by Penelope Sky
“I miss her too,” Father said. “I never expected to have such a strong and brilliant daughter, someone I’m so proud of. She’s never put up with bullshit, and she’s always understood her self-worth. Independent, smart, and wonderful. I couldn’t have asked for anyone better. I can’t wait for her to be happy again, and this time, stay happy.” Father was never much for words, but whenever he spoke from the heart, it was always poetic.
Mama rested her hand on his on the table. “She will be.”
Father moved his fingers in between hers and gripped her hand, his thumb swiping across her soft skin. He gave her an affectionate look, a look he could never hide from us. I saw it all the time when we were growing up. I used to find it repulsive, but now that I was older, seeing my parents still in love made me happy.
It made me want that for myself.
Muse turned to me. “Con, you should tell them the good news.”
“What good news?” Mama turned back to us, pulling her gaze off my father reluctantly.
Father looked at me but kept his hand on Mama’s. “Tell us.”
Muse couldn’t stop smiling. Her hair framed her face, and her beautiful eyes were brilliant, pregnant with excitement.
It distracted me for a moment, seeing my wife look so happy. I’d only been married for a few weeks, but I realized all I wanted in life was to keep doing this…making her smile. My priorities had changed after I met her, but now they’d changed again. It was an enormous responsibility, but I took it on without pause.
I felt lucky that the woman I loved adored my family as much as I did. She wore the Barsetti name so effortlessly, had become a part of us since the day she’d met everyone. She wanted to be with them even more than I did, to spend her spare time with my parents and sister when I wasn’t around. “We’ve decided to move here.”
Mama’s eyes swelled to twice their size, and her mouth popped open with a silent scream. “Really?”
Father didn’t react so profoundly. But a smile stretched across his lips, a look of genuine joy. “That’s great news.”
“You want to raise your family here?” Mama dropped his hand, moving toward Muse anxiously.
“Yes.” Muse moved her hand to her stomach. “Verona and Milan are beautiful, but when Conway is at work, I want to be with family. I want our kids to be with family.”
Mama’s eyes softened in a whole new way, and this time, tears accompanied her expression. “Crow…isn’t that wonderful?” She turned back to him, so happy that she looked sad.
He didn’t have the same dramatic reaction, but he was definitely happy. “It is. It’s what we’ve always wanted.”
“Our babies are back,” she whispered. “We can see them all the time.”
“Yes, we can.” My father wrapped his arm around her and held her, letting her lean on him.
Muse turned to me, a knowing smile on her lips. “I knew they would be happy.”
“Yeah.” I grabbed her hand on her stomach. “And I know we’re going to be happy too.”
Eleven
Vanessa
Arrangements of geraniums, tulips, and other flowers were right outside the store on a stand. Recently picked and blooming, they were bright with color and vibrant with life. The small shop was several blocks away from my gallery, but I didn’t take my car because I enjoyed the walk. I grabbed a coffee on the way and finished it by the time I got there.
When I walked inside, various flowers were scattered across the table, scissors and tools right beside it, along with a thick pair of gloves. Arrangements in glass vases were in the small refrigerator in the back. Directly next to the shop was a little greenhouse, a plot of land that had the perfect location to get sun exposure for most of the day.
Carmen emerged from the back, her hair pulled up in a loose bun. She wore a yellow sundress, an ideal shade for her olive skin. With bright red lipstick, Barsetti eyes, and a slender figure, she was the perfect person to work in a beautiful shop all day. “Vanessa!” She set down the flowers she was holding and gave me a hug. “What a pleasant surprise. I’m so glad you stopped by.”
“The shop looks beautiful. You’ve made a lot of changes.”
“Yeah, I did,” she said. “But I like the way it turned out. I wanted something unique, and I think the number of customers has increased because of it.”
“Or because of the pretty girl behind the counter,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes. “Most of my customers are women.”
“They might like the pretty girl behind the counter too.”
She chuckled then grabbed the flowers she’d set down, purple tulips. She carried them to the island in the middle of the store. A plastic wrapper was on the table along with some ribbon. “I was just making another arrangement to put outside. I had a whole selection, but it was wiped clean this morning. I’m going to have to find a new place to grow my own flowers. Buying them from someone else is just too expensive, and I’m running out of room.”
“Well, both of our parents have a ton of soil.”
“No.” She dismissed the idea with a shake of her head. “I don’t want to use them for anything. I want my business to sustain itself.”
“I know what you mean.” My family didn’t help with my business either. Bones did all of that, his parting gift to me. I stood across from her at the island. “Can I help?”
“Sure.” She gave me a pair of shears and some gloves. “Trim all the extra leaves.”
“Got it.” I started to work.
“I’m surprised you aren’t at the gallery.”
“I’m on lunch right now. I did a painting this morning, had a few customers, and then closed for an hour. I got a bagel at the coffee shop.”
“Some lunch,” she teased.
“At least I eat,” I countered.
“Whatever,” she said with a scoff. “You weren’t eating for weeks at one point.”
Because I was too depressed. Thinking about that dark time made me falter in my movements.
Carmen immediately looked guilty for what she’d said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Let’s just forget it.”
She gave me a smile and kept working. “So…rumor has it a hunky man is after you.”
I never told her about Antonio, so there was only one way she could have found out. “My father told you?”
“My mama did.”
“Which means he told everyone…”
“Naturally,” she said. “But don’t act surprised. Nothing stays a secret for long with the Barsettis. So why the hell did you say no? That man sounds sexy as sin.”
“Because I’m not over Griffin.” I shouldn’t even have to say that.
“Well, are you ever really going to be over him?” she countered. “That’s never going to happen. He’s always gonna have a piece of your heart, Vanessa. Even when years pass, you’ll never forget him. So maybe the best thing for you to do is move forward.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But that wouldn’t be fair to Antonio. What kind of man wants to be with a woman who’s still hung up on her ex? I wouldn’t be interested in that…”
“He might not care, Vanessa. He might want you enough to be patient. A really confident man wouldn’t care about something like that, because he knows he can make you forget about the other man.”
“Not possible.” Even if I fell in love again, I would never forget what I had with Bones.
“You never know…” She finished preparing the flowers then arranged them with her fingers. She took the ones I was working on and combined them, placing them in a perfect arrangement because she had a natural ability. “So, you’re just going to ignore him forever?”
“I’m not sure what to do.”
“Vanessa, he sounds perfect.”
I rolled my eyes. “Carmen, I know absolutely nothing about him.”
“Not true,” she countered. “You know he’s a hot painter. What else do you need to know?”
&n
bsp; “I’m not sure, but I need more.”
“Then get to know him,” she countered. “Have coffee with him. You don’t have to jump into bed right away. You don’t even need to kiss the guy. Just have a conversation.”
Having a conversation with him seemed just as intimate as sex, especially when he looked at me like I was the only woman in the world who mattered. “I don’t know…”
“Vanessa, you know I liked Griffin. I thought our family was being too harsh and he deserved a better chance. He obviously loved you and was willing to do anything for you. That was all that mattered to me, and I’m sorry our family didn’t see it the same way. You should be with him. You should be happy.”
I bowed my head, missing him deeply.
“But he’s gone, Vanessa. It’s over. He’s not coming back.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, hating the harsh truth.
“So what’s the point in staying this way? Staying this miserable? You like this guy, right? Just have coffee with him. That’s not scandalous. You aren’t betraying Griffin. And you can have coffee with a guy and still be in love with someone else. You could even sleep with him and still be in love with someone else.”
“How?” I demanded. “That’s wrong.”
“Not if you’re honest about it,” she argued. “Be transparent with him. Tell him exactly what he’s getting out of you. He can decide if he still wants to be involved. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
I looked at the handful of flowers in her hand, surprised by how effortlessly she’d made a professional arrangement. “Those look nice. You’re a natural.”
“Thanks.” She gave me a smile before she dropped it again. “I’ll let you change the subject, but think about what I said.” She wrapped the plastic around the stems then secured it in place with a rubber band. “Because there are only so many young, sexy painters out there…and he’s not going to be available for long.”
I finished the painting an hour after the sun rose that morning, so I hung it up in my gallery when it opened. I’d always been an early riser, and that behavior was necessary for my artwork. The light couldn’t be more perfect on a clear day, and I captured some of the most amazing pieces that way.
I wrote the price on the tag before I turned the card over. It hung on the wall, the other side showing the name of the painting, along with the date on which I painted it. I always wrote the exact time it was made on the bottom corner so people could build a deeper story around the image. Sometimes they were painted at sunrise, and sometimes at sunset. Art collectors were always interested in those things.
“Beautiful.” His suave voice and masculine tone crept up behind me, so smooth his words grazed across the back of my neck all the way down my spine. My hair stood on end because of the way his tone soothed me.
I knew who it was without even turning around. I kept staring at my painting, my heart suddenly pounding when I recognized the company I was in. The next step would be to turn around, but I paused for a few more seconds, collecting myself before I faced him head on. I reminded myself that he wasn’t as handsome as I imagined, that he was just a man like every other one. He wasn’t special, just an artist who shared the same love of artwork. I shouldn’t allow him to affect me at all, to make me feel anything.
He waited for me to turn around, patient as always.
I finally turned on the spot, my eyes locking on his. His beard had grown a little thicker, and now hair was sprinkled across his jaw and along his cheeks. Deep brown, nearly black, it complemented his dark skin perfectly. With eyes the color of warm coffee on a winter day, he was even more beautiful than I remembered. In a black V-neck and black jeans, he looked handsome as hell in the color. It matched his dark hair and eyes.
Damn.
His lips rose softly in a smile, his mood elevating the longer he looked at me. Antonio seemed to read my moods, to understand what I was thinking even though he didn’t know me well enough to do so.
“Thank you.” I forced the words out, choosing to speak instead of sit in silence. The silence was worse than talking because it was too intense, too potent. “I painted it this morning.”
His soft smile remained, but his eyes focused further on my face. His eyebrows shifted slightly. “I wasn’t talking about the painting.”
Shit.
“But it’s beautiful as well.”
My hair was down today, one of the first times I’d actually done anything with it. But I skipped the makeup and the cute outfit. I wore a light blue summer dress and sandals since it was going to be a hot day in the city. When it was humid and warm, jeans were a terrible choice. My skin had started to deepen in color from being in the sun more often, so the tone contrasted with the brightness of my dress.
I knew Antonio wasn’t going to walk away from me, not so easily. He’d left me alone for the past few days, just like last time. He seemed to have a pattern, or it was just a coincidence.
My eyes shifted to the floor, breaking the contact because I couldn’t take it anymore. With Bones, I could hold his gaze forever without flinching. When he made love to me, I never stopped staring at him, even when our lips touched. Looking at Antonio made me think of those nights, and the idea of having that kind of intimacy with him terrified me.
“Don’t be afraid to look at me.”
“I’m not.” I flicked my eyes up again, remembering I should never back down. “I just don’t want to.”
Again, the rejection didn’t sting him the way it would sting someone else. It was like he didn’t hear it at all, like it didn’t mean anything. He seemed to see past my excuses and my lies to the truth behind them.
That I felt exactly what he felt.
“There’s so much beauty in the truth. So let’s only speak with the truth.”
It was a riddle of a sentence, but I somehow grasped his meaning. “I told you I wasn’t interested.”
“I remember.” He kept his arms by his sides, his muscled arms covered in veins the way I liked. His skin was beautiful, kissable. A corded vein went up his neck, prominent against his tight skin. Without his having to remove his shirt, it was clear to see that he was ripped in all the right places. There was nothing but muscle underneath that cotton. “But it wasn’t the truth.”
“I’m not ready to see anyone.”
“I believe that one,” he said. “And I respect it.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
He watched my movements before his eyes flicked back to mine. “I’m only asking for your companionship, nothing else. Have dinner with me. Let’s get some coffee or gelato. Whatever you want. All I’m asking for is your time. Please give it to me.”
We bypassed all the normal conversation that two strangers had. We skipped to the middle, speaking to each other with such candidness it was like we’d known each other our entire lives. The connection was so strong there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was there—and we both knew it. “I don’t want to waste your time. You’re a beautiful man…there’s not a woman out there you couldn’t have.”
He raised one eyebrow, sincerely surprised. “Even if that were true, I don’t want a woman out there. Right now, I want the woman in here. And you’ve never wasted my time, Vanessa. Even when you reject me, I still enjoy these moments.”
The way he said my name sent shivers down my spine. It was intimate, like he pressed his lips against mine and said my name directly into my throat. “I’m in love with another man…” I said the words out loud and felt a jolt of pain in my chest. I didn’t want to hurt Antonio, and I didn’t want to harbor these feelings any longer. Carmen made an excellent point when I spoke to her that afternoon. Carrying a vigil for Bones in my heart hadn’t done me any good. It only caused me pain.
Again, Antonio didn’t react. It was like those words meant nothing to him. “But you aren’t seeing him anymore.”
“How did you know…?”
“Because if you really were with someone else…�
�� He raised his hand and moved it toward me before he pointed at his chest. “Then this wouldn’t be happening. So this man must be gone…either from life or your life.”
“Yes…he is.”
He lowered his hand again. “I appreciate your bluntness. But it doesn’t change anything.”
This man was so confident that he didn’t care what I’d just said. It didn’t seem like he was concerned about anything I could say. He wanted me, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had me. “I’m just not ready. It wouldn’t be fair to date someone when I still feel this way. When I put myself out there again, I want to be ready to love someone. I’m definitely not there, and that’s not fair to you, to anyone.”
He gave a slight nod. “I understand your reasoning. The timing isn’t right. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be interested in getting involved with someone under those circumstances. But I want to get to know you anyway. All I’m asking for is your friendship. That’s something you should be able to give me right now.”
“I…”
“Vanessa.” His voice sounded a little more powerful when he spoke my name, the word reverberating off the walls of my gallery. It went straight into my ear, making me melt into a puddle on the floor. “Have coffee with me.” This time, it didn’t sound like a request but a command.
“I just…” I couldn’t keep denying him forever. He would find his way into my heart eventually. At least I could do this on my terms. “Alright. But I want something from you, a promise.”
His shoulders tightened slightly when I said yes. “Anything.”
“Don’t kiss me.” I didn’t want him to walk me to my door and surprise me with an embrace. I didn’t want him to slide his hand into my hair and caress me with his mouth. I didn’t want him to rush the relationship, not when I wasn’t ready for it.
His eyes didn’t flash with disappointment or annoyance. “How about this. Anytime I want to kiss you, I’ll tell you. If you don’t want me to, say nothing. And when you are ready, just say yes.”