by Louise Bay
“Hey, do I look cool?”
Scarlett frowned. “Cool?”
“You know, like it’s just another day and I’m not going to explode with excitement.” I grinned at her.
She laughed. “Yeah, babe, you always look cool. Are you excited?”
“Hell yes.” I nodded toward the delivery truck. “There’s a freaking Gauguin in this lot. Can you believe that?” All the incoming pieces were beautiful and a step up from the work I could normally stock, but a Gauguin? I was going to pee my pants. Art like this would put me on the map.
“Hey, I’ve heard of that guy. Isn’t he like in museums and shit?” Scarlett asked, smiling at me. “I knew that this place would be a smash.”
“Well, I’m not sure smash is the right word …” For the first time since I’d opened I felt like I had a bit of momentum.
“You should be so proud of yourself, Grace.”
“It was all Harper’s idea. She was trying to give me a focus after …” I shrugged. “You know.” I didn’t like talking about Sam. I tried not to even think about him. He ignored every single one of my calls and messages. He’d made his decision. Whatever his motivations, as Harper said, the outcome was still the same.
“Yeah, but you took it and ran with it. You made it all happen.”
What I hadn’t expected was that people would actually buy art during the events. I’d hoped to pass my card around and maybe people would think of me around bonus time or on their wife’s birthday. “I’ve gotten great sales on both the nights we’ve had these things—I hope we do again tonight.”
“Well, that’s because people can’t resist your good taste and charm. Speaking of, are any of the men dating material?”
“I thought you had your hands full with Duncan?” I asked.
“Not for me, silly. For you. I’m sure a couple of them have asked you out.”
“Oh, not really.” I opened the door to let the next delivery through. I’m not sure I would have noticed if I’d been hit on.
“None of them your type?” she asked.
“Honestly, I’m not looking for anything right now. I just want to concentrate on my business.” Just the thought of another man touching me was enough to make me want to throw up. Seven and a half weeks since I’d last seen Sam, and the thought was still unconscionable. My cast was off but my heart still bore the scars of that accident. I wasn’t sure those would ever disappear.
“Duncan has a friend who’d like to meet you. You’d like him.”
“Thanks, but I’m not dating anyone at the moment.” History said that people got over heartbreak and maybe one day I might want to date again, have someone kiss me again, but I couldn’t imagine that day was very close. “Can we drop it?”
“Hey, Grace,” Mark, an artist I’d be featuring soon, said from across the gallery. “I’m done in the back and going to head out.”
I glanced at Scarlett, who was looking at Mark as if he were naked—eyes wide, mouth open. “Okay, did you leave them in order?”
Grinning, he walked over to us. So much for the suffering artist vibe—Mark looked more tickled than tortured. And the way he looked at me was so intense it was uncomfortable—as if I could provide all the answers to the questions he had. “Mark, this is Scarlett. Scarlett, Mark is one of the new artists who’s going to be exhibiting with us.”
“Nice to meet you,” Scarlett said, her eyes sparkling as she held out her hand. Mark shook her hand briefly but all his attention was fixed on me. The old Grace would have loved Mark. He was talented, and although his exhibition at my gallery wouldn’t be his first, he was still relatively undiscovered. And he was handsome in a pretty kind of way, and utterly charming. A few months ago, I would have eaten him up with a spoon. But my appetite had left me.
“Thanks for letting me have input on the curation, Grace, I really appreciate it.”
I smiled, trying to be professional. “No problem. It’s really great to get your view.”
“I was wondering if I could take you to dinner as a thank you?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Scarlett raise her eyebrows, and as subtly as she was able, turn her attention to the painting right behind her.
“There’s no need to do that,” I replied. “All part of the job.” I didn’t date guys like Mark anymore. I’d grown up. Experienced what it felt like to have someone really love me. Now I understood the difference between wanting to fix someone and loving them. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t fall back into my old cycle.
He looked genuinely disappointed. “I understand. Let me know if there’s anything you need, otherwise let’s speak next week.”
“Sure,” I said, waving as he left.
Scarlett spun around. “Grace, he is gorgeous. Why on earth did you turn him down? I thought he was just your type.”
Funny how Sam had changed me so completely and fundamentally, yet no one seemed to get it—there wasn’t anyone else for me but Sam.
“No, he’s not my type. Not anymore.”
“Dinner wouldn’t hurt though. A girl’s gotta eat. You might like him if you spent a bit of time with him.”
“I told you; I’m not dating.” The delivery guys came through the door with the next piece.
“I don’t think you should shut yourself off from men completely. It’s been months.”
“Please, Scarlett, I asked you to drop it.”
She tucked her arm around my shoulder. “Sorry. I just want you to be happy.”
“And I appreciate it. So make me happy by telling me what you brought us for lunch. Does it include alcohol?” I asked. “Because I could do with a little buzz to get me through this afternoon.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I’m not sure my employers would be so lenient on me for day drinking.”
“Maybe not. You’re in charge of the money, after all.” I elbowed her in the ribs and she squeezed me tighter before releasing me.
“We’ll have to make do with pine nut, arugula and goat cheese salad.”
Truth was, I’d lost my appetite.
I’d gotten past the stage where everywhere I went, I thought I caught glimpses of Sam. I went whole days without crying over him. But I was nowhere close to being able to think about him without pain trickling through my body. I was desperate for my longing for him to disappear. I was ready to be over him. It just wasn’t happening.
I wondered if it ever would.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sam
“Coming,” I shouted at the pounding against my hotel room door. I stalked over—Jesus, room service was impatient—and slung it open only to find Angie instead of my food. Fuck. I should have checked the peephole. “What are you doing here?” I barked.
She didn’t answer, just pushed past me into my suite. I couldn’t be in the Park Avenue apartment without memories of Grace surrounding me—she’d picked out the furniture, the art. It was too much.
I let the door slam shut. “How did you find me?”
Angie sat on the couch, crossed her arms and stared straight ahead. “I’m resourceful. When your best friend disappears for eight fucking weeks, you find a way.”
“I didn’t disappear.”
“You moved out—I sat outside your door for twenty-four hours, so I’d be sure. And you stopped answering my calls.”
“You’re here now. What do you want?” I wanted to be left alone—I didn’t need Angie interfering.
“I want you to explain what the fuck you’re trying to do by ignoring my calls. Presumably you’re avoiding me ripping you a new asshole because you’ve abandoned Grace when she needed you most.”
My heart lurched at the thought of Grace needing me. I tightened my hands into a ball. That was why I’d walked away. I couldn’t open myself up like that.
“There’s no avoiding this conversation, Sam. We’re family. And family tells each other when someone’s making a huge mistake.”
Family. That was such a loaded word. It was what I’d lost when I wa
s twelve. It was what I’d been on the verge of having again with Grace. But Angie was right—most of all it was what I’d had with her since we’d found each other in foster care.
I didn’t respond. Instead I bent over the glossy wood cabinet by the sofa and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. I poured two drinks and sat down next to her.
I tried to hand her a glass, but she knocked it away. Rivulets of whiskey coated my arm and the glass clunked as it hit the carpet.
“Jesus. You could have just said no.” I took a sip of my drink.
“It smells disgusting,” she said, folding her arms in front of her again.
“It absolutely does not. It smells like expensive whiskey.” She had such a temper.
“Well, it smells like dog shit to a pregnant woman.”
I tried not to smile. This was what she and Chas had been wanting for well over a year. “Congratulations. I’m really happy for you.”
“Fuck you.”
“What? I’m happy for you. I mean it.” Wow. Angie was having a baby. She deserved it all.
“You’re going to be the godfather, asshole.”
I pushed my hands through my hair. “No, Angie, I’m not.” I needed less to care about in my life, not more.
“I’m not giving you a choice. You’re the only person in my life I totally trust—the person who knows me the best.” She turned and looked at me for the first time since she’d arrived. “I have no one else to ask. So, there’s no disappearing out of my life, out of our lives. Do you get that? I can’t handle it. I need you.”
I stood up. “It’s not a good idea. You can’t need me, Angie. I’ll just end up disappointing you. Or one of us will die and—”
“Just stop it,” Angie said. I glanced at her and she rolled her eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”
I paused and then chuckled. In our darkest hours, Angie had always shown me the funny side.
I sat back down beside her.
“And now I need you more than ever,” she said. “I have this tiny human parasite in me and it’s going to arrive in seven months. I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m sure I’m going to melt down at least once a day. The only thing I learned from my mom was how to be a crack whore. I want to save those lessons until my daughter’s eighteen.”
“You’re having a girl?” Angie would be a terrific mother despite her start in life.
The corners of her mouth curled up. “Yeah. Can you believe it?”
I shook my head. “It’s amazing.”
“I need you, Sam.”
“You have Chas.”
“I need him, too. But don’t you get it? You’re my family. I’ve been abandoned once—don’t do it to me again.” She started to cry and I grabbed her hand. I hated the thought that I’d left her like her mother had. “And you can’t do it to my daughter, either. She’s going to need you, too.”
I squeezed her hand. “I’m right here.” Angie would always be in my life, for better or worse. It was just too late to change that. She was family. “I’m so sorry for disappearing.”
“I know you are.”
Just like that, I was forgiven. We were Sam and Angie again.
“So, you ready to be an uncle to this kid?”
“Not even a little bit.” I smiled at her.
“All you have to do is love her. That’s all I ask.”
“I think you’re asking the wrong man.” I wasn’t capable of doing things other people took for granted—things like loving people. It just wasn’t that easy.
“You can’t live without love, Sam. If you try, you might as well have died in that car right alongside your parents.”
I tried to twist my hand free from hers, but she wouldn’t let me. “Don’t say stuff like that.” I knew how lucky I’d been.
“I know you don’t like to talk about them, but I also know the man you are. Not the guy people see from the outside—not what your parents’ deaths did to you—the man who’s left when everyone else except me is gone.” She leaned over and poked me in the chest. “I know what’s in here. I know who your parents created while they were alive. A man who would lay down his life for me. Loyal. Determined. Fierce. Someone who’s capable of giving great love.”
Even though they’d left me so early in life, I was my parents’ legacy. Angie was right—all the good inside me was them. “You’re going to be an amazing mother.”
“If I’m not, it’s all your fault. You convinced me I could do this. And I’m determined I’m going to do my best by this kid. I owe it to my daughter, to Chas, but most of all to me. You told me I shouldn’t let my past determine my future. But neither should you, my friend. You deserve Grace.”
I rested my head back on the cushion and closed my eyes.
“That’s what your parents would want for you, Sam. A great love. Someone who deserves you. Someone like Grace. I think they would have loved the way she loves you.”
I was sure they would have loved Grace. And she them. The inside of my nose burned as images of what might have been formed in my imagination.
“She doesn’t love me. Not anymore.” The thought hit me in the chest with a sledgehammer. “And that’s the way it should be.”
“No, Sam, that’s not how it should be at all. What you and Grace have doesn’t come along that often.”
As much as I might want to deny it, I couldn’t. What Grace and I had was special. But it wasn’t enough to protect me if the worst happened. I stared up at the cracked ceiling. “What if something happened to her, if she left me somewhere down the line? I just wouldn’t handle it.”
“Be the guy she’s never going to want to leave and let the universe decide the rest.”
“The universe? That’s your answer? That’s no guarantee. I wouldn’t survive losing her. I know I wouldn’t.” Even now, after not seeing Grace for weeks, if I heard something had happened to her, it would kill me.
“I think you’re the strongest guy I know. You can survive anything. Let your parents’ deaths teach you that. Let it have been a demonstration of your strength. Don’t let their deaths make you live in fear. Honor your mom and dad by living your best life, and loving as hard as you can.”
I leaned forward, putting my head in my hands.
I knew my parents would want me to be happy. But they’d understand how I had to protect myself. Wasn’t surviving enough?
“I don’t think I can.”
“Let me ask you this: would you have preferred not having those first twelve years with your parents? Never to have known them at all?”
I groaned in response to the pain that ripped across my chest. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than never having known my parents. Those years had been worth all the pain and suffering that came later. I would have endured anything to have had them in my life, even for a shortened time.
And then I knew—I had to love Grace for as long as life allowed me to do so.
I watched from across the street as people funneled out the gallery door. The evening was almost over. I’d done my research in the days since Angie’d ambushed me. Tonight Grace was hosting a party for a Wall Street investment bank I happened to do a lot of business with. A brief phone call to a contact there had secured an invitation. It had taken more than a phone call for the next part of my plan to fall into place, but I was nothing if not tenacious. I always got what I wanted. I hoped tonight wouldn’t break my streak.
I grasped the brown paper package I’d brought in both hands and headed across the street.
“Sam Shaw,” I said to the security guy at the door. He swiped his fingers over the screen of an iPad and nodded at me. I waited for a group of four men to leave, then stepped into the gallery.
I scanned the faces of the guests, trying to find Grace. I didn’t want to disrupt her evening, so my plan was to hang around until everyone else had left. In the meantime, I had a delivery to make.
I made my way to the back of the gallery, trying to get to the secret area where she kept he
r favorite pieces. But something had changed. The layout was different, not as big. She’d put an additional wall down the middle of the gallery and the hidden area had disappeared. Shit. What was I going to do now? That was where I’d wanted to leave my gift.
From where I stood, the gallery looked smaller. The art was bold and modern and it ran the length of the space. I turned my head to see a pass-through, larger than a doorway, in the middle of the wall. She’d split the store? I looked around but there was still no sign of her, so I headed toward the opening. The other side was Grace through and through. I could tell this was the art she really loved. I grinned. I saw her in every piece. Her secret collection wasn’t so little anymore, and it certainly wasn’t secret.
Good for her. She was doing what she loved. Even though I had no right to be, I was so proud of her.
I crouched, set down my gift, and tore at the twine. I’d deliberately tied the wrapping with string so I could get it off quickly, but now the knot wouldn’t loosen.
I twisted the string, trying to soften the knot, but the light was dim and I couldn’t see what I was doing properly.
“Sam?” Grace asked from behind me.
I dropped my hands and stood, steeling myself for my first look at her. Even though I’d prepared myself, when I turned around the sight of her was almost too much. I’d forgotten how her generous spirit showed on her face, how her warmth was infectious.
“Hi,” I said. “You look …” Like the love of my life. “Beautiful.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked, stepping back as I moved toward her.
“I came to apologize and explain. I just need a few minutes.” I didn’t expect her to forgive me, not right away, but I had to believe I had another shot with her. Whatever happened, I’d keep loving her my whole life.
Her expression was blank but she wasn’t asking me to leave. I had to take my chance. I took a deep breath. “You’re the first woman I’ve ever loved and the only one I ever will. I messed up.” And I would pay forever if she didn’t forgive me. “If I’d known I’d meet you, that I’d feel how I do, I’d have practiced. Made my mistakes, gotten them out of the way before you came along. But I had no idea what love could feel like. You are beyond my imagination, Grace Astor.”