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Though my chest feels tight already, and I’m dancing from foot to foot on the moonlit purple runner. My flannel pajama bottoms swish around my calves, and I burrow deeper into my gray woolen sweater.
“You’re panicking,” Mr Grangemoor observes. “It’s just superstitious bullshit, Helen. You don’t really think I’m cursed, do you?”
I shake my head, because thatisbullshit. Sure, he’s grouchy and bad-tempered and he stomps around like Heathcliff on the moors, but he’s also repainted three rooms since I moved here, and yesterday he washed the ground floor windows until they sparkled. In Mr Grangemoor terms, that’s like throwing a welcome parade.
“Come down to the kitchen for a hot drink.”
Because that’s his answer to everything—hardly a demonic trait. Though a mug of steaming, sweet cocoadoessound sinfully good.
We trail through the hotel in silence, two shadows in the night. And my boss fixes me a hot chocolate in easy quiet, limping around the kitchen and gathering supplies from the cupboards. He doesn’t switch a light on and neither do I, listening to him feel his way by memory around the gloom.
I like being in the dark with this man. It’s intimate.
Like anything could happen. Like we’re two different people, without a bunch of lines we can’t cross.
A spoon clinks against the mug. His clothes rustle as he moves. Is he still in those faded dark jeans and that red shirt from earlier, or is he in nightwear? What does the famous painter wear to sleep?
“Here.”
The mug thumps softly on the counter by my elbow. I lift it up and take a sip, cradling the heat between my palms.
Mr Grangemoor sighs softly. Or maybe he’s blowing on his own drink to cool it. Did he make two? I can’t tell.
I should switch on a light—should bring a harsh dose of reality.Oneof us ought to do it, since it’s surely wrong to linger this way with your employer in the shadows, but I can’t force myself to move.
Lightning flashes outside the kitchen window, strobing the room with silvery light. Mr Grangemoor is there for a split second then gone, and I’m left with the memory of him staring down at me with hungry eyes. There were gray speckles in his dark beard.
When I press my lips together, I taste chocolate.
Watch if I touched him? Just a palm against his chest? I might feel his heartbeat thudding beneath my hand, slow and strong. Might feel his muscles go taut, shifting under the cotton of that red shirt. Would he let me?
I know it’s late at night, and after midnight everyone’s sense of reason goes all wonky, but right now I’d trade a kidney to touch Rufus Grangemoor. Hey, I could wake up organ-free after all.
When I speak, my hushed voice is swallowed up by the silent kitchen. “Why is everyone in town so scared of you?”
He laughs once, grim and scornful. “Because I’m rude and bad-tempered and worst of all, I had a bad fall while hiking in the mountains a few years ago—fucked up my face and my leg. Had to crawl into town on my hands and knees, covered in blood. And in a place like Sky High Outpost, something like that is an omen, Helen. Can’t be too careful when you’re clinging to survival in the mountains. They think I’m marked. That I’m bad luck.”
It’s a long speech by my boss’s standards, and I’m simmering with anger before he’s even finished speaking. There’s a furious buzzing noise in my ears.
“That’s bullshit. It’ssucha load of bullshit. Sure, you’re grumpy,” I say, voice climbing as he snorts, “but you changed my whole life around, and you’re good company and, like, the opposite of a bad omen. You’re my lucky penny, Mr Grangemoor.”
Lightning flashes outside, lighting him up for another split second, and he looks oddly touched before he plunges back into darkness. The lines at the corner of his eyes had softened.
“It’s late, Helen. You should try to sleep.” Gruff humor laces his words as he says, “If you fall asleep and start snoring tomorrow, be warned: I’ll paint you with your mouth open.”
Ah, yeah. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, but for once there’s something even more stressful in the calendar.Modeling.
…Crap.
It seemed like such a genius idea. The perfect way to feel this man’s eyes on me. Besides, once Rufus Grangemoor paints me, I’ll live forever on his canvas. Art historians hundreds of years from now will wonder about the painter’s mysterious muse.
Will they think he loved me? Will they sense our special connection through the canvas? I hope so.
And yet I’m rigid with nerves already. No wonder I couldn’t sleep; even before the storm started, I was already climbing the walls.
I did ask around town, for the record. Itriedto find another model—but not very hard. They don’t deserve to spend time with him anyway, those jerks.
“I promise I’ll nap quietly.”
