Priceless
Praise for
Olivia Darling
“Escape into the glamorous, moneyed world of international fine art.… There’s plenty of intrigue, sparkling sex and champagne on offer, so enjoy!”
—
Woman’s Day
(Australia, on
Priceless)
“A wonderful, intelligent blockbuster which has it all: sex, intrigue, glamour, a page-turning plot and lashings of champagne!”
—SOPHIE KINSELLA, on
Vintage
“This book had me turning the pages at a serious rate of knots! It is sexually charged and quite gripping.…
Priceless
had a good storyline … and an interesting outcome for the priceless painting at the helm of the storyline.”
—
Gloss
(NZ)
“Lies, lust and libation fuel this early summer beach read.… Darling’s … pitch-perfect description and characterization draw readers into the complex world of vintage wine without overwhelming terminology.”
—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review), on
Vintage
“Vintage
has three heroines you genuinely care about, love-to-hate villains, and a parade of gossipy detail. Don’t wait for the beach to enjoy this fantastic beach read; open up a chilled bottle of sparkling wine and enjoy it now!”
—HESTER BROWNE,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Little Lady Agency
“The sex pops like champagne corks, the action races along. Pure, vintage fantasy. I loved it.”
—TILLY BAGSHAWE,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Adored
, on
Vintage
“A dazzling tale following three women and their insatiable need for glamour, power and survival. Prepare for lust, betrayal and strictly no moral fiber.”
—
Heat
, Top Ten Chart (UK), on
Vintage
Also by Olivia Darling
Vintage
Priceless
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2010 Dell Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Olivia Darling
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Dell, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in Great Britain by Hodder & Stoughton, a Hachette Livre UK company, in 2009.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33969-4
v3.1
For Nat Wilde
Contents
Cover
Praise for Olivia Darling
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Acknowledgments
About the Author
PROLOGUE
I
n a small village on the southeast Mediterranean coast of Italy, in a room with windows that opened out right onto the sea, an artist was painting a portrait of a young woman. The girl was positioned at a table by the open window with a fig in her hand. The sunlight fell on her hair, turning it from plain yellow to a sheet of glittering gold. Her face was smooth and flawless, pink-cheeked and red-lipped without any need for artifice. Her expression was as sweet and calm as an angel’s as she gazed out onto the waves. Her name was Maria, and she was modeling for a portrait of her namesake, the Virgin Mary herself, captured in a moment of quiet reflection before the Annunciation.
But the thoughts that were running through the mind of the lovely Maria were more than a little at odds with the subject of the painting. Maria was thinking about the man behind the canvas, Giancarlo Ricasoli. They hadn’t spoken much; he had told her he preferred to work in silence. But she had heard quite a bit about him, and what she knew of his reputation made her shy.
“How much longer will I have to sit like this?” She chanced to disturb him as she saw her father’s boat come into the harbor.
“Are you uncomfortable?” Ricasoli asked.
“No,” she said. “But I will have to go to mass. It isn’t long now.”
“Ah, church,” said the artist. “Of course.”
Maria had heard that Giancarlo Ricasoli didn’t go to mass. Apparently the priest had given Ricasoli a special dispensation on the grounds that while he’d been painting the fresco on the ceiling he’d spent as much time in the church as an ordinary member of the flock might spend there in a lifetime. Having promised that he would provide a beautiful
Madonna and Child
for the priest’s private residence as soon as he had finished this Annunciation for which Maria now posed, Ricasoli had been assured that no more would be said about the matter. At least not officially.
Maria wished she had a talent that could allow her to be excused another hour from that dark old church. But dodging mass was the least of it. She’d heard other things about the artist too. She’d heard that in Florence he had been responsible for the ruination of not one but
five
young women. All had been models for his interpretation of the meeting of Christ and Mary Magdalene. All of them had been virgins when they’d first been summoned to his studio and had been fallen women by the time they’d left.
And so Maria had been horrified when it had first been suggested that she sit for this painting, as had her parents. They too knew of the artist’s reputation. Wasn’t it true that five angry fathers had chased Ricasoli out of Florence? But then the artist had told Maria’s father how much he would pay for the privilege of painting his daughter. It was more than her father could hope to make in a year. And the priest had vouched for the artist, saying that he was a changed man since he’d come to their little village by the sea. “I believe he is a good and proper man at heart,” the priest had said after beating Ricasoli at
cards. So it was agreed that Maria would sit for the painting that had been commissioned for the walls of a church near Naples. Her aunt Stefania, her father’s sister, would chaperone.
Right then, however, Maria’s aunt was doing a poor job. Ricasoli had offered the older woman a glass of wine with their simple lunch, and she had taken it. And another. Now Stefania was snoring lightly on a couch at the other end of the studio, in a most undignified position—shoes off, bare legs akimbo, and her skirts hiked up to her thighs.
“I should make a sketch,” Ricasoli joked. “I need someone posed like that for my depiction of the fallen in purgatory.”
“Don’t you dare,” said Maria. “She would be so upset.”
“Ah, sweet Maria,” Ricasoli sighed. “Always thinking of other people. I hope that I can capture your good pure heart in this painting of mine.”