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I rose. I’d been introduced. Made faces at the toddler. I’d let them get back to talking to each other. I quickly left the sketches I’d done on the desk. “Look at these later. Okay? Without me here?”
He shot me a questioning look, his eyebrows slanted down, but nodded just the same. I winked at him. “See you later.”
It was time for me to get ready to be beautiful for wherever we were going tonight. It had to be possible for me to put on fancier clothes and not hate them. I just had to figure out how.
In the end, I wore a black pencil skirt and paired it with a white blouse that showed skin slightly before the end of the shirt and the top of the skirt. The really dramatic thing I did was put on red shoes and red lipstick. I pulled my hair back in a low ponytail and overdid it with the eyeshadow so that my eyes were really smoky. In the end, I was happy with the effect.
I came out to find Zeke waiting for me, which was when I realized I was five minutes late. “Sorry.”
His eyes widened. “Some things are well worth waiting for.”
I spun. “Good?”
“Stunning. I mean, you take my breath away.”
My cheeks burned, and I knew I had to be blushing, but I didn’t care. I took his outstretched hand. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
It turned out if you were Zeke Scott, you could get private tours of the Louvre when they were supposed to be closed. It looked like they were having some kind of event at the other end for someone important. I didn’t know them and I didn’t care, because getting to wander the Louvre with no one else in it was maybe the coolest thing, ever.
Everyone loved the Mona Lisa, and I certainly looked at her, but it was a different painting that stole my attention, not giving it back. I almost couldn’t move on from looking at it. It was calledThe Cheat with the Ace of Diamondsby a painter named Georges de la Tour. It was fascinating to me. Four people were featured around a card table. A well-dressed man studying his cards was on the left. I was sure he was important, but it was the central figure, the woman who I couldn’t stop staring at.
Her gaze darted left to the server, who was perhaps helping her cheat. I loved the colors, the detail. It was like I was desperate to shout out,someone te! me what happens next. I rocked back on my feet. Okay. I loved art. It hadn’t been taken from me. Staying in Paris with Zeke had at least shown me that. What would my life have been like if my father hadn’t forbidden this?
I darted around. Zeke stood behind me, watching me, not the painting. And I hadn’t felt the ants on my neck.
“Sorry.” I hadn’t talked to him in a long time. I didn’t even know how long. That was totally rude.
“Why?” He walked toward me. “I brought you here so you could enjoy yourself. I like to look for a few seconds and move on to the next one. It’s fun for me to visit, but I don’t really get anything out of it. Watching you, I think that you do. From that one. It really spoke to you. What did it say?” I turned around to look again, and he wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Tell me what you see.”
“In this case, of course technique. It’s extraordinary. I don’t have the education to tell you what exactly he did. I wish I did. Dad denied me art. Told me it wouldn’t lead to anything good.”
He made that noise again that was something like hmmm, and I never knew what it meant. “That’s…too bad.” Zeke sounded funny, but when I would have turned to look, he held me still. “What else do you like?”
“How it feels like a captured moment in time. Always with us. Never gone.”
“Wow.” He kissed my neck. “That’s beautiful.”
We moved on after that and eventually headed back into his car to go to dinner. The second we stepped outside, I felt the ants on my neck. The security must be somewhere. Like Zeke’s staff, we never saw him, but his presence was real.
The wine was perfect, and I was a little bit drunk. Zeke wasn’t, since he was driving, but he grinned at me like he was just as happy in that moment as I was.
“No, you didn’t.” I shook my head at him. His story had to be impossible.
“I did.” He laughed. “The man was chasing me down the boardwalk in Atlantic City, so I stashed the cash with a mime and ran on. The dude held it for me, silently, and I paid him twenty percent.”
I was practically giddy with how this night was going.
“Layla, the designs you made for me. They were for wine bottles, right?”
I nodded, some of my glee fading. Yep, I’d forgotten they did that. I’d put a Z around a flower. His initials linked in another one. And the third had a Z at the bottom of a rose.
“They were so spectacularly beautiful. Thank you. If I ever actually achieve that dream, I’m going to pay you for them.”
“No.” I sat forward. “They’re a gift.”
“They’re branding. People get paid for that, and you are really good. I love them. Thank you.”
