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“It’s your event, too, and I will spank your pretty little ass if you say otherwise again.”
“You do not need to say things like that to me.”
“Because I scandalize you? We both know that’s no more true than Cinderella. Besides, A) you’d bust my balls if I ever tried anything with you, which I would not, because B) I like submissive types. You are so far from that it’s laughable. If you were, I’d already have you past this nonsense that you can’t paint and run your family business.”
I grimace. “Where are you going with this, exactly?”
“You should be at a spa getting a facial or whatever you women do before fancy black-tie affairs that would never cross our male minds.”
“Actually,” I say, blowing out a breath, “I was”—I stop myself, not wanting to give him the wrong idea about where this is going—“about to take a shower.”
“Please tell me that sentence was supposed to finish with the word ‘painting,’ because that’s the only answer acceptable in my mind.”
I inspect the project I’ve been working on for hours, my inspiration coming from an unexpected place.
“Faith?” he presses.
“Yes. I’ve been painting.”
“Thank you, Lord,” he says, his voice exaggerated relief. “I have to see whatever it is before I leave Sunday.”
“No,” I say quickly. “This is nothing like the black-and-white landscapes I’m known for. This is just for me.”
“Now I’m really intrigued. And after tonight, you’ll be a hot mama in the art circuit. Maybe this new project is the one where we make big money together.”
“You know that doesn’t matter to me,” I say. “I just needed to pay my outrageous L.A. rent, and selling my work helped.”
“You mean you downplayed your dream of quitting the art museum and painting full-time every chance you got. I’ve told you before many times. There isnothingwrong with dreaming big and getting paid big for your work. I need new work to keep that dream alive. You’ve given me nothing in a year.”
“I don’t have anything to give you,” I say despite the dozen covered easels around the room that say otherwise.
“Liar,” he accuses. “We both know you can’t live without that brush in your hand. I want to see what you did before I leave.”
“No,” I say. “No, this one is for me.”
He’s silent a beat. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear you say you were painting for you again?”
I inhale and release a shaky breath. “Josh—”
“Don’t tell me the reasons why you can’t paint, because I know it’s in your blood. It’s like breathing to you, and I also know that you’ve been secretly painting. But tonight isn’t about me pressuring you to paint. It’s about celebrating the success of the work that you’ve already given me and the art lovers of the world. This night is my birthday gift to you. So. Happy birthday, Faith.”
“Thank you,” I say, always amazed at how he remembers this day when others who should remember have often forgotten. “How are you so bad with women and so good with your clients?”
“Being single is not about failure. It’s about choice. I want what I want, and I won’t settle—something we both know you understand.”
The man knows far more about me than most of the people who I called friends back in L.A., but then, he lives in the art world, as I once did. “I walked right into that one,” I say.
“Yes, you did. Meet me at my hotel at six thirty. I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.” He hangs up, and my lashes lower, a hotspot in my chest and belly where emotions I don’t want to feel have formed. Emotions I swore Iwantedto feel when I moved into my mother’s bedroom. I was wrong. Emotions weaken me. They make me feel instead of think. They change my judgment calls. Yes. I was definitely wrong about welcoming them back into my world. Just like I was wrong two years ago when I bought this place, thinking I could paint and help at the winery and give up nothing. I can’t do both, and when I dip a toe back into the art world, that’s what I want to do full-time. I wish tonight wasn’t happening. I wish I had said no. And yet, I need to go change and dress.
Still holding my phone to my ear, I shake myself out of my reverie and stick my cell inside my jeans pocket. I have to shower and get dressed. Tearing away the smock, I toss it on the wooden stool beside the table. I exit the studio and rush down the stairs and back to my bedroom, then finally reach my closet. Flipping on the light, I walk into the giant box-shaped space and stop at the far wall, where my party dresses hang. I remove two choices, both still with tags, both splurges meant for shows I was to attend just before my father’s death. One is a deep royal blue, made of lace with a V-neck and gorgeous sheer long sleeves. I love those sleeves, but my favorite part of the dress is that it’s ankle length with a classic front slit. I like classic. I like the way it makes me feel like the woman I forgot I was until I met Nick Rogers. I’m not sure why he woke me up. I’m pretty sure I will wish he didn’t later, but tonight, I need to feel like me, like Faith Winter, not an employee of the winery.
I refocus on the second dress, which is… Well, it’s a black dress. That’s the problem. No matter what it asserts otherwise, its color is my deterrent; it says death to me, a reminder of all loss. Of the people I love. Of hope. Of dreams. Of so many things. I don’t know if I can survive this night while being reminded of all those reasons I can’t allow my past to be my present. But tonight is about that past and about my art, though I really don’t know what that means to me anymore. It’s a hobby and nothing more. It can’t be. It’s… Wait. My spine straightens. Josh said tonight could set me up for a good payday, and I already know a second mortgage on a new mortgage won’t do for me. But do I dare believe my art, my past, could help me get out of this hole that I’m in with the winery? Or at least buy me some time to find the money my mother has to have somewhere? I hope.
I set the blue dress on the bench in the middle of the room and turn around, then sprint from the closet, through the bathroom and bedroom. Running back to the stairs to my studio, I start pulling sheets off easels, staring at each of the dozen pieces I’ve completed, one by one. Looking for the ones that Josh might think are worthy of his representation. And the truth is, I never think any of my work is worthy of representation, so why am I even trying to figure this out? But I’ve sold work for up to seven thousand dollars. Okay, only a couple of pieces, and they took time to sell, but if I could sell just some of these, I could buy that time I need. And if I wasn’t so damn confused about how my two worlds fit together, I might have already thought about this. I’ll just show them all to Josh. I rush to the office in the corner, ignoring the glass desk in the center, and walk to a closet, where I remove a camera.
Returning to the studio, I snap photos of my work. I’m about to head back downstairs, but somehow I end up standing in front of the freshly painted easel. A portrait. I never paint portraits, and not because I don’t enjoy them or have no skills in that area, but rather because of the way the brush exposes secrets a person might not want exposed, and I value privacy. I value my secrets staying my secrets, and I assume others feel the same. But I want to know Nick Rogers’s secrets, and I know he has secrets. Which is why I haven’t gone to the internet for answers, where I will discover only sterile data. Instead, I found myself painting him, and the hard, handsome lines of his face are defined, but it’s his navy blue eyes that I’ve fretted over. Eyes that, along with what I’ve sensed and spoken of with him, tell a story I don’t quite understand, but I will. I have the weekend off from the winery as my gift to myself, and I plan to finish the painting. I plan to know that man more and figure him out before I see him again. Doing so feels important, for reasons I can’t quite say right now. Maybe he’s my enemy or maybe he just enjoys the dynamics of playing that game. Perhaps I’m just trying to feed myself a facade of control by trying to figure out the unknown that I simply won’t and don’t have with that man. I wonder if he knows he doesn’t have it, either.
Whatever the case, it won’t matter tonight. As Josh said. The event has been sold out for months. No one, not even Tiger and his arrogance, can snag a ticket. And since I’m not going back to the winery until Sunday night, I suspect he’ll have gone back to wherever he practices by then. In fact, maybe I’m wrong about seeing him again. If he gets back to work and gets busy, he might even forget whatever challenge I represent. My painting might actually be the last I see of the man. This should be a relief. It’s not.
