Adrenaline shot through Mattie’s system. She groped around for her camisole but found a T-shirt instead. She put it on anyway. “Ten in the morning? Dammit, I have to meet a customer in the gallery in two hours.”
Lars groaned. “And I have a lunch meeting I can’t miss.”
“I’ll go with Mattie,” Owen offered.
She felt like a child they were swapping off babysitting duties. “You don’t have to do that, Owen. Don’t you have a life?”
“No.”
One word, no frills, no sarcasm, and no explanation from the man who’d just begged her not to take back the statement that she loved him. Mattie’s heart nearly overflowed with emotion. “Then you’re welcome to tag along.”
Lars rolled out of the bed and began to dress. He glanced up at Owen as he did. “Are you working tonight?”
“Every night.”
“I have a…thing.” Lars was avoiding their gazes as he fastened his pants and drew his shirt over his shoulders. “I’m hoping it won’t take too long, but I’ll be late.”
Still naked, Owen cut an imposing figure when he crossed his arms over his broad chest. Mattie’s eyes were drawn to the scars on his shoulders and chest. She gazed at them like a painter looks at the subtle imperfections of a model. Not as defects but as intricate artwork all their own. Last night He’d talked of regretting violence. What kind of life had Owen led that he carried marks like those on his body?
Mattie pulled herself back to the moment. She got the feeling Owen wasn’t going to let this “thing” go any more than she was. Lars must’ve felt the heat of Owen’s glare because he finally looked up to meet his lover’s eyes.
Mattie’s brain sorted through the events of the past four days. It felt like she’d lived a lifetime since that Wednesday morning when Meecham had brought Mr. Hyde into the gallery.
She took a deep breath. It was now or never. “Owen and I met Isabel yesterday.”
“Is that right?” Judging by the expression on Lars’s face, never would’ve been his preferred time to discuss this topic. “What karmic circumstance caused that happy occasion?”
“She bought one of Mattie’s paintings.” Had Lars been looking at Owen, he would’ve known that wasn’t all.
Mattie figured it was a lot like ripping off a Band-Aid. The faster the better. “She only bought the painting as an excuse to hit on Owen.”
Oh, how she wished Lars wasn’t such a pro at hiding his emotions!
He pursed his lips thoughtfully but gave away nothing else. “Is that right?” Taking a seat on a barstool at the tiny counter, he put on his shoes.
Her heart was pounding. In another second she’d be screaming like a banshee. How could he be so damn calm about this? “Were you ever planning to mention that you had a date tonight, Lars Aasen?” She propped her hand on her hip and cocked her head and wondered if she was somehow channeling her Aunt Lindsay. The woman could have been a CIA interrogator.
“I didn’t figure it mattered.” He stood up and reached for his keys.
She snatched them off the countertop. “The hell it doesn’t!”
“Easy, baby.” Owen was suddenly behind her. He put a hand on her shoulder. He’d pulled on his jeans, though they hung open, but his chest was still bare. It occurred to her that it might have been because she had appropriated his T-shirt.
Lars closed his eyes briefly and inhaled deeply before letting it out in one long huff. “There’s nothing between Isabel and me. I think the two of you know it. And”—he looked more amused than miffed—“if she’s hitting on other men, I’m hoping she realizes it too.”
Mattie bit her lip, but it couldn’t stop the rest from tumbling out. “Isabel said her mother and your mother want the two of you together. Is that true?”
“Unfortunately.” Lars looked less than pleased about the idea.
“So tell her you’re already with somebody.” Mattie pulled away from Owen, desperately needing Lars to understand what this meant. “You’re with us, Lars. Aren’t you?”
He looked first at her before his gaze flicked to Owen. “Of course I am.”
“Then shouldn’t you tell your mother about us? If you have to have a date, we’ll just go with you.” Mattie glanced back at Owen, aware that she’d just volunteered him to take the night off work. “Or I will at least, since Owen’s working.”
Lars took her by both shoulders and gazed into her face. “Mattie, you don’t want to go. Trust me. A bunch of snobs in evening wear celebrating their inflated sense of self-worth. You’d be bored out of your mind.”
A horrendous thought hit her all at once. Mattie had known Selena since they were ten. They’d been best friends after meeting at a summer camp. Mattie had even gone to Selena’s snobby private school on an art scholarship. It was no secret that the Aasens had money. Selena had turned herself inside out for years trying to be society’s perfect little debutante.
It’s me. Lars can’t show up to one of these fancy parties with someone like me on his arm.
“You’re ashamed of us,” she whispered, appalled by the words even as she said them.
“What? No!” Obviously startled, Lars let go of her shoulders and backed away. “Is that what you really think?”
Owen was silent at her back. Why wouldn’t he say something? How could he be so calm and rational when the whole world was falling apart? Her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed. She wouldn’t cry this time. She didn’t want to waste her energy.
She flung the keys on the floor and reached for Owen’s comforting bulk. Hiding her face against his warmth, she refused to hear whatever else Lars might say.
OWEN WRAPPED HIS arms around Mattie’s curves and let her snuggle close. He could’ve been angry with Lars for hurting her, but he wasn’t. Yet.
“Do you believe I’m ashamed of you?” Lars asked, eyes wide with surprise and shock.
“No.” Owen gazed at the man who’d become so much more than a lover. He knew Lars, understood him in ways most people didn’t. Owen didn’t need Lars to explain why he was going on a date with Isabel. Lars still had some seriously screwed-up family shit to deal with. Owen got that.
Lars seemed to sense there was a lot more. “But?”
“You need to understand how it looks from her perspective. At some point, you have to choose. You’re either with us. Or you’re not. It’s that simple.”
“It’s not simple at all,” Lars snapped. He retrieved his keys, flipping them around his finger in agitation. “It’s anything but simple. I have obligations…family stuff… You know I do.”
Owen wondered how much longer Lars would be able to fool himself into thinking he’d ever be able to fulfill those “obligations.” There was so much more to Lars Aasen than he was willing to give himself credit for. Owen knew that beyond a doubt. “You have obligations here too. That’s all we’re trying to say. All right?”
The muscles in Lars’s jaw tensed. Owen wondered if the man would grind his teeth down to stubs before he decided to take the plunge and come clean with his mother. Owen didn’t know Lars’s mother, but he didn’t envy his lover the task of sitting her down and explaining to her that there wouldn’t be any grandchildren.
Owen gazed at Mattie curled protectively against his body. Not grandchildren in the usual sense, anyway.
“I have to go,” Lars said quietly. “We’ll talk about this when I come back.” He raised a hand as though he wanted to touch Mattie, but sighed and turned away instead.
When the door closed, Mattie lifted her head and glared up at him. “You just let him leave. Why?”
He gazed down into her beautiful blue-gray eyes and begged the spirits of his ancestors for the wisdom to say the right thing. “You thought it would be better to tie him to the bed?”
Not for the first time, Owen wondered if his ancestors had been the smartasses of the Narragansett tribe. Then Mattie’s frown crumbled, and a smile made her bottom lip poke out. Humor was the best medicine he knew of. Sometimes it j
ust made life bearable.
She pulled away and took a seat on the end of the bed. Drawing her knees up, she stretched his T-shirt over them and rested her chin on top.
“You keep doing that to my T-shirts, and I’m going to need to go shopping,” Owen teased, leaning in and resting his hand on the newel post.
She gave him an arch look. “Or you could just save them until you get fat enough to fill them out.”
“You’re going to give me a complex, and I’ll turn into one of those nuts who goes to the gym six days a week to lift weights.” Heaven save him from the mere possibility of becoming that shallow—or fat, for that matter.
“You don’t work out?”
He was distracted from their conversation by the enticing view of her rounded bottom as she rocked backward on the bed. “I’d rather do my people-watching at the mall. If I wanted to listen to that type of noise, I’d just stay at work.”
“You’re in awfully good shape for a guy who doesn’t work out.”
He almost missed the tonal shading in her voice that told him she was about to ask him something pointed and probably uncomfortable. “Spit it out. What do you want to know?”
Her expression went from casual to determined. “Where did you get all those scars?”
“Fighting.” Owen wondered if this would be the moment she decided to turn tail and run. Between Lars’s ridiculous date with Isabel and now this, Owen wouldn’t have blamed her one bit. “My half brother, Jason, started running a fight club before I’d graduated from high school. He ran a betting operation on the side.”
Her mouth quite literally fell open. “You said his schemes usually wound up with you getting your ass kicked. I didn’t think you meant that literally.”
“Next time, ask.”
“We’re a fucked-up bunch, you know that?” Mattie sighed and flopped onto her back. “And I’m still not okay with Lars going on a date with Isabel.”
Owen knew she was right. They were a fucked-up bunch. But when she layered enough sarcasm onto the words “date” and “Isabel” to put his and Lars’s cynicism to shame, he knew that they were meant to be together.
Chapter Eighteen
Lars couldn’t shake the sense of uneasiness from his heart. He nodded his way through a lunch meeting with two Aasen International execs but couldn’t have said what they discussed.
He lounged in the desk chair and stared out the window at the Boston skyline. Afternoon sunlight glanced off the churning water in the bay, promising an unseasonably beautiful fall afternoon should he deign to go outside and enjoy it.
An image of Mattie’s tiny house in the woods came to mind. He could picture her outside in her garden, digging in the rich brown soil. His mind painted in a little girl with a mop of dark curls crouched down beside her. The little one was a startling combination of Mattie’s brilliant eyes and Owen’s coppery skin.
Lars waited for the shot of bittersweet agony in his gut, but it never came. Instead, he imagined himself and Owen playing an impromptu game of football with a pair of boys. No matter how he envisioned the kids, Lars felt the same all-consuming love for them that he did for Mattie, and for Owen.
Love is a four-letter word.
Mattie had said love to him once. Lars was intelligent enough to know that deep down he longed to hear her say it again. He wanted to know she felt that way about him, the same way he knew she was beginning to feel about Owen.
“Lars?” His mother stepped into the office unannounced, yanking him away from his musings. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Just lost in thought.” Lars forced himself to smile as though he had no cares in the world. He was getting damn sick of wearing that mask.
Caroline Aasen’s expression looked like the cat’s that got the cream. “I’m hoping that dreamy-eyed look is because you’re excited to spend time with Isabel again.”
Any remaining positive vibes from his daydream sailed right out the window. “About that, Mother.” Lars racked his brain for the right words and came up blank. “I’m not sure that Isabel and I suit.”
“Nonsense. I have it on good authority that the two of you are perfect for each other.” Caroline’s domineering tone set him off like nothing else could have.
“Authority.” Lars threw himself back in the chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Would that authority happen to go by the name Cade Sorenson?”
“How was I supposed to know it was somewhat illegal for me to hire an investigator to dig into the private life of an Interpol agent?” She waved it off as though that type of thing happened every day.
It was all too much—the date with Isabel, his mother’s hopes for a family, and the Interpol case sitting on his desk that would drag him halfway across the world from the two people he loved more than life. It was just too much.
Lars shot out of the chair as though he’d been catapulted. “I’m bisexual. Did you know that?”
She blanched as though he’d struck her. To his everlasting shame, Lars gained a modicum of satisfaction in that.
Caroline Aasen recovered quickly. “Well, there’s nothing particularly wrong with that, dear. I suppose once you and Isabel marry, you’d have to discuss it with her.” His mother looked thoughtful. “It’s probably no different than a man keeping a mistress.”
She really thought he’d cheat on Isabel if they married. Although Lars had to admit he might consider it if he found himself leg-shackled to a woman he didn’t care about. Except Lars fully intended to be faithful to whomever he settled down with. Cheating was the worst sort of crime to bring into a relationship.
His gut clenched hard as he recalled Mattie’s red-rimmed eyes. She’d railed at him for his decision to take Isabel to the Hampshire House reception because of that crime. What kind of lackwit was he?
Owen tried to tell me.
His mother was still talking, though he couldn’t have said what she was nattering about. Pressure built inside his chest until he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I can’t father any children, Mother. I’m sterile.” There was dead silence in the wake of the words he’d hoped he’d never have to say out loud.
“What did you say?” She drew back, her body trembling beneath her pastel pink suit.
“I’m sorry.” He took her hand. It was cold against his. “I got testicular cancer. The surgery left me unable to—”
She yanked her hand away. “Lars Alexander Aasen, this isn’t a joking matter.”
“Which is why I’m not joking about it.”
“When?” she demanded.
“Not long after Dad got sick.” Lars had never regretted his decision to keep his condition secret more than he did right then. “I didn’t want to worry you more than you already were. I had it taken care of right there in London. No fuss.”
“Well.” She briskly patted his cheek. “There are fertility clinics for this sort of thing.”
Denial, Mother. He had to bite back a trite comment about rivers in Egypt that would’ve made things worse than they already were.
“I ordered a bouquet of flowers for Isabel.” Mother gathered up her purse and dug for a tissue. She blotted her right eye. “The florist will deliver them to the house before you leave. Please don’t forget them. Isabel is quite fond of lilies.”
“Mother—”
She didn’t give him another chance to add anything else. Lars knew he’d pushed her far beyond her limits. It was a start, but he wished he’d managed to get the rest of it out.
I can’t be with Isabel, Mother. I’m in love with somebody else, two somebodies in fact. A woman named Mattie with a smile to rival the sun, and a man named Owen who would go get me the moon if I asked him to.
He pulled out his phone and sent Mattie a quick text that said simply, “I’m sorry.”
When ten minutes had passed and he hadn’t gotten a response, he tried Owen’s phone. Another ten minutes later, Lars started to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Where the hell were they?
&
nbsp; * * * *
Owen rested the huge canvas he was carrying on his foot when his phone began buzzing insistently in his pocket. He’d been happy to help Mattie with the list of chores she wanted done at the gallery. It felt good to be busy even if it meant contorting himself into awkward as hell positions while trying to hang the offered pieces at what Mattie assured him was the perfect angle.
The number on the phone display was unfamiliar. Expecting Jason or even Meecham himself, Owen answered the call. “Yeah?”
“Owen Bloodmoon, I know I taught you better manners than that. What on earth has gotten into you in the last fifteen years?”
Owen’s shoulder hit the wall as he struggled to remain vertical. Shock didn’t cover the emotions roiling in his belly at the sound of his grandmother’s voice. The apology came automatically. “I-I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Quite all right. I’m sure you were anticipating someone unpleasant.” Grandmother hesitated briefly. “Your no-good brother, perhaps?”
“Jason had better be on his best behavior,” Owen spat. “He promised me he would be. We had a…”
Grandmother picked up where Owen left off, her tone gentle. “A deal?”
A wave of longing hit Owen hard. He’d managed to dial back the intensity of his feelings over the years, but they’d never go away. He craved the feel of her calloused fingers brushing his cheek. He wanted the warmth of her hugs and the way she made it seem as if everything was going to work out.
As was her way, his grandmother didn’t pull her punches. “Something evil has its sights set on you and yours. Whatever you plan to do in order to shut it down, you need to hurry up before the spirits get stirred up good and proper.”
He pushed his emotions into the background and focused on the present. If Grandmother had reached out to him, things were much more serious than he’d thought. “How? I don’t know how to neutralize an altar like that one.”
“These power-hungry idiots don’t respect the old magic like the Wiccans used to,” Grandmother muttered. “Nature is a balance of opposites. If the altar is created with evil intentions, you must balance it with good. The opposite of death is birth, the creation of life. You already have the symmetry of the number three at your disposal. Use your imagination.”
Boston Avant-Garde 6: Chiaroscuro Page 17