Elusive as the Unicorn Read online

Eve shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  Auburn brows rose over snapping green eyes. ‘Do you?’ Sophy drawled hardly.

  Eve gave a heavy sigh. There had been a continuing argument between Paul and Sophy in recent months, because Paul, as her adviser and lawyer, refused to let Sophy launch the publicity campaign concerning The Unicorn that would, without it actually coming to the point of revealing her true identity, seriously endanger her anonymity.

  The Unicorn, because of the subject of her paintings, had been a name she and Sophy had come up with for her during that first frank discussion about her work. And while the name, coupled with her work, had added a certain amount of interest during the early years, Sophy now insisted that it was no longer necessary, claimed it would only add to the success of her work if it should come out that The Unicorn was a woman, and not the man everyone had so readily assumed it to be.

  Paul insisted as strongly that her identity remain a secret. And so the argument went on, with Paul coming to the point where he had advised Eve not to take part in the winter exhibition at all if Sophy couldn’t do what they asked.

  ‘Let’s not talk about that any more today, Sophy,’ she dismissed wearily. ‘I hope you managed to placate that man Adam after the rash promise you had made him,’ she added teasingly.

  ‘I only told him The Unicorn would be at the party; it was up to him to discover who that was. Besides,’ the other woman gave a wicked grin, ‘he was so relieved to learn that Paul wasn’t The Unicorn that I didn’t need to placate him at all!’

  ‘Sophy——’ Eve chided wryly.

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ Sophy insisted with wide-eyed innocence. ‘He almost got down and kissed my feet when I assured him Paul was telling the truth.’

  She couldn’t help smiling; Sophy really was outrageous! ‘Who is he, anyway?’ she queried lightly, deciding she might just as well ignore the other woman’s sarcasm at Paul’s expense; Sophy took no notice of her reproof, anyway!

  ‘A successful entrepreneur, worth millions,’ Sophy confided. ‘And he also owns one of the most prestigious galleries in New York,’ she added excitedly, her veneer of bored cynicism slipping in her genuine enthusiasm for the subject.

  It was when Sophy was like this that Eve could see the side of her that Patrick obviously knew and loved so well. A confirmed, single-minded career-woman until Patrick had come into her life, there was obviously something within him that was able to reach into the softer core of her, some quality that only Patrick possessed; this more endearing side of Sophy was certainly never in evidence when Paul was around. If it were, they possibly wouldn’t argue quite so much!

  ‘And he’s very interested in the The Unicorn paintings the gallery owns,’ Sophy continued triumphantly. ‘Informed me that he has his own private collection back in New York.’

  His admiration for Eve’s work had been more than obvious a couple of evenings ago, but nevertheless it shook her slightly to think of him owning any of her work; the paintings were, after all, private pieces of herself she had put on to canvas. He had been right when he’d said her work came from her heart and soul, and each painting was a labour of love.

  ‘Apparently he always has at least two pieces of your work on display at his gallery,’ Sophy confided with enthusiasm. ‘In fact, he wanted me to approach you about taking your winter exhibition over to New York. With Patrick and me working on a commission and overseeing the project, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Eve said drily.

  But she couldn’t help feeling pleasure in the compliment she had just been given. Each painting she did was a labour of love, and when it left her studio to be sold at Sophy’s gallery it went with great reluctance on Eve’s part to let that part of herself go. She had often wondered what sort of person, just who, would claim her latest and most precious ‘child’; each successive painting had always become the most precious.

  Much as it made her feel slightly uncomfortable to think of the man Adam owning several parts of her inner self in that way, she also knew instinctively that the paintings would be cherished by him, that despite being a businessman he was able to appreciate the emotional value of her work and not just the financial; and so many of the buyers seemed to be concerned purely with the financial nowadays.

  ‘And there’s more,’ Sophy added, with a gleam of laughter in her eyes.

  Eve instinctively distrusted that gleam. ‘Oh?’ she prompted warily.

  ‘Mm,’ the other woman said teasingly. ‘He told me the two of you never had got around to introducing yourselves properly the other evening.’

  ‘It didn’t seem necessary, the fact that we’re called Adam and Eve amused him enough,’ she recalled with a heavy sigh.

  Sophy chuckled. ‘That’s because he had the added insight of knowing his full name is Adam Gardener!’ she announced with great enjoyment.

  ‘It couldn’t be!’ Eve groaned, briefly closing her eyes, shaking her head as if to shut out the awful coincidence of that name.

  ‘It is,’ the other woman laughed softly. ‘Think how much more amused he would have been if he had known he was talking to Eve Eden!’

  It didn’t even bear thinking about!

  ‘What on earth were our parents thinking of when they named the two of us?’ she gasped.

  ‘Well, certainly not that you would ever meet each other!’ Sophy was obviously enjoying herself immensely—at their expense.

  And why shouldn’t she? Good heavens, Adam Gardener and Eve Eden—it was too ridiculous to even think about!

  ‘Well, at least that isn’t likely to happen again.’ Thank goodness. What a topic for conversation they would be if the people she knew should ever realise Adam’s full name and its significance to hers. Goodness knew, her name alone had been a source of amusement for years; the two together would be just too much.

  ‘If we do go into collaboration with him over an exhibition in New York, he will obviously want to meet you,’ Sophy pointed out practically.

  Eve shook her head very firmly. ‘You know very well that I never travel.’

  Sophy’s mouth tightened. ‘That’s only because you’ve allowed——’

  ‘Besides,’ she cut in determinedly, wanting to avoid Sophy saying anything further that was detrimental to Paul, knowing the other woman usually lost no opportunity to criticise him, even if it wasn’t always valid.

  She simply didn’t want to travel, it certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with Paul’s aversion to her becoming involved with the artistic set that could become such a threat to their privacy.

  ‘I’m just too busy working with my grandmother on the arrangements for the wedding in September.’ Not that that was really taking up so much of her time; it was only going to be a small affair, with close family and a few friends.

  And, if there was still this animosity between Paul and Sophy at that time, she had the feeling he was going to insist Sophy and Patrick not be included in the latter. It was going to be a serious bone of contention between them.

  Sophy arched mocking brows. ‘Is September when Paul has decided the wedding is to be?’

  She gave a weary sigh. ‘That’s when we have decided it’s to be, yes.’

  The other woman gave a sceptical snort. ‘But I have no doubt the date fits in very nicely with Paul’s schedule.’

  ‘Well, of course it does.’ Eve was becoming more than a little irritable now. ‘As the wedding can really be at any time, there would be no point in arranging it for when it’s completely inconvenient for everyone involved.’

  ‘September suits you too, does it?’ Sophy derided drily.

  ‘Sophy, I know you and Paul don’t get on, but——’

  ‘That has to be the understatement of the year!’ the other woman scorned.

  ‘—but he is the man I love and intend to marry,’ Eve finished firmly, glaring fiercely.

  Sophy was unaffected by that glare. ‘More’s the pity.’ She looked totally disheartened by the prospect, even
lacking her usual grace of movement as she dropped down into an armchair. ‘OK, I’m sorry.’ She waved an elegantly long hand dismissively. ‘But the man can be so bloody-minded.’

  Eve smiled without rancour at this familiar accusation. ‘You just don’t like him because he doesn’t readily agree with what you want.’

  Sophy drew in a ragged breath, raising sleepy lids. ‘Is that what you think?’ she frowned.

  ‘I know it,’ she chided indulgently.

  Her friend just looked at her for several seconds. ‘If you say so,’ she finally sighed. ‘So what are the chances of the two of you coming to dinner this week?’ she drawled in a bored voice.

  Eve smiled. ‘You didn’t have to come all the way over here to ask me that; a telephone call would have sufficed,’ she said tauntingly.

  Sophy had too much self-confidence and outright nerve to look even the slightest bit disconcerted by the sarcasm. ‘I wasn’t about to waste this opportunity to talk to you about the exhibition we want to set up for you this winter——’

  ‘I didn’t think you needed an excuse to do that,’ she teased, moving to look out of the huge studio window, loving, as always, the utter peace and tranquillity that met her gaze. The work she had been able to have done on this old family house was the biggest reward she had received from her painting, and from the legacy she had had from her parents on her twenty-first birthday that had allowed her to concentrate fully on that career that had brought so many rewards.

  Her gaze softened with love as her grandmother glanced up from where she was working on her rose garden to see her standing at the third-floor window, and the old lady straightened to wave happily in the sunshine.

  Her grandmother had been the most important person in Eve’s life after the death of her parents twenty years ago, when Eve was only six and Evelyn Ashton was already in her early fifties.

  The elderly woman hadn’t hesitated about taking over the care of both of her young granddaughters after the road accident that had robbed her of her only two children, her son and his wife, and her daughter and her husband, the four returning from a weekend in the country when their car had lost control and gone over the side of a bridge. Four-year-old Marina and six-year-old Eve had been left orphaned after the crash.

  Ashton House had become a haven for Eve and her young cousin, and Evelyn Ashton a source of never-ending love. It hadn’t been until Eve was in her teens that she had realised her only two children’s lives wasn’t the only price her grandmother had paid all those years ago; because of some unsound investments on the family’s behalf by her only son, investments he hadn’t had time to correct before his untimely death, everything but the family home had been sacrificed, too. And the house, far from being the palatial place that Eve had always imagined it to be, was run-down and very much in need of repair.

  The money her parents had left in trust for her until she was twenty-one hadn’t been enough to carry out all the work that needed doing, and her grandmother had insisted that she use part of it to pursue the career that might otherwise have been denied her. The first thing she had done when she’d begun to earn money from her paintings was to finish restoring the house to its former glory; Ashton House was now the home her grandmother could be proud of.

  ‘She’s a wonderful old lady,’ Sophy murmured appreciatively at Eve’s side, having noiselessly crossed the room to join her at the window.

  Eve glanced round at her. ‘I wouldn’t let her hear the old part of that statement,’ she said drily.

  The other woman grimaced. ‘Now there’s someone I do respect.’

  Eve continued to gaze fondly at her grandmother. ‘She’s particularly happy at the moment because Marina is coming home for a few days this weekend.’

  ‘Your lovely cousin has found time from her busy social schedule to visit the woman who brought her up?’ Sophy said scoffingly. ‘How nice!’

  Eve sighed, shaking her head. ‘There aren’t many people you do like, are there?’

  The other woman shrugged. ‘I like you, I like your grandmother, I even like Adam Gardener—and not just because of the good he could do your career and my gallery,’ she drawled, without apology for her earlier remarks about Eve’s cousin. ‘I have little time for fools.’ She gave a graceful shrug.

  The mention of his name had brought the image of Adam Gardener to mind; somehow she had the feeling he didn’t suffer fools gladly, either. He certainly hadn’t suffered what he considered to be her foolish behaviour without comment!

  ‘Dinner tomorrow,’ Sophy announced briskly. ‘Can that be arranged? I know you have to talk it over with Paul before making any definite arrangements, but are there any other plans he can put up as a valid excuse not to come?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Eve said drily. ‘But of course, I’ll have to check with him first.’

  ‘I never expected anything else.’ The other woman nodded briskly. ‘Call me as soon as you know for definite. I’ll take it the two of you are coming until I hear otherwise.’

  Eve was still smiling ruefully to herself a few minutes later as she went outside to join her grandmother; it was typical of Sophy’s arrogance that she assumed she and Paul would be present at her dinner party ‘unless she heard otherwise’. No wonder the other woman always succeeded in rubbing Paul up the wrong way; he hated it when people made arrangements for him without even the politeness of consulting him on it.

  Her grandmother straightened as she saw Eve approaching; she was a tall, grey-haired figure with a deceptively stern façade, behind which lay a mischievous nature, a fact Eve and Marina had quickly learnt once they had come to live with her. ‘Sophy on her usual form?’ she said with affection, the respect between the two women definitely mutual.

  ‘When is she anything else?’ Eve murmured derisively, running a caressing hand across a perfectly formed pink rose. This garden was her grandmother’s pride and joy, her ‘bolt-hole when caring for two small girls’, she had claimed teasingly when Eve and Marina were a lot younger, and she spent hours caring for the beautiful blossoms, a fact reflected in their perfection.

  ‘Marriage has softened her a little,’ Eve’s grandmother excused. ‘I can remember a time when she was very brittle and cynical.’

  ‘According to Paul, she still is—among other things,’ Eve sighed, a little weary after this last conversation of this constant battle between the two of them.

  Sophy might be the daughter of an old friend of her grandmother’s, but Paul was the son of her grandmother’s lawyer; he had taken over his father’s law office when Edgar Lester had died two years ago, and Eve knew that her grandmother had affection for both Paul and Sophy, a fact that was reflected in her reply.

  ‘It wouldn’t do if we were all the same, darling.’ She smiled reassuringly, patting her hand. ‘Paul is uneasy around Sophy because she is what she is, but he loves you for the same reason.’

  Because she was what she was.

  According to Adam Gardener, she was little more than a ‘walking doormat’ waiting to be walked over. A frown marred her brow as thought of the other man came unbidden to her mind for the second time that day.

  But how could she help but occasionally think about a man she now knew as Adam Gardener—when her own name was Eve Eden?

  * * *

  ‘You’re sure he isn’t just being selfish again?’ Sophy sceptically voiced her disbelief while Patrick took Eve’s jacket.

  Eve gave the other woman a reproving look from turquoise eyes, her dress a perfect match for their colour; it was high-necked and sleeveless, somehow all the more sexy because of that. ‘I doubt he had the client call him on purpose,’ she taunted.

  ‘I wouldn’t put that past him.’ Sophy put her arm companionably through Eve’s as they walked through to the lounge of the couple’s elegantly furnished apartment. ‘Anything to avoid spending time with me!’

  Paul had telephoned Eve only minutes before he was due to pick her up to drive them both to the O’Donnells for dinner, to
tell her that a client needed to see him urgently and that he was going to be indefinitely delayed.

  She had to admit that the thought of him having used an imaginary appointment with a client to opt out of the dinner he had only agreed to go to for her sake, had briefly—disloyally—crossed her own mind earlier. He had been so against coming here for the dinner when she’d broached the subject with him, so perhaps she could be excused that one little doubt, especially as she had dismissed the disloyal thought only seconds after it had entered her mind. Paul wouldn’t be that small-minded; he did everything he could to try and please her, always showering her with gifts, his thoughtfulness undoubted. Sophy just didn’t understand him.

  ‘Leave the subject alone, darling,’ Patrick advised softly from behind the two of them. ‘We should be using this opportunity to try and persuade Eve into agreeing to just thinking about a New York exhibition.’

  ‘A lot of good talking to her about it will do if Paul doesn’t agree,’ Sophy scoffed disgustedly as her husband crossed the room to pour them all a drink.

  Patrick gave his wife a silencing glance—and it was evidence of Sophy’s love for him that she actually took notice of the warning—albeit with tight-lipped self-control.

  Patrick’s gaze softened as he handed Eve the martini she had asked for. ‘We would both like you to do this exhibition in New York because we feel it would be the final burst your career needs,’ he told her gently. ‘Not because we want any personal glory from it—no matter what might have been said to the contrary,’ he added with an affectionate smile at Sophy.

  Eve sighed. ‘An exhibition isn’t what’s really the problem——’

  ‘Paul is the prob——Sorry.’ Sophy held up defensive hands as Patrick flashed her a warning glare. ‘I can’t help it if I think all this secrecy is a waste of a beautiful woman,’ she defended defiantly, exceptionally lovely herself tonight in a figure-hugging dress that showed the perfection of her slender figure.

  ‘As I recall, you were the one who decided The Unicorn was a great name for an artist, and thought the elusiveness of the person behind the paintings was a great publicity angle,’ Eve reminded drily.