possibly find time to see a prospective customer who’s waiting at reception?’

‘What does he or she want?’ he queried in his rather dry, precise manner.

‘He asked if we can acquire any Adams paintings.’

Sounding surprised, Charles said, ‘Surely you can deal with that?’

‘It’s someone I…once knew, and I’d rather not have to meet again.’

Though Virginia had done her best to play it down, with the perception of a man in love, he picked up the urgency. ‘Very well. Leave it to me.’

Fear darkening her grey-green eyes almost to charcoal, she wondered, why, oh, why, out of all the art galleries in London, had Ryan chanced to come into this one?

Since her return to London two-and-a-half years ago, she had used her middle name as a surname and had virtually lived in hiding. No one knew where she was. Not even her parents.

She had been staying in a cheap hotel off the Bayswater Road and, with very little money and Christmas coming up, had been badly in need of a job.

The employment agency she’d approached had sent her to the Raynor Gallery where she had been interviewed by Charles himself.

She had told him about the course on the practical and administrative side of art she had taken at college, and had explained, without giving any details, that she had just returned from the States.

After studying her thoughtfully while she spoke, he had offered her a post as his assistant.

After she had been working for him for almost a year, the gallery had started to handle the Adams’ work, and when Charles had suggested that she should be their contact she had been forced to tell him at least part of the truth.