Sculpting Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 2)

by Samantha Westlake

  A couple of days earlier, the thought of signing a new artist would have thrilled me, filled me with excitement. Now, however, I couldn't muster up any enthusiasm at all.

  And try as I might, I couldn't get de St. James' last words out of my head. "Sometimes, two people just miss."

  Was that what happened with Carter and me?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  *

  As I headed back into the Halesford Gallery, I tried to psych myself up to deal with yet another depressed person. Unless we'd suddenly gotten a mysterious influx of new customers - and I didn't see any reason why that would happen - Lizzie would surely be down in the dumps. I might even need to pull out another pep talk, just to keep her from quitting.

  I didn't know if I still had the energy in me to pull off such a pep talk - but when I walked into the gallery, expecting depression, I instead found myself greeted with a beaming smile, shining out from beneath the frizzy mop of blonde curls.

  "Hey, you're back! Quitting time already?" Lizzie asked, practically singing. She bounced up and down in her seat behind the front desk, making me nervous that she would go toppling off her chair and break her head open at any second.

  "Yeah, five o'clock - what's going on?" I asked, trying to figure out what might have led to such a drastic change in attitude from my young and once again bubbly assistant. "Did we finally get customers?"

  "No, even better than that!" she replied, closing her eyes and tilting her head up, as if bathing in an invisible sunbeam. "Oh, Becca, it's amazing! The world feels bright and happy again, I'd swear that I can hear birds singing-"

  "Okay, you're making me concerned," I told her with a smile, stepping behind the desk so I could look down at her. "Really, tell me what's going on!"

  Lizzie opened her eyes, clapping her hands together as she smiled up at me. "Becca, I met a guy!"

  A little laugh burst out of me before I could catch myself. "What, here?" I asked in disbelief. "And he wasn't a senior citizen?"

  "No, no, not a customer!" she replied, shaking her head and sending those blonde curls bouncing back and forth. "No, an artist! And he's so tall and dark and handsome, just like in a movie, and he swept me up, and he's so strong and powerful..."

  As Lizzie kept on prattling on, I felt a pit open up in my stomach. "Dark and handsome?" I repeated. "Which artist, specifically?"

  "His name is Onyx," Lizzie sighed, emphasizing and drawing out the name so that it stretched over three full syllables. 'Ahh-ohn-nix'. "He makes the black stone sculptures, over in the second room. Oh, Becca, he's so dreamy, and he smiled at me and made me feel amazing, and just beckoned, and..." she sighed and dropped back into her seat, slumping as if even describing the man was sexually exhausting.

  I, meanwhile, felt my jaw tightening until I wasn't sure that I could manage to get any words out. Onyx had come in here and seduced my assistant? What was the man thinking? How dare he?

  "What did he do?" I finally got out.

  Lizzie, meanwhile, hadn't noticed my changing tone and expression. "Oh, it was just like in a romance novel! He swept in, and as soon as he laid eyes on me, I just felt this primal surge of attraction towards him, you know? He didn't have to say, like, anything, and I was totally his." She giggled. "He just slipped back towards the bathroom, and crooked his finger at me, and I swear that I felt my body moving on its own, like magic! Can you believe it?"

  I realized that she'd asked me a question. "No, I can't believe it," I muttered in response to her. My fingers tightened into claws, almost fists.

  I started to reach for the phone, intending to call Onyx and tear him a new one, but then stopped halfway to the receiver. I probably shouldn't call the man and put him in his place right here, not right in front of Lizzie.

  I'd have to break the news that her new love interest was a man who apparently would sleep with anything that moved, and their "connection" was anything but special - but not here. Not now.

  My furious expression softened slightly as I saw how Lizzie's face was still all lit up, how she babbled on to me about how sexy and amazing Onyx had been. This was, I realized, the first time in the last couple of days that I'd seen her be really, truly happy. I didn't need to prick this bubble right now. Let her enjoy it, even if it wasn't true.

  But I was going to go confront Onyx, and lord help me if there happened to be a hammer sitting nearby, tempting my darker side and within easy reach....

  I managed to put up with Lizzie's lovestruck ramblings as I closed down the gallery, and locked the door after she'd stepped outside. "See you tomorrow," I told her.

  "Maybe Onyx will come back in," she sighed, drifting off down the sidewalk. She seemed so filled with happiness, I was surprised that her feet still touched the ground.

  "Or maybe he'll trip and fall into a ditch somewhere," I muttered to myself, once she was out of earshot. I checked the front door one last time, making sure that the lock had engaged, and then headed straight towards the nearby block of warehouses, towards Onyx's home and studio.

  As I walked, I pulled out my phone. No sense in calling Onyx now, not when my call would only announce that I was headed over. Instead, I found Carter's number. For a second, I hesitated, well aware of how we'd ended our last conversation, but I needed to tell someone - and who else would hold a similar grudge against Onyx?

  I waited as the phone rang, but after fifteen rings, I just heard the sound of his voicemail message. Was he ignoring me, or was he just not around? I tried again, only to get the exact same result, and gave up.

  At Onyx's warehouse, I tried the door handle and, finding it unlocked, barged straight in without knocking. Even with the door closed, I could hear the repetitive hits of a metal chisel against stone, so I doubted that he would have heard me knocking.

  I went straight through the hanging sheets, appearing right in front of the man as he circled a large block of black marble. A petty part of me hoped that my sudden appearance might startle him into messing up, or maybe hitting his own thumb with the hammer, but he just lowered the tools as he spotted me.

  "Rebecca," he greeted me, sounding as if absolutely nothing was wrong.

  "Don't you 'Rebecca' me, you - you man slut," I snapped back at him. I was well aware that this insult lacked a certain panache, but I didn't have anything else mentally ready - and I couldn't stop to think of better words.

  Onyx frowned slightly, but didn't show any other noticeable reaction to my words. Maybe he was surprised, but it didn't make it to his smooth, handsome, chiseled face. Damn him and his attractive looks! I wished that I could read him better. "Something wrong?"

  "You know very well what's wrong," I fired off. "You came to the gallery and slept with my assistant! What the hell is wrong with you?"

  Amazingly, his lips quirked up into a slight smile. "Ah, Lizzie. I don't think I've seen someone quite so... devoted to making a sale before. Not that finding out that I'm an artist, not a customer, seemed to put her off."

  I couldn't hold myself back; I stepped forward and punched him in the chest.

  Immediately, I regretted that action. Not because I felt like I'd overreacted, but rather because his chest was about the same hardness as the block of black marble that he'd been carving before I interrupted. My fingers smarted, and I felt like I'd just tried to punch my way through a steel door. Still, I kept up an angry expression, not wanting to show him that I'd succeeded only in hurting myself.

  "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?" I went on, trying to disguise my wince of pain behind a furious scowl. "You just come in and sleep with her, just like that? I thought you had morals, had honor!"

  "Honor?" Onyx repeated, his frown reappearing on his features. "She practically ripped my pants off. Shouldn't you be confronting her about her promiscuity, not me?"

  "She doesn't know any better!" I shouted back at him. "She doesn't know about you, how you apparently can't keep your dick out of everything that moves!"

  I expected Onyx to get upset at my wor
ds - after all, I was practically screaming at him. Instead, however, he stepped forward, gently catching my arm by the wrist and elbow and tugging me forward.

  "What are you doing?" I asked, trying to hold onto my anger and not let the soft touch of his fingers against me exert its normal, soothing, calming effect.

  "Just come with me. I'd rather not hold an argument here." Onyx smiled down at me. "I promise that you can keep yelling in a minute."

  Well, I supposed that I could go along with that. I reluctantly let him lead me across the middle corridor of his warehouse, over to his living area. He carefully brought me to the massive, incredibly soft leather couch, where the slightest little push from him deposited my butt down on top of the thick cushions. He sat down beside me, his hands sliding up my arm, up to my shoulder, where his fingertips pushed in deep enough to touch my tense muscles and make me groan a little with pleasure.

  "There, now you can keep yelling," he murmured to me, practically speaking into my ear. "But let me try and relieve a bit of tension while you do."

  "I really am angry at you," I repeated, although my words seemed to lack a bit of conviction now. I really did want to stay angry, but his fingers seemed to suck away my frustration as they kneaded at my muscles, rolling my shoulder blades slightly in their sockets and making my arms dangle limply at my sides.

  "I know you are," he replied. "You're angry at me because I slept with your assistant."

  "That's right!" I snapped, a little bit of the anger flaring back up - but as quickly as it bloomed like a hot, thorny red rose in my head, Onyx's fingers sucked it away, calming me back down again as he massaged my shoulders. "You had no right to go and do that, even if it did make her happy again..."

  "Why don't you lean forward?" Onyx suggested softly to me, as his fingers worked their nimble way down the back of my spine, down towards where I felt another knot of tension sitting tight at the small of my back. "Just take deep breaths, relax, let your mind go blank..."

  His advice sounded great, especially coupled with the way that his hands moved on me. "If I didn't know better, I'd think that you were trying to seduce me," I said in a slightly drowsy half-whisper, trying to turn my head to look over at him.

  "Of course I'm not," he replied in just as soft of a voice, his words not quite believable. "I just want you to relax. Do what naturally, do what helps you to feel better..."

  His words were almost soporific. I let my eyes drift closed for a moment, trying to think about what I really did want. What was I after? What would, in this moment, really make me feel the best?

  "Don't worry about the future," Onyx urged. "Just let yourself live in the moment..."

  I really did want to obey. I turned to try and get a little more comfortable, his hands sliding over the length of my torso, opening my mouth to impulsively give in and tell Onyx to do what I really wanted...

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  *

  "...and so, I really just want him to understand that I'm not ready to dive in all the way yet, even though that seems to be exactly what he's after! How do I tell him that I don't want to give it all up - just go slower - without ruining things or making it seem like I'm insulting him?"

  When I didn't hear a response to this question, I lifted my head up a little from the couch cushion I'd leaned against, turning to look over at Onyx. "Well?"

  The artist had pulled a chair over and sprawled out on it. He'd closed his eyes several minutes ago, but had assured me that he was still listening. My belief in his words now faded a bit, however, as I had to repeat my question again before his eyes finally reopened.

  "You know, when I suggested that you find a way to relax and shed some of this stress, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind," he commented, sounding more fatigued than I'd expected.

  I sat up a little more, narrowing my eyes at him. "Are you saying that you weren't volunteering to listen to my problems? That seems inconsiderate."

  "There are better ways to work through stress," he answered, stretching his arms up behind his head. This action revealed quite a bit of his contoured abs as his shirt slid north with his shrugged shoulders, but I barely gave it a second glance.

  "Well, this one seems to be working for me," I told him tartly.

  And indeed, much to my own surprise, I felt quite a bit better! I'd decided to try talking about my problems even though it made me feel uncomfortable at first, but as I shared more of my own stresses with Onyx, I felt the metaphorical weight on my own shoulders lightening.

  Although I still felt a bit annoyed that he apparently hadn't been listening, despite his repeated insistence that yes, he was still paying attention and no, he wasn't daydreaming about other things.

  After glaring at Onyx for another minute, making sure that he saw my annoyance, I sighed and dropped my head back onto the cushion once again. After kicking him off of the couch, I stretched out and propped my feet up on the far armrest, treating it almost like a therapist's couch.

  "But really, what do I do?" I asked, looking up at the dark rafters of the warehouse's high ceiling.

  Onyx groaned and reached up to rub the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "Tell me your problem again? In summary," he quickly added, as I opened my mouth to launch into it all again.

  I closed my mouth for a second as I tried to best pick and choose my words. "What if I rush into this, like Carter wants, and it all ends up going wrong?" I finally said.

  "How would it go wrong?"

  I tried to find the right way to describe the nebulous vision of Barry, my ex-husband, hovering in my mind. "I don't know. One of a million different ways. I just keep on thinking about how I was so certain of everything with Barry, and then it ended up being the worst decision of my life. If you'd asked me before the wedding whether I had any regrets or uncertainty, however, I wouldn't have said yes. If I was that confident on something that turned out to be a disaster, how can I ever trust my own judgment again?"

  Another groan came from my therapist. "This really isn't what I had in mind," he repeated again, sounding as if he'd found a new regret to add to his own list.

  I hauled my feet off the couch, swinging around to sit up. "That's it. I'm going."

  "No, wait," he finally said, although he shook his head as he spoke. "Look, you know that I hate Carter a bit, right? He's a smug, stuck-up caterer to the wealthy who always wants to be right, always turns things into the competition, and always needs to get the last word in."

  "Well, he's also-" I started, but Onyx held up a hand to forestall me.

  "But even though I hate saying anything good about the man, he's not your ex-husband," he went on. "Nothing like him. You realize that, right? Carter's got many faults, but none of them are shared with Barry. Barry lied to you, cheated on you, took the coward's way out. And if there's one thing that I know about Carter, it's that he doesn't lack in courage." He sighed. "I hate saying it, but he's not a coward."

  I nodded, knowing that Onyx's words were true - but still feeling that lingering spectre of fear and self-doubt. "But what if he changes-"

  "Becca, everyone changes - including you," Onyx cut in. "Can you honestly tell me that you're the same woman who first agreed to marry Barry, all those years ago?"

  "It wasn't that long ago," I replied instinctively, even though this was (mostly) beside the point. Onyx was right, even though I didn't want to admit it - I'd certainly changed and grown in the last couple of years, going through the divorce from Barry and emerging out the other side. I didn't know if I'd made myself better, but I certainly felt more aware of how the world worked, less naive and helpless, than I might have been a few years previously.

  Onyx wasn't letting me escape the question. "You're different. You've changed, and I'd call it growth. Carter will grow too - but that doesn't mean that he'll grow to dislike you."

  I was still sitting up on the couch, and Onyx now rose up from his chair and moved over to sit down beside me. He looped his arm around my shoulders, giving me a com
forting squeeze.

  "It's scary, moving forward," he assured me, his arm exerting warm, gentle pressure on me as he tugged me in towards him. "But the other choice is to stand still, and that just leaves you where you are now. Are you happy, staying where you are now?"

  I didn't need to think twice about that question. "No, I want to move forward," I said with a nod.

  "Good. Then take your fear, acknowledge it, and then put it aside, so that it can't control you." He gave me one last squeeze around the shoulders before his arm slipped down to between my shoulder blades.

  "Thanks," I told him, leaning my head against his shoulder. And then, a minute later, without lifting my head: "What are you doing now?"

  "Undoing your bra," Onyx replied, as the strap in question popped gently loose.

  "Why?"

  "Because I know that, even though you've been releasing a lot of emotion, you've still got some physical knots. I'm going to massage those out."

  "Oh. Okay." I sat there for a minute as his hands worked at the muscles in my back that had previously been blocked by the bra straps - and then sat a little more upright as his hands slid around from my back towards my front. "And now what are you doing?"

  "Making you feel better," he replied, as his hands cupped my chest, still warm and squeezing in a way that felt amazingly comfortable and relaxing. I felt heat inside my own body, answering the pressure against my breasts.

  "Really. Because it seems like you're going for seduction, instead."

  "Seduction will help you feel better," he assured me, his thumbs straying towards where my nipples poked out into the soft cushioning of my bra.

  His hands really did feel amazing on me, but I reached up to gently pull them away. "Thanks for the offer, but it's not what I need right now," I told him, although I heard a little internal scream from my ovaries at turning him down. "Especially not if I'm going to work things out with Carter."

  "I mentioned his competitive spirit, didn't I?" Onyx returned, his hands dropping down to my hips, curling around my butt and urging me towards his lap. "If you really want to fire him up, you could mention how amazing I was, how I rocked your world."