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“Of course, I did. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t give this guy a thorough Googling?”
I gape at her. “That’s just . . . wrong. It’s invasive.”
She pushes out a dramatic sigh. “Well, it’s not like I found much, anyway.”
Although I don’t want to condone her snooping, it’s nearly impossible to keep my curiosity in line with my principles now. “What do you mean, you didn’t find much?”
“I mean, aside from estimates of his net worth over the past ten years and a handful of high profile acquisitions that Baine International has on public record, Dominic Xavier Baine appears to be a closed book.”
His full name is a prize on its own—a morsel of information I’m only learning for the first time now. Nick’s full name is elegant and dark and mysterious, like the man himself. The syllables slide through my senses and I savor them as I would any stolen sweet.
“They say he hates publicity of any kind,” Tasha continues. “One magazine interviewer even called him the ‘shadow mogul’ because of how elusive he is with the media. He keeps his business dealings far under the radar and no one seems to know much about him personally either, aside from the official bio stuff on record with his firm’s website. That’s practically a miracle by itself in this day and age. While the majority of his fellow bazillionaires never met a camera or headline they didn’t love, the most anyone can say about your Mr. Baine is that the man is an enigma.”
I absorb this new insight in silence. I sensed from the beginning that Nick was intensely private, even secretive. Now that feeling settles over me with more weight than I care to examine. I didn’t want to get nosy about him or his personal life. The fact that he’s taken steps to keep himself out of the spotlight—despite his significant success and wealth—shouldn’t bother me.
It shouldn’t matter that he is damaged and solitary, as Margot has warned me. Or that he is elusive and protective of his secrets—whatever they may be—as Tasha’s revelations seem to imply. But yet, it does.
All of these things trouble me deeply.
Because I have enough secrets for both of us.
Chapter 18
I step back from my easel, frowning as I tilt my head to assess my work in the soft peach light of sunrise. I’m set up in the living room of Claire’s apartment, a rumpled sea of paint-stained, thrift-store sheets spread out over the floor beneath my bare feet and the unfinished cityscape I just can’t seem to get right no matter how hard I try.
Clipped to the top of my easel is the photograph I’ve been struggling to bring to life on the canvas. My scowl deepens as I stare at the sallow light and lifeless lines of my painting. Maybe Nick is right. My art isn’t good enough. Not for his gallery, or anyone else’s.
As if in evidence of that fact, I spot an errant shadow on one of the brownstones I’ve meticulously painted today. I move back to the painting to correct it, but my fiddling only makes the problem worse.
“Dammit.”
I’ve spent weeks trying to perfect this piece. Now I’m tempted to trash the whole thing. Before I let myself give in to that urge, I toss my brush down in frustration and head into the kitchen to forage for breakfast.
It’s barely eight in the morning, although I’ve been awake for hours. After spending yesterday at Tasha’s house, last night I went to bed restless, my mind crowded with a thousand distracting thoughts. Many of them having to do with Nick.
I can’t pretend that Tasha’s Internet digging into his life doesn’t bother me. Not only because she did it without asking, but also because the information she uncovered—sparse as it was—has spawned an unwanted, but nagging curiosity in me.
Curiosity and caution, both in equal measure.
I want to know more about him. If I’m being honest with myself, I want to know everything about Dominic Xavier Baine.
The fact that he shared what he went through in Dubai carries new weight today, now that I’m aware of his reputation for privacy in both his business and personal lives. I feel special that he confided in me, that he trusted me. He didn’t have to do it. He didn’t have to explain himself to me at all, and yet he did.
I don’t do anything because I think I have to, he’d said.
And no, I don’t suppose he does.
But there is more to Nick than simple elusiveness or strict discretion. I sense it the same way all wounded things are able to recognize the scars carried by others. He’s enigmatic for a reason. He’s forbidding because there is safety in isolation. It doesn’t take billions of dollars or a penthouse mansion to learn those lessons in life.
Whatever is in Nick’s past—whatever walls he’s built around himself now to protect him in the present—it is his own to contend with. I don’t belong there. No more than he belongs in mine.
I drop a slice of multigrain bread in the toaster, then pour myself the last of the tepid coffee I brewed several hours ago. After stirring in some cream and sugar, I lean my elbows on the white marble countertop and flip open my tablet to check the weather for my commute to Vendange later today. I groan. Cloudy with heavy rain in the evening. Wonderful. Bad weather usually means a slower night for tips.
My toast pops and I pivot to retrieve it. Munching on a corner of the dry bread, I return to my tablet and start to close down the browser.
I mean to close it. But all of my thinking about Nick and the scars we both carry rakes open an old wound inside me too. My finger hovers over the search bar.
Don’t do it.
