by Opal Carew
Raphael tucked the notes back into the file and whisked them to the file room with another wave of his hand. He needed to consult with Angela for any upcoming cases to see which one would best showcase Jonathan’s talents and his soon-to-emerge self-confidence when he was finished with this assignment.
Chapter Thirty-Six
He couldn’t believe he’d been so gullible. So damned stupid.
Todd stared out the kitchen window toward the garage attic. Two weeks. Two fucking weeks since his life had gone to hell. Again. Only this time it’d been his own fault.
He’d known not to get involved with anyone. He’d known it. People didn’t get a second chance like that. Not in the same lifetime. He’d gotten greedy and let it blind him to the truth. But he’d been so certain she’d been for real.
He gripped the edge of the countertop. She was good. Too fucking good. Had strung him along, even giving him good sex in the deal.
He swiped a hand over his face. That was an extra-special shitty part. The sex had been great. The sad part was, he’d thought it’d been making love, not sex. And now her story cheapened it. Cheapened him, what he’d felt.
God, could he ever trust anyone again?
Even Jasmine had turned on him. She’d been hiring the chefs, when all along, he’d thought it’d been Mike. She’d been hiring them to fix him up with them! As if he was some basket-case who needed a woman to make him whole. The utter gall of the woman still stung.
Well he was done with it. With everything.
Including painting. He’d tried to after he’d kicked Jolie out. Tried having the neighbor sit for him, Barbara, anyone but Jolie, but he couldn’t do it.
Even that was gone for him now. She’d taken it along with everything else.
The back of his eyes burned. No, damn it! He’d had enough pain. Todd pounded the granite countertop. Who cared if he broke his hand? Wasn’t like he’d need it anymore now that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—paint.
He raised his fist again, almost relishing the pain, when he heard the doorbell. Now what?
Too bad Earl and Jasmine weren’t here anymore to run interference, but he had asked them to leave. Jasmine’s heartfelt apology hadn’t changed anything. She’d betrayed him and his trust. She, of all people, had known how he’d felt about Trista. How could she have thought just anyone could replace her?
The doorbell rang again and Todd walked into the foyer. A quick word from him and whatever Girl Scout or newspaper salesman on the other side would get the picture.
He yanked open the door.
“Hello, my boy.”
The bookstore guy. What was his name again?
“Jonathan Griff. With the Holbein book?”
“Right. The book. I’ll get it.” He left the door open, took two steps, then turned around. “Actually, it’s in my studio. Why don’t you meet me there? Around the drive to the back.”
Mr. Griff tipped his hat. “Sounds good.”
Now he had to go into that studio. The one with half a dozen portraits of Jolie in various stages of completion. With Jolie in various states of undress. He should’ve stacked them all in a corner, or, better yet, burned them.
Todd’s running shoe caught on the tile grout and he almost stumbled. He couldn’t burn them. Who was he kidding?
Jolie might have disillusioned him—no might about it, actually—but she’d been the perfect model. Her portrait had flowed from his fingers as if he’d been tracing her—
He met Mr. Griff in the driveway. “If you wait here, I’ll bring it down.”
“Oh, that’s all right. The exercise will be good for me.” Mr. Griff plodded along after him up the steps.
Todd unlocked the room, keeping his eyes high on the walls, skirting the stacks of other canvases he’d tried and failed to paint. The ones of Jolie were lining the far wall. The Holbein book was back by the sofa. The sofa where they’d—
“What a lovely picture,” Mr. Griff said.
Todd didn’t have to look back to know where Mr. Griff was standing. The one finished portrait of Jolie was fourth down the line.
“I see you have a lot more of them.”
Todd grabbed the book from beneath a paint-spattered drop cloth.
The paint-spattered drop cloth.
Which he then kicked beneath the sofa.
“Here you go, Mr. Griff. Thank you.”
Mr. Griff’s bushy white eyebrows furrowed as he took it. “Did you find it helpful?”
Helpful? Todd snorted. Depended on what you called helpful.
“It was… interesting.” Todd headed back to the door. He didn’t want to spend one more minute here than was necessary.
“Eh, my boy? Todd?”
Todd turned around. Mr. Griff hadn’t moved from his spot.
“Yes?”
“These paintings—”
“Are going into a dumpster.”
“That’d be a shame. Pretty drastic, too, especially since St. Gabriel’s is having their auction. One of your pictures could fetch a nice sum for the church and its families. They did in the past, I remember.”
“I know, Mr. Griff, but these aren’t finished. The auction’s too close, and, frankly, I’m not inclined to finish these. Nor paint any others.”
“Well, like I said, it’s a shame.” Mr. Griff walked down the line of sketches and Todd bit back a groan. The man wasn’t going to let it rest.
When he got to the last, Mr. Griff turned around, those bushy eyebrows now raised. “Seems to me, it wouldn’t be much work to get a few more ready for the auction. The church could use the money, and so could the kids. They have so little as it is.”
Just like Jolie had had.
Yeah, well now she’d have a hell of a lot once she sold her book. Cookbook. Hell. He was an idiot.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Wonderful! And here—” Mr. Griff held something out with the auction flyer. “Promise me you’ll take a look at this. You might find it very interesting.”
“Fine, Mr. Griff.” Anything to get the man out of here so he could get out of here. And on with the rest of his life.
Alone.
Again.
***
Four and a half weeks after her life as she knew it (and wanted it to be) collapsed, Hark The Herald Angels Sing greeted Jolie as she opened the stained-glass door to the uber-plush office of Domestic Gods & Goddesses. She’d been helping out at Bella’s while Bruno was recuperating, but he was going to be back and she was now on a mission to get her degree done in record time, so it was time to become employed again.
But not, God willing, for very long. Once she got her degree, she was going full steam ahead with her pastry shop. No more of this chef-for-hire business. No more hoping to earn her way into someone’s life by providing meals for them. No more being on the outside looking in.
It was time for her to begin her life on her terms, no questions asked. And hopefully there wouldn’t be any questions asked.
Unless Todd had reported her? That’d been merely one of the reasons it’d taken her four and half weeks to show back up here.
Jolie straightened her shoulders. Time to face the music—Christmas carols notwithstanding—and take charge of her life.
“Yes, dear?” The little old lady—honestly, bluish tinge to the white hair, stooped and frail, wrinkles to rival a Shar Pei’s—greeted her from behind a polished cherry desk. The cream, satin-striped walls around them screamed Upper Crust, as did the Tiffany lighting and the bay window large enough to drive a truck through, with its draped golden window treatments and bird-luring crystal-clearness.
“Hi. I’m Jolie Gardener. I finished my last assignment and am looking for another one.”
“Oh. Well, yes, I mean, no, I mean… Oh, dear.” The lady—Angela, Jolie remembered—rose from her chair, hands trembling as she pushed it under the desk. “Just a moment, please.”
Angela patted the little bun on the back of her head, adjusted her lavender sweater ove
r her shoulders and the slight hump on her back, then scurried toward an office in her orthotics, glancing back once before disappearing inside the room.
What on earth was going on? Had Todd actually told them what had happened? After all his privacy issues, he’d aired this dirty laundry? Was there going to be a lawsuit?
Oh, no. She hadn’t thought about that. Jolie tugged on the hem of the white blouse she’d paired with a functional gray skirt and matching pumps. What if he was suing her and she had to pay back all the money? And what if the agency didn’t want to send her on any more assignments? She’d never get tuition money then.
Jolie ran her fingers over her hair, slicking the strands back to the clasp at the nape of her neck. Maybe she should find another line of work. One where no one would know about the book or sleeping with the client or whatever other rules she’d broken with this assignment. God, when she screwed up, she really screwed up. Something she’d obviously inherited from her mother.
She was considering cutting her losses and leaving when the door on the right clicked and, to the accompaniment of soft Muzak—harp it sounded like—a gray orthotic emerged, followed closely thereafter by the rest of Angela. No surprise there. What was a surprise was the guy who followed her.
First off, he was huge. Arms-that’d-do-a-lumberjack-proud huge. Blond and built like Atlas. Or Hercules. She never could keep all those Greek myths straight, but whichever celestial being was the big, muscular guy, this one was him personified, down to the most beautiful face a man had ever sported this side of pretty. Was he the inspiration for the “Gods” part of the agency’s name?
Of course there was the smile to match, two slashes of dimples on each side, and blue eyes the color of heaven on a spring day. Boy, if someone stuck him on the cover of a romance novel, he could’ve sold more books than Fabio ever did.
But she wasn’t here to notice the hotness factor of the man who employed her. She’d tried that once and it hadn’t worked out so well.
Second, she hadn’t had a meeting with the manager when she’d taken the assignment with Todd, so why was she meeting him now?
“Hello.” A mammoth hand clasped hers, enveloping it like a warm blanket. “Ms. Gardener, is it?”
“Yes. Jolie Gardener.”
“Please, have a seat.” He pulled out a chair for her at the conference table in front of the bay window.
“Thanks, uh, Mr… ?”
“Please call me Raphael.” He smiled and steepled his hands in front of him after taking the seat next to her, his linen pants brushing her bare calf like a feather. “So, what can I help you with?”
That didn’t sound accusatory. Maybe this was SOP when finishing an assignment. “I’m here for a new job. My last one is finished.”
“Is it? Which assignment was that?”
“Um, Todd Best.” Just saying his name was torture.
“Angela, can you bring me the file, please?”
Angela pulled a file folder from the cherry credenza and handed it to him. Raphael scanned a few of the pages while Jolie tried not to glance over the top.
Raphael glanced up. “We have no record from the client saying you’ve completed the job.”
So Todd hadn’t reported what happened. “But I did. The job’s finished. He doesn’t need a personal chef.”
Raphael closed the file and handed it back to Angela. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but we can’t place you on another assignment until the client has signed off that he no longer needs you.”
Some of her sinking-heart feeling must have shown on her face because he studied her a minute longer before glancing back at Angela. “The form, please, Angela?”
He took the form, then slid it across the table. “Really, it’s not terrible. Simply have the client sign this, stating that he no longer needs you, and we’ll close the file. It should set you back only a day or two, no longer. Then we can have you off on a new adventure just like that. Piece of cake.” He snapped his fingers.
She wanted to tell him it wasn’t going to be that easy. First she had to find the courage to see Todd, then humble herself to ask him to sign the paper, and then pull her shattered psyche back together. Yeah. Right. Piece of cake.
She tried one last plea. “Can’t you make an exception just this once? Please? The man doesn’t need anyone to cook for him, most especially not me.”
Raphael shook his head. “I’m sorry, but we can’t. Those are the rules.”
“Please? Sometimes rules are meant to be broken. It’s not like they’re etched in stone, right?”
“Actually, yes, some of them are.” He coughed. “I’m sorry, Jolie, but until we get that form signed by Mr. Best, we are unable to place you anywhere else.”
She mumbled a “Thank you,” dragged the form off the table, and left, all the while contemplating how to accomplish the feat with minimal re-opening of the scar tissue around her heart.
She still hadn’t figured it out when she reached Melanie, who, like Scarlett’s faithful friend, was back up and running, albeit with some heavy-duty damage to her bank account. Which meant she had no choice. It was either Todd or poverty. Or going through another round of background/reference-check-time-suck with another agency and hoping they didn’t contact this one for references.
She was still considering poverty.
A large, yellow flyer flapped beneath Mel’s windshield wiper. Jolie hated those things. Lose ninety pounds in ninety days, or Earn fifteen hundred bucks in fifteen minutes. Yeah, right. If life were that easy, everyone would be thin, rich, and Paris Hilton. Talk about a shame.
But this flyer, however, wasn’t about any of that stuff. It was—
Oh.
An art-show benefit for St. Gabriel’s Church and the main contributor was going to be—
Todd Best.
Todd was doing a show.
In public. Tomorrow night.
She glanced between the two pieces of paper in her hands. One Todd needed to sign and the other showed her where he was going to be—in public so there didn’t need to be any gut-wrenching explanations or confrontations. Just a simple, “Hello, Todd, would you mind signing this so I can get on with my life as you obviously have with yours?” That shouldn’t be too difficult, right?
One could hope.
Though she hadn’t really been having such great luck in the hope department lately.
Or ever.
***
“I’m not going.” Jolie held the dress against her chest and studied her image in the mirror.
Yes, you are.
Great. Naughty Girl was back from vacation.
You definitely should go.
Jolie checked out the dress again. Conservative black. Simple.
Safe.
“Go away.” The dress had been a post-Todd-days pick-me-up. She’d just never thought she’d wear it to see him.
Todd.
Oh, God. She had to go.
That’s my girl.
Jolie tried to ignore Naughty Girl, because, really, this had nothing to do with Naughty Girl and everything to do with Jolie and who she was. Who she’d always wanted to be.
From the moment she was old enough to realize her mother was calling the shots and they were all near-misses, she’d known she’d wanted to make her own decisions, wanted the chance to forge her own trail through life.
Well, she’d had that chance and look where it’d gotten her. She hadn’t made the best (no pun intended, but somehow it fit) decision with the manuscript. Yeah, her mom’s loser genes had shone through, but she couldn’t blame everything on her mother. She’d known what it’d do to him if he ever found out, even if the story wasn’t supposed to be for anyone but her.
Damn it! He needed to know that. Then, if he still opted out of what they’d had, it was on him. But she wasn’t going to try to sell that manuscript and he had to know that. She needed to explain it to him.
She’d make him let her explain it to him.
Just like those Reg
ency heroines, it was time for her to take her fate into her own two hands.
And make that lemonade she was so fond of.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Normally, Jolie wasn’t a stand-in-line kinda girl. She had too many other things to do than wait for things when they’d be on eBay soon enough. But for Todd, for him, she would stand in line.
Many people had come out to see Todd’s work. She would have hoped the buzz in line would have been for St. Gabe’s, but it was all about him. A few young ladies even had the audacity to question if he had a new woman in his life.
If only.
Finally, it was her turn to enter the church hall. White fabric hung from the ceiling—perfect backdrops to showcase Todd’s use of vibrant colors. It was one of the things he’d been known for. If the colors on his palette—and then on her and the drop cloth—were anything to go by, he was still using them.
She caught snippets as she wound her way through the maze of tables set up to take donations. She’d write a check later because she was too close and too curious to stop.
Simply beautiful, elegant and winsome, great depth, and elemental were the descriptors being bandied about. He’d probably had a slew of models traipsing through his studio to earn those kinds of accolades. Though, really, he could’ve painted a sack of potatoes and made it look elegant and winsome.
Or grapes. Sour ones.
Someone offered her a glass of champagne and she took it, needing the fortification with the paper from Domestic Gods & Goddesses burning a hole in her black clutch—except it brought to mind the bottle she’d left with the groceries that last day.
She set the glass down.
“Have you seen him yet, Marsha?” One of society’s matrons giggled in a girlish stage-whisper to her equally matron-ish friend.
“No, Babette, I haven’t. There’s quite a crush around him. And who can blame all those young women? The man has returned to the land of the living looking vibrantly alive and well. If I were thirty years younger I’d be in that pack of she-wolves myself.”