A Bargain with the Enemy Read Free

to this desperate moment. The same two years, after leaving university with her degree, when she had believed the world was now her oyster, only to learn that the recognition she craved for her paintings was ever elusive.
    Many of her friends from university had caved to the pressure of family and stretched finances and entered advertising or teaching instead of following their real dream of painting for a living. But not Bryn. Oh, no, she had stuck doggedly to her desire to have her paintings exhibited in a London gallery, believing that one day she would be able to make her mother proud of her and erase the shame of her family’s past.
    Two years later she had been forced to admit defeat, not by abandoning her paintings, but by being left with no choice but to enter the New Artists competition at Archangel.
    ‘Miss Jones?’
    She turned to look enquiringly at one of the two receptionists sitting behind the elegant cream-and-rose marble desk, which was an exact match for the rest of the marbled entrance hall; several huge columns in the same marble stretched from floor to ceiling, with beautiful glass cabinets protecting the priceless artefacts and magnificent jewellery on display.
    And this was only the entrance hall; Bryn knew from her previous visit to the Archangel Gallery that the six salons leading off this vast hallway all housed yet more unique and beautiful treasures, and there were many more being prepared for auction in the vast basement beneath the building.
    She straightened, determined not to be intimidated—or at least not to reveal that she was intimidated—by her elegant surroundings, or by the cool blonde and elegant receptionist who couldn’t be much older than her own twenty-three years. ‘Yes, I’m Miss Jones.’
    ‘Linda,’ the other woman supplied as she stood up from behind the desk and walked across the entrance hall, the three-inch heels of her black shoes clicking on the marble floor as she joined a hesitant Bryn still standing near the doorway.
    Bryn felt distinctly underdressed in the fitted black trousers and loose flowered silk shirt she had chosen to wear for her second meeting with Eric Sanders, the gallery’s in-house art expert. ‘I have an appointment with Mr Sanders,’ she supplied softly.
    Linda nodded. ‘If you would care to follow me to the lift? Mr D’Angelo left instructions for me to take you upstairs to his office as soon as you arrived.’
    Bryn instantly stiffened, her feet suddenly feeling so leaden they appeared to have become weighted to the marble floor. ‘My appointment is with Mr Sanders.’
    Linda turned with a swish of that perfectly groomed blonde hair as she realised Bryn wasn’t following her. ‘Mr D’Angelo is conducting the interviews this morning.’
    Bryn’s tongue felt as if it were stuck to the roof of her suddenly dry mouth. ‘Mr D’Angelo?’ she managed to squeak.
    The older woman nodded. ‘One of the three brothers who own this gallery.’ Bryn knew exactly who the three D’Angelo brothers were. She just had no idea which one Linda was referring to when she said ‘Mr D’Angelo’. The haughty and cold Michael? The arrogant playboy Raphael? Or the cruel Gabriel, who had taken her naive heart and trampled all over it?
    It didn’t really matter which of the D’Angelo brothers it was; they were all arrogant and ruthless as far as Bryn was concerned, and she wouldn’t have come within twenty feet of a single one of them if not for the fact that she was as determined to become one of the six artists chosen to take part in the Archangel New Artists Exhibition next month, as she was desperate.
    She gave a slow shake of her head. ‘I think there’s been some sort of mistake.’ She frowned. ‘Mr Sanders’ secretary phoned me and made the appointment.’
    ‘Because Mr D’Angelo was out of the country at the time,’ Linda said, nodding.
    Bryn could only stand and stare at the other woman, wondering if it was too late for her to just cut