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The last of the wrapping falls away.
It’s like being slapped in the face with a cold wave. That ache I felt in the gallery is back. More intense now. I push all of it to the side and try to look at the painting without expectation, with all shoved to the side. I can’t do it. What I felt—it was real. It takes a minute to get myself under full control. To stop thinking of those slashes of light at the edges of a doorframe, searching for a way in.
I lay the dark-magic canvas down on the dining room table and leave the room.
Lucky for me, the information I need has already arrived. It’s waiting for me. The person who made this painting, who reached into my soul and shook it, is waiting for me. I keep my mind carefully blank on the way into my study. No expectations.
The image of the woman’s shadow behind her lace curtain floats weightlessly across my memory.
The artist, she—
A slip-up on Robert’s part. A woman. That’s all I know. Whoever painted this could be any woman in the city. In the world. I sit down at my desk and jiggle the mouse to wake up my computer. This is one report I want to read in full definition. Not on a cramped phone screen.
The email springs open at the first click. Scroll. I ignore whatever comments my man in the city has left and open the report itself.
Daphne Morelli, artist’s signature: D.M.
Seven photos of her initials on various pieces accompany this bit of information, and a photo of her. There are more photos. The urge to scroll down and devour them is strong, but I won’t. This is important. This requires patience, and attention.
Daphne Morelli is the daughter of Bryant and Sarah Morelli out of Bishop’s Landing.
My perspective shifts again. I arrive at the first photo that’s not of her artist’s signature.
It’s her. The woman from the street. Same black hair. Same lines of her body. A strange relief. I wanted her, and now she’s been delivered to me in this email. Yesterday, she was a woman on the sidewalk in a gray coat, but now she has depth. The photo is her last school ID. It turns out that her hair isn’t black—it’s a very dark brown, with dark eyes to match. Tiny chips of gold in those eyes. She grins in the photo, completely at odds with what everyone knows about her family.
The Morellis are infamous. In Bishop’s Landing. In the city. Everywhere. They are a nebulous danger that people talk about with their eyebrows slightly raised, as if to telegraph the risk of dealing with the Morelli family. Not financial risk, though there’s always an element of that in anything worth doing. They mean—don’t piss them off. Attack one Morelli, attack them all. A bit of a dynasty, unlike my brothers and me. They’re more like the Constantines, another wealthy family with whom they are in a constant petty rivalry. I suspect most of the rumors about the Morellis come from the Constantines, but I don’t particularly care.
Daphne doesn’t look dangerous. She looks innocent. Hopeful, I would say. Hopeful, rather than cynical and hard. Odd for a person with her last name. It must have been cultivated in her, that sweetness. Guarded somehow. Twenty-three, and she still has that light in her eyes. That light—it’s hiding something, if her painting is any indication.
Daphne graduated from NYU in May. Bachelor of Fine Art.Her student exhibitions have been included, but I move past them. The painting I saw wasn’t a student piece. She was still finding herself when she was in college. Her first paintings of the ocean happened toward the end, and they were quick studies.
Current residence is above the Motif Gallery. One-bedroom apartment.
By the alley? Why would a Morelli want to live in such a shitty place? It’s barely clean. Definitely not secure. The Morellis run billion-dollar businesses. Their daughter doesn’t need to set foot in a place like the Motif Gallery.
More photos of her. College photos, mainly. Daphne in the studio, with her hair pulled up on top of her head, laughing as she paints. Daphne accepting an award at an end-of-school banquet, grinning. But it’s the last photo that freezes my hand in place and sends blood rushing to my cock.
Daphne, standing alone outside a shop somewhere in the city. A paparazzi photo. Someone was going to try and make money off the Morellis and lost his nerve. The photo isn’t particularly titillating. Not worth the cost of provoking the Morelli institution. The photographer’s name is printed below the photo, along with a notation—sold to Morelli Holdings. Unpublished.
It’s the expression on her face that arrests my attention.
My painter comes from a rich family, but her expression is filled with longing. She is looking past whatever is in that shop window. I doubt she sees it at all. In the cool shadow of the building, she is in waiting. Waiting for the sun to touch her face. Waiting to be lit up with possibility. Longing for it.
I want to create that expression on her face the way she puts the living ocean on canvas. I want to feel it in her body. Watch it pour out of her and become something else.
Art.
Fierce desire bolts through me, spine to toes, concentrating in my cock. Fuck.Make it specific. Put it in terms that can be controlled.
I want to watch emotions scrawl themselves across her face, her eyes, her mouth. I want to witness the transfer of that emotion from body to canvas. I want to watch it become. Right now, Daphne Morelli’s tears and thoughts and feelings are a black box. I’ve seen her. I’ve felt the results. Ocean spray on my face. Salt on my tongue. Between the longing in her eyes and the first stroke of the brush is a void. A veiled mystery. I want it uncovered.
Of course, there is an antecedent to all this—her family. My man has included information about them, too. A series of press photos taken at a gala last year.
There are her parents. Bryant and Sarah. Bryant has the dark-haired look about him, those same dark eyes, and his smile is more of a glare. Handsome and fit, despite being in his sixties. His wife is a redhead. Petite. Distant. Her mind is elsewhere while the cameras flash. She stands close to his side. I wonder if she does that when no one’s watching.
The next photo is a group shot.Lucian Morelli. Eva Morelli. Sophia Morelli. Lisbetta Morelli.A short paragraph underneath sketches out the details.Lucian Morelli, eldest son. CEO at Morelli Holdings. Recently replaced Bryant Morelli at the helm. Eva Morelli, second eldest. Lives in Manhattan. Sophia Morelli. Second daughter, sixth child. Lisbetta Morelli. Youngest child. Boarding school.
There she is—in the next set of photos. Two of them. Daphne laughs at a man dressed all in black—black tux, black shirt. Custom, from the look of the tailoring. He’s tall, lean, black-brown hair that matches hers.
