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He smiled down at her, a truly honest and content smile, and captivated by it, she returned it in kind, was helpless not to. But while a part of her wanted to clap and say good for you! there was another part, the one that was also loyal to the entire Gage family, that wished he’d reconsider. For Molly’s entire life, she’d sided with Julian about everything, anytime and anywhere, yet now she felt torn. Because she’d given her heart to Garrett two weeks ago and knew for certain that she’d never get it back. And she knew Garrett would fight tooth and claw to keep Julian in the business.
He was one of their greatest assets and the only Gage brother cocky enough to neither worry nor care about appearances. His suave manner and mysterious ways seemed to both annoy and charm the competition, and made him the best PR person in the state. Molly doubted the Daily would have even half the amount of advertisers it did when Julian no longer had a hand in reeling them in. Maybe he would reconsider in due time?
Continuing their stroll with a sigh, she nearly bumped into a blank wall. “All this white space could use something, you know,” she suddenly said aloud.
From a few feet away, Julian chuckled, and the husky sound created a compelling echo in the wide-open room. “Now, why did I know you were going to say that?” he asked as he came over.
She grinned and wrinkled her nose at him. “Maybe because I don’t like
blank walls and you’ve known this for twenty years or more.”
Stopping just an arm’s length away, he smoothed the wrinkle in her nose with one lone fingertip. “Then make a mural for me. This entire wall—make it yours.”
Molly held his penetrating stare, her nose itching where he’d touched it. As the wheels in her head started spinning, she turned to the wall and found that her muse had already jumped with an idea. “Are you high? My individual paintings already command five-figure prices. A mural would run at least 150,000 and it would take me months. I need to talk to my gallerist.”
Her gallerist had once represented Warhol and he was the savviest art dealer around, selling the craziest, most daring and contemporary art in the world. He was also Julian’s friend.
“Leave Blackstone out of it. A hundred and fifty it is.”
She gasped. “Jules, I can’t charge you that, it feels like I’m robbing my best friend.”
“Then it should be fun. A hundred-fifty K, Molls, but make it real pretty for me. As pretty as you.” His smile flashed charmingly, and a bucket of excitement settled in Molly’s stomach until she could hardly stand it. She didn’t know if it was due to the fabulous deal she’d just closed or to being called pretty for once without it being accompanied by an insult to her clothes attached. Perhaps it was both.
“Of course, Jules!” Pulling herself up by grabbing onto the collar of his shirt, she quickly kissed his hard jaw, then wished she hadn’t, because he totally stiffened. “Thanks. When can I start?”
He spun for the elevator and cranked his neck as though it had cramped on him. “Tomorrow if you’d like,” he said.
Molly floated in a cloud of bliss as she followed him. Had she really just landed an enormous work space just upstairs for the time being?
Had she just been commissioned for her first mural?
She could hardly believe her good fortune, although she’d always enjoyed a certain share of luck when it came to her art. The sudden interest from a top New York gallery a couple of years before had placed her works in several important collectors’ homes, and before she knew it her name was being piled up next to contemporary artists like David Salle and Sean Scully; big, big, big names in the art world. Now for the first time in her twenty-three years, maybe some of that creative luck would rub off on her sadly lacking love life. Maybe she was close to getting what she wanted with Garrett.
Thanks to Julian, for sure.
Because she’d suddenly realized that, just as her canvases did not miraculously paint themselves, her love life wouldn’t happen without some encouragement. And that was where Julian’s help making Garrett jealous fit in.
Once back in Julian’s spacious apartment, Molly chose the guest bedroom to the left of his room, a space done in a pastel blue-and-green palette that she’d always found soothing. She retrieved her night creams, day creams, moisturizing creams, shampoos and toothbrush and aligned them all on the sink, then peeled out of her still-damp clothes, showered and slipped into her sleep shirt, which was actually an old T-shirt Julian had used in high school and his mother had sent to the Donation Station. Nobody knew Molly had fished this shirt out of the garbage bag for being the softest and most worn, and Julian would hardly remember he’d ever owned it.
Once ready for bed, she went out in the hall to look for him and hoped to propose they watch a movie, but his bedroom door was closed. Disappointment crept in, so then she went to bed and lay there, gazing at the walls, the curtains and the ceiling fan for hours.
Sleep eluded her, and her thoughts kept drifting toward Garrett. His black hair, those onyx eyes with the sooty lashes, and oh, God, the way he’d kissed her two weeks ago. She remembered that kiss so perfectly that she’d been reliving it nightly, in bed, as she futilely tried to fall asleep.
“I think I’d like to be a spinster,” Molly had told Kate that evening as they stood out on the terrace of the Gage mansion, gazing into the brightly lit masquerade party transpiring inside the sprawling 10,000-square-foot home.
Kate had obviously laughed. “Molls. Why on earth would you say that?” She’d lovingly tousled her hair, which Molly had worn loose for the evening. “You’re beautiful and sweet and any man would be lucky to have you.”
“It’s just that no man seems to live up to my expectations.”
With a dreary sigh, Molly showed Kate the picture of the three Gage brothers she carried in her iPhone. It featured the gray-eyed, responsible Landon, the dark-haired, honorable Garrett and of course the sex god playboy, Julian. As her favorite Gage brother, Julian was everything that a good husband was not.
“I know what you mean,” Kate said softly, staring longingly at the picture.
It couldn’t have been easy for her to play both mother and father to Molly while she herself had been barely a teen. Although Eleanor Gage had been a stand-in mother for both of them, she was a stern woman, and as one did when running on survival instincts, both girls had tried to put on their best behavior and their whitest smiles with the person who’d given them food and shelter. But when alone, Molly would seek out Kate’s warmth and support like she’d seek out a pillow and blanket. Especially during those lonely times when Julian had been sent away. Sometimes Molly even wondered if she wasn’t to blame for Kate’s lack of a love life, a husband and a family of her own. The thought made her stomach feel heavy.
“You deserve someone, too,” Molly whispered.
Kate smiled brightly and winked at her. “Then let’s go find one,” she teased and rushed for the double doors that led inside, but Molly groaned and stayed back, loathing her stupid costume.
