by Meghan March
Chapter 27
Temperance
I’m in my Bronco, liberated from the warehouse I’m now going to pretend doesn’t exist, driving back to my apartment.
When I roll past the café, I slow down to only a few miles per hour. All the tables are full now, and not a single one of them holds a broad-shouldered man with tattoos and a piercing stare.
It’s not like I expected him to still be there, but part of me hoped he would be so I could finally get some answers. Like, what the hell he was doing so close to my apartment? Was he watching me?
When I find a rare open spot in front of my place, I park and climb out of the Bronco, taking care to lock the doors.
I don’t know how I got so lucky as to still have my sculpture in the back, untouched, but I did. Probably thanks to Elijah. If not for him, this thing would have been long gone.
It’s apparently the day for thanking him repeatedly.
He actually looked pretty uncomfortable when I told him that, at least until he told me he still expected me to deliver on a favor when he needed it, no questions asked. I don’t want to know what it’s going to be, but it’s not like I could have said no.
I head for the gate and unlock it. With the clang of the wrought iron behind me, I take a half-dozen steps and freeze when my gaze locks on the table in the courtyard.
There’s a newspaper on it. A newspaper I don’t remember seeing there when I left.
I rush to the back door of Harriet’s house and knock on the door. Maybe she came home and I didn’t know it?
I wait, but there’s no answer. I bang harder. “Harriet?”
Still no answer.
With my heart somewhere in the vicinity of my throat, I move toward the newspaper. It’s splattered with what looks like coffee.
He was here.
In the courtyard.
Oh. My. God.
I flip the paper over, and the headline on the front page sends my stomach plummeting to my feet.
Gregor Standish, Celebrated Artist, Commits Suicide
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
My knees turn to water and I collapse into the chair.
Standish is dead. But I am not naive enough to believe the newspaper.
Someone killed him.
I have to talk to Keira. She’s the only person who can tell me if I need to freak the fuck out or if I need to calm my overactive imagination. I know what has happened to people who cross Mount, whether knowingly or not, and everything in me says this is another case of I need to pretend I’ve never heard of the man before.
I reach out with trembling fingers and fold the paper closed, but something falls from between the pages.
A black business card. It has the same emblem that was on the other cards the stranger gave me, along with another time and date.
Tonight.
I can’t do this.
Really, I can’t do this.
I’m pruning in the bathtub, but I add more hot water anyway. I can’t stop staring at the folded newspaper on the edge of the sink, and the black business card on the glass shelf above the basin.
If I stay in the bathtub, I can avoid reality.
If I get out, I have to decide what I’m going to do tonight.
I want answers, but I don’t. I really don’t want to think about what connection the stranger may have to Standish’s death.
I don’t even want to think about the fact that he’s dead.
It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t had an extra sculpture in my office, they couldn’t have screwed up and brought mine up instead of Standish’s. And then he wouldn’t have gone off and smeared Seven Sinners on every social media and advertising platform known to man.
But he did. And now he’s dead.
I can’t believe it.
How am I going to tell Keira? That is, assuming she doesn’t already know. She has to know. Right?
Why am I so shocked by this?
Because it’s death. Death never becomes mundane. It’s always shocking. It should be. That’s what makes me a normal human being.
So does my guilt.
I spend another fifteen minutes tearing myself up over it before I shut it down. It doesn’t matter how long I spend blaming myself. He’s dead. Nothing I do or say is going to change that. My guilt isn’t going to disappear because I had a hand in his death, even if I didn’t order it or pull the trigger.
Because there’s no way Standish did it himself.
It’s with a million contradictory thoughts crashing together in my head that I drive to Noble Art, hoping against hope that after my car debacle, Valentina still wants this sculpture and maybe a few more.
When I’ll have time to create them, I have no idea, but . . . if Valentina says they’re marketable and can produce a profit, wouldn’t it be wrong not to do it?
In some small way, don’t I owe it to Gregor Standish to pursue it? After all, my artwork is part of the reason he’s no longer walking this earth, which is ridiculously morbid to consider.
I pull into an open spot across the street from Noble Art and park my car.
I can do this. I will do this.
“Temperance! You got your car back!”
Valentina’s voice comes from across the street. This time, she has a baby strapped to her front, and I can’t help but smile at how she manages to look stylish with a baby as an accessory. Apparently, that’s the fashionable thing these days, at least with this gorgeous couple.
I open the car door and smile genuinely, maybe for the first time all day. “I sure did, and—”
“You got the sculpture?” Valentina looks like she’s holding her breath.
“I did.”
She claps her hands quietly before checking both directions and crossing the street. “Can we see it?”
I gaze down at the dark-haired little guy. “He slept through that? Wow. Of course.”
Valentina laughs. “He could sleep through a nuclear blast. This one is a trouper. Which is why I said we should stop at one, but Rix disagrees. We’re currently having an argument, and by argument, I mean he’s trying to intimidate me into it. I swear, the man doesn’t realize his intimidation just makes me want to climb him.” She taps her cheek. “Maybe that’s his game? I wonder if it’s reverse psychology. Tricky bastard. Anyway, let’s see it.”
I lead her around the back of the Bronco and open the window, lowering the tailgate before pulling the blanket aside.
“It’s much easier to appreciate when it’s upright, but—”
Valentina interrupts me by holding up a hand. “It’s gorgeous. And look at the materials you used for the base—what is that?”
“Part of an empty keg.”
Her eyes light up. “I love it so much. Seriously, upcycling is so chic lately, and I get requests all the time for more industrial pieces, especially from all the people rehabbing warehouses into offices and condos.” She pulls out her phone and taps in a text. “Rix is going to be swinging by in a bit, so I’ll have him bring some help and we’ll get it inside. In the meantime, you need to tell me what else you have.”
I close up the back of the Bronco, and have a hard time keeping my gaze off it as we cross the street and step into Noble Art.
“I don’t have any other completed pieces at the moment available for sale, but it doesn’t take me too long.”
She studies me. “How would you feel about me commissioning some pieces from you? Making some suggestions. Would that mess with your process? If it does, then we don’t have to—”
“No. Actually, I kind of love that idea. I can’t promise it’ll look exactly like what you’re envisioning, but creating something specific is a fun challenge.”
“I was really hoping you’d say that.” Valentina’s smile grows wider. “Because I have a few ideas in my head that I think would be fabulous, and I’d pretty much have them sold before you even finished.”
She reaches for a sketch pad and starts drawing a few items, and my excitement climbs with eve
ry line she leaves behind on the paper.
A bridge. A skyscraper. The scales of justice.
“I know it seems like a random collection, but I have a few interior designers always hounding me for pieces like this. They’d snap these pieces up faster than you could haul them into the gallery. Do you think you could do it?”
I tap the edge of the paper and look up at her. “Of course.”
“Then we have the million-dollar question—how much?”
My brain tells me to go salesman and start high before negotiating to something in the middle, but I decide to take a different tactic with her. “Before the auction, I couldn’t imagine that anyone would pay much for one of these, let alone what they did. I know that’s because it was a charitable donation, which definitely affects generosity, but . . . I’m totally out of my depth here, Valentina. I need you to give me a starting point so I don’t totally screw this up and have you kicking me out the door before we even get the first one in.”
Her smile, genuine and brilliant, reveals her straight white teeth. “I appreciate your honesty. How about I put together a proposal for all five pieces—the one you’ve completed and four others—and then we discuss it?”
“That sounds perfect.”
Chapter 28
Temperance
“Wow.” I stare at the sculpture in the center of the gallery in awe.
“Pretty cool, isn’t it?”
One of Valentina’s employees, an art student named Trinity, stands beside me.
“Amazing.”
“I cried the first time she hung one of my paintings on the wall. It was hard to believe that it was real.”
“I totally get that.”
“I mean, to be more accurate, I should probably say it was insane because someone actually bought it ten minutes later. For real money.”
My smile tugs so hard at my lips, I feel like my face might split. I glance at Trinity. “That’s incredible. What a dream come true.”
“It was only a real dream because Valentina taught me it was okay to have it. She pushed me. Wouldn’t let me quit. Kept me off the wrong track. Because, of course, there was this guy . . .”
“There’s always a guy,” I mumble.
A deep bark of laughter comes from the back room, and we both look in that direction.
“Sometimes he’s the right guy,” Trinity says. “Even when he’s disguised as the wrong guy.”
My brows droop and I turn to meet her gaze. “What does that mean, Obi Wan?”
“Just that sometimes you don’t know what you’re working with.” Rix’s tall frame becomes visible in the doorway. “She didn’t. She took a leap of faith, and it turned out to be the best jump of her life.”
“You sound like a philosopher, not an artist.”
Trinity shrugs. “I’ve loved and lost. What can I say?”
Valentina and Rix come toward us. “Try not to sound so world weary, Trin. You’re too young for that,” Valentina says.
“She’s too damn young for a lot of things, and she still does them,” Rix adds.
“Okay, you two, stop it. Temperance is going to think I’m still an eighteen-year-old idiot.”
“You said it, not me.” Rix’s ribbing comes out with an edge of laughter.
Before the banter can continue, the door chime rings again and a couple comes in.
“I was hoping you could make it. Even quicker than I expected,” Valentina says before moving toward the couple.
But they’re not looking at her or paying attention to a word she says. They’re moving directly to the center of the room where my sculpture stands.
“It’s breathtaking.”
The man finally cuts his gaze to Valentina. “How did you know? How are you always right?”
“It’s a gift.”
The woman reaches out but draws her hand back before it touches the metal.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You can touch it if you want. It’s sturdy.”
Both of them jerk their chins sideways to face me.
“Is this the artist?” the man asks Valentina, his attention still on me.
When she doesn’t answer right away, I realize she’s giving me the option of deciding how to play it.
“I’m Temperance . . . and yes. That’s my piece.” It feels so amazing to admit it.
The man rushes toward me and holds out a hand. “I don’t know why Valentina hasn’t found you before now, but this is exactly what we need for the loft. It’s perfect. Tell me, what other pieces do you have? I need . . .”
When I walk out of Noble Art with a check in my purse, I may as well be walking on clouds.
Instead of waiting until she had the time to put together a proposal, Valentina launched into negotiations with the couple, starting off with, “Did you know that one of her pieces recently sold for fifty thousand?”
When the couple didn’t even blink, Valentina went to town. She got forty thousand for the piece, and less her commission, I now have a check for more money than I make in over half a year.
From my artwork.
Something created out of scrap metal. Based only on the image in my brain and the skills I taught myself.
How crazy is that?
I’m practically bouncing in the seat of my Bronco, unable to contain my excitement. This is surreal.
I pull out my phone to call Rafe because he’s never going to believe it. When the call goes directly to voice mail, a little of my enthusiasm gives way to fear.
Where are you, Rafe? Are you okay?
Our father left the house one day in a boat and never came back, and my deepest fear, other than failure, is that I’ll lose my brother the same way. That he’ll leave one day and disappear, leaving me with too many questions and no answers.
He’s all I have.
I call back and get his voice mail again, and this time, with the tremor of threatening tears in my voice, I tell him what I did. How proud I am. How proud I hope he is.
When I hang up, a tear tips over my lower lid. I pray my brother gets to hear my message, and I beg everything that’s holy to let me see him tomorrow.
Please don’t miss my birthday, Rafe.
Do I go or don’t I?
Of all the thoughts circling in my head, most of them a million times more important, that one keeps bubbling up to the surface.
The business card is on my coffee table, next to the folded coffee-splattered newspaper, and I’m trying to figure out what the two things have in common—besides one mysterious man whose name I don’t even know.
Who probably bought my artwork.
Who the hell are you? I pull out my work computer and find the auctioneer’s email address, then fire off a quick note as I curse my crap memory. The questions don’t slow.
Was he sitting at the café for me? Or was he waiting there for a meeting? Because that’s definitely what it looked like.
Does he work for Mount? Or was Elijah completely wrong?
Did he have something to do with Standish’s death?
I shut down those questions and pace my apartment with another worry in mind—worry for my brother. Sitting here all night thinking about everything that could have happened to him is going to drive me crazy.
I have two choices to block it out—go to the club or go to Elijah’s scrap yard.
Two very different men.
Two very different places.
Two very different motives.
What do I do?
Chapter 29
Temperance
If Harriet were home, I would sit in the courtyard with her, drink wine, and listen to stories about her incredible life. But she’s not here. She’s out living.
With one last glance at the walls that feel like they’re closing in on me, I head for my closet and assess my options, like somehow finding the right outfit will dictate what I do tonight. I’m fresh out of little black or red dresses and sexy skirts. My activities of late mean that I’ve worn every sexy piece of clot
hing I have, and of course, I haven’t had time to do laundry or go to the dry cleaner. Because, I don’t know, I’ve spent way too much time either working or sneaking around and having the best sex of my life.
The best sex of my life.
The thought lights up all the dormant parts of my brain, and suddenly I’m wondering why I’m even second-guessing the idea of going to the club.
Oh, wait, that’s right. I don’t know who he is and can’t risk getting any more attached to a guy whose life is complicated.
I could uncomplicate it for him, I think as I flip through the hangers in my closet while berating myself for even considering it.
Work clothes. Work clothes. Old work clothes. Older work clothes.
If I were being judged by the contents of my closet, I’m pretty sure someone could come to only one conclusion. My life is boring.
I’ve spent so much of my time working and trying to be respectable that I’ve basically dug myself a cozy little hole in the ground where I’m content to hang out until I’m eventually buried in it.
Great. Let’s get morbid.
I head for my dresser and open the top drawer where my limited collection of sexy lingerie lives. It’s empty. Because I desperately need to do laundry. Next drawer down. Yoga pants. Below that? Ripped jeans.
I bet I could go into Harriet’s house and find a more exciting wardrobe than I have. But then again, it’s not like I’ve spent any money that I’ve scrimped and saved on a closet full of clothes that would be suitable for going out and painting the town red. Or for spending more time at a sex club.
That settles it then. I’m not going. I will make my decision by default based on my lack of clothing options.
I reach for the yoga pants and consider pulling them on and making myself at home in my bed with a book. I have enough toy options and batteries in the nightstand drawer to keep myself well satisfied. I don’t need him.
It’s not the same, the devil sitting on my shoulder reminds me, as though I actually need reminding. I don’t. I know it’s not the same. I know there’s nothing like the thrill of walking up those steps and into one of those rooms and letting my instincts take over. That’s the problem—my instincts can’t be trusted. They led me back there too many times for my own good.