The Greek beauty pulled on a scarlet dressing gown and dismissed the servant curtly. Once they were alone, she turned to Ralston, her dark eyes flashing beneath kohl-thickened lashes, her lips curved in a crimson pout.
Your painted paramour…
Callie’s words came unbidden to Ralston as he watched Nastasia stalk toward him, so sure of the power of her feminine wiles, so calculated in her approach. His eyes narrowed as she shifted her shoulders and arched her neck to show off the ridge of her collarbone, a spot that was so often his weakness. He felt nothing but distaste, keenly aware that Nastasia was like a plaster copy of one of Nick’s statues—lovely, but lacking the substance that turned mere loveliness into true beauty.
When she stopped in front of him, bending over to reveal her ample bosom in a move calculated to send him over the edge, he met her cool, confident gaze and spoke, his words dry as sand.
“While I appreciate the effort, Nastasia, I am no longer interested.”
A patronizing smile crossed the opera singer’s face. She reached out to stroke his jaw with expert fingers; he resisted the urge to flinch. “I am happy to play this game of cat and mouse, my darling, but you must admit you haven’t given me much of a challenge. After all, you are in my dressing room.”
“Find someone else, Nastasia.”
“I do not want someone else,” she crooned, opening the belt of her dressing gown and leaning forward to give him full access to her br**sts, barely contained by the too-tight corset she wore. Her voice became a sultry whisper. “I want you.”
He met her brazen gaze, unimpressed. “Then it seems we find ourselves at an impasse. I am afraid I don’t want you.”
Anger flashed in her eyes, so quickly that he realized she had been prepared for his rebuff. She shot past the chair, storming to her dressing table, scarlet silk swirling behind her in a dramatic fury. Ralston rolled his eyes before she turned back and pinned him with a searing look. When she spoke, her voice was riddled with disdain. “It is because of her, isn’t it? The girl in the Rivington box.”
His tone iced. “That girl is my sister, Nastasia, and I won’t have you ruin her coming out.”
“You think I would not know your sister, Ralston? I recognized her immediately, all dark hair and gorgeous eyes; a beauty—just as you are. No, I am talking about the wallflower. The woman seated next to you. The one with the plain hair and the plain eyes and the plain face. She must be very rich, Ralston, because you cannot possibly want her for anything else,” she ended with a smug smile.
He refused to rise to her bait, instead drawling, “Jealous, Nastasia?”
“Of course not,” she scoffed. “She is no match for me.”
A vision of Callie came unbidden, all heated words and angry looks and heightened emotion. Callie, who couldn’t coolly calculate if she were given a decade of lessons. Callie, who had chased him down in a public theatre, for God’s sake, without a care in the world for how it might be perceived, simply to serve him a scathing set down. Callie, who was so very alive and changing and unpredictable—and so very much the opposite of the cold and untouchable Nastasia.
One side of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “There you are right. There is no comparison between you.”
Her eyes widened as understanding dawned. “You cannot be serious,” she said on a half laugh. “You would turn to…that…mouse?”
“That mouse is a lady, Nastasia,” he hedged, “sister to an earl. You will refer to her with respect.”
Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “Of course, my lord. What I meant to say was, you want that lady warming your bed? When you could have me? When you could have this?” She indicated her luscious body with a bold sweep of her hand.
His tone flattened. “It seems you need clarity on the matter of our arrangement. So let me provide it. It is over. You will cease attempting to contact me.”
She pouted. “You would leave me with a broken heart?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I feel confident that your heart shall not remain broken for long.”
She held his unreadable gaze for a long moment—her long history as mistress to aristocratic men telling her that Ralston was lost to her. He watched the realization come, saw, too, the calculations she ran as she considered her next step. She could war with him, but she knew that society’s opinion would always err on the side of a wealthy marquess when a foreign actress was involved.
She smiled. “My heart is ever resilient, Ralston.”
He tipped his head, acknowledging her surrender.
“You know, of course, that a girl like that knows nothing of the world in which you and I live.”
He could not resist. “What does that mean?”
“Only that she will want love, Ralston. Girls like her always do.”
“I have little interest in whatever fairy tales the girl believes in, Nastasia. She is nothing to me but a chaperone to my sister.”
“Perhaps,” Nastasia said thoughtfully. “But what are you to her?” When he did not respond, one side of her mouth curved in a wry smile. “You forget that the best seat in the theatre is mine.”
Ralston stood from his chair, making a production of straightening his cravat and smoothing his sleeves before gathering his hat, gloves, and greatcoat from the chaise where he had tossed them upon entering the room. He withdrew Nastasia’s note and set it on the dressing table before turning back to the singer. Bowing low, he took his leave.
And he did it all without saying a word.