by Mia Madison
In the back of my mind, I prayed he wasn’t leaving before my father had a chance to speak with him.
At the same time, something told me Landon Connors was going to be a presence in our lives for a lot longer than one evening.
3
There wasn’t a single time in my memory that I could recall waking up at four o’clock in the morning. There were a few five o’clock wake-ups—usually for a flight—but those were few and far between.
Getting dressed and ready in what felt like the dead of the night was an odd experience, to say the least. As was hailing a cab to Landon’s studio in the dark.
To be fair, I was lucky to be riding in a cab at all. I’d been walking or taking the subway for weeks trying to pinch pennies. The only reason I could afford it now was because my father broke his self-imposed rule and leant me money.
A connection like this to Landon Connors was worth it.
“Here we are.”
I almost asked if he was sure this was the right address, but I’d been tracking our journey with the map on my cell phone. As I slid the money through the slot and stepped out, I realized that Landon’s studio must be part of his apartment.
“Fantastic,” I muttered as the doorman nodded to me. “I’m here to see Landon Connors.”
“I figured. He’s waiting in the lobby.”
He opened the door and I stepped inside, not a soul in sight save for the looming shape of Landon leaning against a wall. His eyes brightened when he spotted me. He walked over, a sunny smile gracing his lips.
I was so tired I couldn’t even force one for him in return. Landon chuckled as he reached for my hand and raised it to kiss my knuckles.
Taking this job was a horrible mistake. I wouldn’t survive much of this treatment.
“Not a morning person, are you?” he teased as he released my hand.
“I might as well be dead until eight a.m.”
He gestured for me to follow him to the elevator, clicking his tongue as the doors slid closed.
“How about we meet in the middle? Would arriving at seven be better for you?”
My shoulders slumped with relief. “Without a doubt. Waking up at six is a hell of a lot easier than waking up at four. Thank you.”
“There’s no need to thank me. It will be better for us both if you’re in a more pleasant state of mind when you arrive.”
He pressed a button somewhere in the middle and I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. He was watching me the same way he had at dinner, so he noticed the change in my expression immediately.
“What?”
“I’m just surprised. You strike me as a penthouse kind of guy.”
“I like to keep my feet a little closer to the ground,” he said with a wry smile. “Besides, the penthouse in this building was taken when I moved in. Most of the apartments were, actually.”
“So you took what you could get?”
“In a way,” he vaguely replied as the cabin stopped moving and the doors slid open. “This was the only floor that had both apartments available.”
He stepped out and I realized what he meant. There were two doors—one for his apartment, one for his studio. It wasn’t a penthouse, but it was a symbol of status nonetheless.
Not that he needed the symbol. Anyone who was interested in modern art had heard of Landon Connors and they’d probably tried to buy one of his paintings at some point.
My father owned six, each more expensive than the last. As Landon’s popularity grew—and it skyrocketed over the course of the two decades he’d been in the industry—so did the price of his work.
“Let me show you around,” he said as he unlocked one of the doors. “This is the studio. The other door is my flat.”
His accent had flattened out over the time he spent in America, but it made me smile to hear a remnant of his origins. The smile faded to a scowl when I realized I was internally swooning over the man.
I’m just here to work until I get a call from literally anywhere else. No swooning!
“I had most of this converted into a usable workspace, so we’ll have to go next door to eat. The restroom is right through there,” he said as he pointed to a closed door nearby. “Please, make yourself at home. I only ask that you—”
“Not touch the art,” I finished for him.
Landon seemed amused that I knew what he intended to say and raised an eyebrow in a silent question. I looked away from him and shrugged.
“You’re not the first artist I’ve met, you know.”
A vague comment, but a glance back at his face told me he knew there was more to it than I was letting on. Stupid, perceptive man. I could only hope he didn’t push it. It was already difficult enough trying to keep the past out of my mind in order to take the job in the first place.
Landon told me to make myself at home, so I walked away to take a peek at the bathroom. When I came back out, he was nowhere to be seen. I nearly called out to him until it struck me that he was probably giving me time alone to explore and learn my way around.
I’ve never been the kind of girl to pass up an opportunity to be nosy, so with a shrug, I began to wander.
The few walls left after his renovations made it obvious that there weren’t very many rooms to enter. The first one I entered had to be the largest. It was the beating heart of his studio, the room where he clearly did the majority of his work. The walls were covered with prints—a few appeared to be finished, but the majority were not—and there were supply cabinets and easels everywhere. As I weaved between the easels, I realized that only one of them was a blank page. The rest were started and seemingly forgotten.
“You see why I need your presence?”
“I don’t understand,” I mumbled, both to myself and to him. “Do you keep the finished prints elsewhere?”
Landon smiled sadly and gestured to the completed paintings I noticed when I first walked in.
“With the exception of those three, there aren’t any finished pieces.”
“Don’t you have a show in two months?”
“Yes. Hence my excitement about finding a muse.” Landon sucked a sharp breath between his teeth before his lips split into a delighted grin. “I am very happy you decided to come, by the way. I’m already getting the itch to revisit some of these.”
“I still have no idea what you want me to do. I also don’t understand why you’d book a show when you know you have nothing ready.”
Landon was fiddling in a cabinet with his back to me as he said, “I thought the pressure would help. I was obviously wrong.”
“Why can’t you finish anything?”
He stopped messing with whatever he was gathering, turning back to stare at me while he blinked slowly. While I was wondering what I had said to warrant his reaction, he let out a surprised laugh.
“Oh, love. I already have a therapist. That’s not why I asked you here.”
With that, his attention returned to his supplies. I crept up behind him and watched, realizing he was choosing from a vast variety of brushes. Even though I tried to find interest in what he was doing, I couldn’t stop myself from being curious about his words.
“You’re in therapy?”
“Who isn’t?”
“I’m not.”
“You’re not an artist,” he said with an air of finality before closing the cabinet and moving to the next. “In my experience, creative types are in the most dire need of therapy. Any artist that isn’t in therapy probably should be.”
I snorted. “Talk about a sweeping generalization. You don’t think there are artists who can manage just fine without whining about their problems to a shrink?”
He stopped and turned back, raising an eyebrow as he asked, “Who’s generalizing now?”
“All right, point taken. I shouldn’t have been so flippant about it, but my question remains.”
“I’m sure there are plenty. There are also plenty of artists who devote their lives to the work—people like me—who are in
desperate need of an unbiased ear. This life can be… very lonely.”
“Are you lonely?”
“Yes. Are you?”
I wanted to deny it and cut the conversation off before he managed to turn it on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually do it. Instead, I quietly admitted, “Sometimes.”
“Only sometimes? I envy you if that’s true.” Landon spun around and held a slip of paper beside my face, humming to himself for a moment before turning back and grabbing a few tubes of paint. He placed them on top of the cabinet and closed it, spinning to stare me in the eyes as he asked, “Is it true?”
“No,” I choked out, shaking my head a little as I sighed. “I’m pretty much lonely all the time. It’s just… habit.”
“It’s habit to lie?”
“To pretend things are fine even when they’re not.”
Landon hesitantly raised his hands and placed them on my shoulders, leaning down over me with a smile.
Damn it. He was already gorgeous. Did he really have to smell so good on top of that?
“Harmony, I’d like it if we could come to a mutual agreement right here and now.”
“O-Okay. An agreement about what?”
“That you won’t lie to me or pretend anything, and I’ll give you the same courtesy in return. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“All I want is your truth. If you’re faking something, it means nothing. It’ll show.”
My eyebrows furrowed together as I said, “Okay, I’m not following you anymore.”
“In the art, love. It’ll show in the art. The work will be meaningless—it’ll be wrong.” He stepped behind me, keeping his hands on my shoulders as he led me to a lone stool in the center of the room. “Sit.”
“Why?”
“I’m starting fresh before I go back to anything else,” he said as he set his supplies down and began untwisting the caps from the tubes. “It’s only logical that my first work of our new partnership be of you.”
“What? No!” I exclaimed, hopping off the stool and stupidly stepping to the side like he was about to take my picture or something. Without thinking, I started to smooth down my hair with my palms while shaking my head. “You never said I’d have to pose for you. God, I look like shit.”
Landon was entirely unfazed, merely continuing to set himself up at the blank canvas as he remarked, “You doubt your beauty.”
It wasn’t phrased as a question, but that didn’t stop me from answering it.
“It’s not that. I mean, I wouldn’t call myself arrogant, but I like the way I look. However, if I had known you were going to paint me, I would’ve… I don’t know. Fixed my hair and worn something nicer.”
Landon snickered and my frown deepened. I folded my arms across my chest and he shot me an apologetic look.
“Sorry, I was imagining the look on Phil’s face if you had arrived here at this hour wearing a ball gown.”
“Phil?”
“My doorman.”
“Oh. Well, I wouldn’t have gone that far.”
Landon walked across the room and grabbed another stool, placing it behind his easel and taking a seat before staring at the vacant spot across from him. The intent look on his face made me wonder if he could see the ghost of my form sitting on that stool. Photographic memories were a thing, right?
“Like I said, I want your truth. Regardless of how you style your hair or what clothes you choose to wear—you are enchanting.”
Landon’s blue eyes drifted away from the empty spot and landed on mine. I froze in place, swallowing hard at the sight of his expression.
Good Lord, this was going to end so badly. I could already see myself getting lost for this man. Who in their right mind wouldn’t?
“The only way I can show you what I see when I look at you is if you take your seat.”
Though a large part of me wanted to bitch and moan that this wasn’t part of the job description he’d given me, a larger part desperately wanted to know what he saw when he looked at me. The curiosity was so strong I knew I’d become obsessed with the thought if I didn’t do it.
With only a hint of lingering hesitation, I made my way back to the stool and sat down, doing my best not to slouch.
“Face that way.”
I turned my head in the direction he pointed, frowning at the wall of black curtains. When Landon noticed my expression, he grabbed a small remote and pressed a button, the curtains sliding open on command.
“The sun will rise soon,” he commented as he stood up and began to sketch on the pad with a pencil. “Don’t concern yourself with holding a pose. Just relax and take in the beauty of the city as it awakens.”
I didn’t turn my head, but I darted my eyes over to him just in time to see the ghost of a smile on his lips as he lost himself in the process of his work. With another rough swallow, I dragged my eyes away and tried to focus solely on the darkness outside to calm my racing heart.
It didn’t work.
4
The better part of the day was spent with us both in the exact same spots, pausing only for quick meals and bathroom breaks. Landon refused to show me the painting until it was finished, explaining that he wanted me to see it only after its completion, lest I tried to pick apart the flaws in myself while the work was still in progress.
As the sun started to set, I wondered how much time the following day I’d have to spend sitting on the stool. It was pretty uncomfortable, not that I intended to complain out loud. Not when he was paying me more than double minimum wage to essentially sit around.
There was another silver lining as well. It was one step closer to earning my father’s forgiveness.
Landon finally announced that it was time to call it a day. I slid off the stool, raising my arms over my head and stretching with a long, heavy sigh of relief.
“God, I’m sore,” I groaned as I twisted my spine. I almost moaned when it cracked. “I don’t know how models do it. I couldn’t do this every day if I tried.”
“Massages help,” Landon said softly from behind the easel, dabbing at the painting with a slight frown. “Let me know if you’d like one. It’d be my pleasure to soothe your aches.”
It wasn’t the first flirtatious thing he’d said, but it was definitely the most blatant. Yet when I looked at his face, he wasn’t even looking at me. There wasn’t even a hint of a smirk. Maybe the offer was genuinely for my benefit, but the thought of his hands on my body wasn’t doing me any favors.
“I think I’ll be okay,” I forced myself to say, shifting my weight on my feet as I waited for him to stand up.
Since I was forbidden from looking at the painting yet, all I could think to do was make conversation about it.
“You know, my father is a huge fan of your work. He has half a dozen originals.”
“He mentioned that at dinner.”
Of course he did. Why was this so difficult?
“He’s going to your show. I bet he’ll pay a ton of money for that one. It’s not every day that your favorite artist paints your only daughter.”
“This won’t be in the show,” Landon said gruffly before finally pushing himself away and standing, rolling his neck on his shoulders. “Maybe one day I’ll do another portrait of you for your father’s collection, but this one will never be for sale.”
Harsh. I knew a simple portrait of a woman might not fit in with whatever theme he was going with for his show, but I couldn’t help but feel offended that he wouldn’t even consider privately selling it to my own father.
“Was it me? Did I sit wrong or something?”
Landon made a questioning noise, cocking his head to the side in confusion after dragging his eyes away from the canvas. When my questions finally registered, another tender smile spread across his lips.
“No. The portrait is perfection—and priceless. I’ll be keeping it for myself.” He held out a hand to me and whispered, “Come.”
“It’s finished? Already?�
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“Yes. Come see.”
“Do you always work this fast?” I asked in surprise as I walked toward him.
The only other time someone had painted me, it took over a week to finish. Granted, Mark had only asked me to pose for an hour or two at a time before claiming to need a break to work on something else.
“Not usually. I was particularly inspired by you.”
He said it with such excitement that I found myself smiling as well. When I got close, he took my hand in his.
God, his hands are big. I wonder if…
My thoughts took a perverted turn and it only got worse when he put his other hand on my hip to guide me around the easel to stand in front of him. Thankfully, the sight of the portrait was enough to snap me out of my stupor.
Oh, my God.
“That’s not me,” I whispered in awe while my eyes scanned over the familiar stranger reflected back at me.
He leaned in, his warm breath ghosting over my cheek as he whispered, “But it is, love.”
Upon closer inspection, I could clearly see that the girl in the image was me. The imperfections were still there—the crook in the bridge of my nose, the freckles I got from not wearing sunscreen enough, the frazzled hair that took a ton of product to keep under control—yet he had somehow managed to take the things I disliked about myself and turn them into something… beautiful.
“It’s incredible.”
He chuckled. “You are what is incredible. I only captured your image to the best of my ability.”
“It just looks so… different, I guess? I mean, I know it’s me, but at the same time…”
With a huff, I gestured at the painting and shook my head. No words would come to mind to describe how it made me feel, but Landon seemed to instinctively understand.
“Everyone is more critical of their own image than they are of others. This is what I see when I look at you.”
I blushed at the suggestion that he found me so attractive, cursing my skin tone yet again as I turned to try to hide my reaction from him. He released my shoulders without protest, but I felt the weight of his eyes on the back of my neck.