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After that day, my father had the staff cover the furniture and easels with tarps. No one had entered the room again until Luca showed Alex my mother’s fresco. She was the first person to step foot inside the room in years.
I thought about Luca and what he’d done for me so many times over the years. When Carl Wellington offered Alex a choice between us, that was the day.
And I owed him.
My mother would have loved Alex. When I watched my mom paint, she would tell me to sit in the chair in the corner. No matter how sad she looked, she always fucking smiled. She always looked happy when her eyes landed on me.
I thought about the last time I saw her in the same spot as Alex. With her fingers wrapped around a paintbrush and two more stuffed into her hair like chopsticks. She always did that to push the hair off her face. Dad would kiss her and laugh, promising to buy diamond clips to tie up her hair.
He was a different man back then. My parents were lucky. They married for love. When Alex’s mom ran from Devil’s Creek and broke off the engagement with my father, it allowed him to marry outside of the Founding Families.
Some days, I wished for that kind of freedom. A free pass to do what I wanted without recourse. But I’d grown up knowing my father would choose my bride.
I lifted one of my mother’s paintbrushes from a wooden table, rolling it between my fingers. Alex’s brush moved across the canvas, her movements fluid and graceful.
She startled as I sat in the armchair next to the easel, holding her hand over her heart. “Marcello, you scared me.”
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my thighs. “What are you working on?”
She tucked her feet under her butt, twirling the brush in her hand. “Something for my showcase.”
Her long, blonde curls spilled over her sun-kissed shoulders, stopping at the tops of her breasts. I licked my lips, my cock jerking at the sight of her perfection. Pale skin, delicious curves, pouty pink lips, high cheekbones, and sparkling blue eyes.
“Wanna help me?” Alex asked.
I swiped the palate from the floor. “Which colors do you need?”
Her face brightened. “More red, orange, black, and white.” She pointed at the exact bottles on the floor beside my foot.
“How come you’re using acrylic paint?” I filled the circles in the palette with paint as she grabbed three more synthetic brushes.
Alex groaned. “Don’t get all snobby with me about oil versus acrylic. Andy Warhol used acrylic.”
“He also painted pop art,” I shot back.
It was a hotly debated topic in the art world. Some artists believed oil was the only way to go, but prominent artists were getting into acrylics.
“I’m not,” I assured her. “Just wondering why you’re deviating from your usual.”
“I’ve been getting headaches from the oil fumes.” She peeked up at me and sighed. “I thought I’d try something new since this is a new series.”
My mother preferred oil and also complained about the headaches from the chemicals. Toward the end she dabbled with acrylics but never used them for her showcase pieces.
Alex’s smile touched her eyes. My God, I loved when she looked at me this way, like for once, she didn’t want to claw out my eyes.
Dipping a rigger brush into the black paint, Alex made a slow, steady line across the canvas. Each line ten inches apart, rounding out the uneven square at the center of the canvas.
I watched in awe for what felt like hours. The rough slats on the top, bottom, and sides looked like shards of glass, mirrors that revealed pieces of the overall aesthetic.
Bent forward, with her palms on the floor and her tits falling out of her lacy bra, she peeked up at me. She’d taken off her coveralls after she accidentally spilled a bottle of paint on her clothes. Alex studied my face as if she were trying to commit every curve to memory.
“What are you doing?”
She gave me a sexy smile and pressed her finger to her lips. “You’re my muse. Be quiet so I can think.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
“No, you can’t stop me,” she said in a defiant tone. “Don’t even try.”
