In a very quiet, very deliberate voice, Patrick said, “It’s best if you leave the company, Peter.”
“What?” His friend jumped up, glaring at him. “What did you just say?”
“I’m telling you to leave the company before you’re fired.”
“You can’t do that!”
Patrick nodded with finality. “Of course I can. It’s my company.”
Peter was silent for a while, staring at him with a mixture of panic and disbelief. Finally, in a voice ripe with disdain, he warned, “I’ll take you to court. I have a contract. It’ll cost you. Think twice before you suggest that again.”
“Oh, I have.” Patrick turned on his heel and headed for the door, behind which he assumed Peter’s assistant was straining to hear. “Pack up your stuff. I’d rather pay out than have you in my company another minute.”
***
Amy put Audrey to bed and went to Patrick’s bedroom, where they’d slept together for the last two nights. That’s where she found a note, laid on the bedspread.
My little boozehound,
I’m waiting for you in the sunroom.
- Your hopeless romantic
Shaking her head with a surprised chuckle, she put the note back on the bed—but then decided to put it in the nightstand drawer instead, in case anyone saw it and came down to disturb them. After all, to her delight, it seemed Patrick had prepared some sort of surprise for her.
With rising excitement, she headed down the stairs and through the foyer. When she stepped into the sunroom, she saw it was lighted by countless candles as dark fell outside.
She froze mid-step, not just because of the stunning sight of the romantic candlelight, but also because the room was covered in blank canvasses, easels, palettes, and all other manner of painting equipment. The penetrating smell of turpentine assaulted her nose, awakening old memories she’d repressed for years. That’s how long it had been since she’d last picked up a paintbrush.
The romantic scene was completed by Patrick, who slowly wrapped his arms around her from behind, and handed her a glass of champagne.
“Hello, my love. You found my note.”
“It was hard to miss,” Amy replied softly, taking the glass. His grand romantic gesture certainly made her feel all warm inside, but at the same time it engendered an anxious tension. She still didn’t believe she’d ever be able to paint again. After she’d left him, her passion for that activity had died completely. Since then, she hadn’t been able to execute a single brushstroke.
His arm snaked around her waist and held her firmly. He lowered his head and whispered in her ear, “I’ve been thinking about your dilemma, and I think I’ve found a solution.”
“Oh?” she said, curious to hear more. She put a hand on his arm as he pulled her against his broad chest. “What does your solution look like?”
“We just need to find something that reawakens your desire to paint. Although I enjoy having you and your paintings all to myself, at some point, I want you to have an exhibition, so I can stand at your side and brag about my amazing and talented wife.”
His words made her throat constrict. She felt tears sting the corners of her eyes. “Patrick,” she whispered brokenly.
He tenderly kissed her temple. “My initial idea was to book a flight to Rome,” he murmured, “but then I realized it wasn’t necessary to travel so far. The solution was much more obvious.”
Puzzled, she tilted her head back to look up at him. “I’m all ears.”
His grin did weird things to her heart and her stomach at the same time, Amy noticed with delighted fascination.
He clinked his champagne glass against hers and took a sip. Amy tried the sparkling champagne herself as she watched him step back and hand her his glass. She took it with her free hand, curious what he would do next.
All she could do was stand there like a statue, watching, as he slipped out of his clothes before her amazed eyes, stripping off piece by piece until he was stark naked.
“Patrick,” she asked between giggles, “what exactly are you doing?”
“I’m modeling in the nude, love.” He opened his arms nonchalantly and paraded his naked body before her in a deliberately shameless fashion.
“But …”
“We need to reawaken your passion so you can get back at the easel. What would be more fitting than finally painting me in the nude?”
Charmed, amused, and amazed at the same time, she studied him, letting her eyes roam his gorgeous body. She ended at his expectant face. “So you’re rekindling my passion for painting by offering yourself as a model? That’s very … uh … confident, isn’t it?”
“Confident?” He raised one black eyebrow. “I would have said cocky, but confident sounds better.”
She giggled and set down both champagne glasses, feeling an effervescent happiness bubble up inside her. “But what will you do if I paint you like this, and the piece ends up in exhibitions all around the world?”
“Then,” he replied with a cocky grin, “people will not only envy me for having such a talented wife, but the women will want to trade places with you for having such a well-endowed husband.”
Amy couldn’t refrain from bursting into laughter. She sank into his open arms, nestled against his naked body, and wrapped her arms around his neck, running her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. She didn’t even care that she was wearing her heart on her sleeve—all she could see in his eyes right then was burning love.
“Hey,” he protested with mock outrage. “The artist must not molest the model. At least not before the painting’s finished.”
“Can’t we make an exception, just this once?” she pleaded in an exaggerated whimper.
He wrinkled his nose as if he needed to think it over very hard. Then he gave her a stern look and sighed. “Well, if you insist! But the model expects a masterpiece in return.”
“Promise,” Amy said, before letting him undress her slowly.
Epilogue
Patrick stood proudly next to his wife, studying her profile.
It was plain to see that she was nervous, which he thought funny, since in his opinion, she had no reason to be nervous. After all, so far, her paintings had been praised by everyone who’d seen them. He smiled and put an arm around her, unable to hide that he was practically bursting with pride.
His eyes feasted on the painting they were facing, one she’d created in the last few months. It seemed Amy had finally found her very own style, which could be described as a fusion of the colorful impressionism of the late 19th century, the geometric shapes of early cubism, and a pastel technique that was reminiscent of the soft lines of a Chagall. Patrick had the feeling he was turning into an art expert now that it was the reigning subject at home.
Especially in the last few weeks, each and every conversation had revolved around this exhibition. He’d even taken a few days off work and canceled a scheduled trip to China, all to be with his wife in this moment. He couldn’t have been happier and prouder today, even if she was showing her work in a relatively small gallery in Stamford. If Amy had allowed him to interfere, he’d have made sure she was showing it in the largest gallery in Manhattan, but of course she wanted to succeed on her own, without him pulling strings. He respected that attitude, and he certainly wouldn’t argue with her.
He wasn’t that crazy.
You didn’t argue with a pregnant woman, least of all when she looked like a pumpkin despite only being at the start of her third term!
His gleaming eyes wandered from the painting to her belly, which was a taut ball hidden underneath a brightly patterned maternity dress. Only yesterday, she had jokingly complained that his sons were already making her life difficult, keeping her from her work, because she could hardly reach the canvas with her belly in the way. But Patrick knew he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t wait to welcome their two hefty fellows into the family.
It wasn’t Patrick who’d coined the term “hefty fellows.�
� At their latest ultrasound, Amy’s gynecologist had explained that, for twins, the babies had already reached a considerable weight and couldn’t be developing more splendidly. A father liked to hear things like that, though the expectant mother had pointed out that she looked as if she’d swallowed two roast chickens whole.
While that might’ve been true, she was still one thing to Patrick: his beautiful, talented wife, who would soon be giving him two more children, whom he could only hope would be at least half as amazing as Audrey.
Thinking of Audrey gave him an instant warm, fuzzy feeling. She was not only dazzling and charming—which had persuaded him to go horseback riding with her only a few days before when he should have been preparing for a board meeting—she was also extremely smart. And he liked to claim she’d gotten that from him. Of course, then he had to studiously ignore Amy rolling her eyes, or his own mother’s snorting. Even so, the fact that Audrey had recovered so quickly and thoroughly from her operation, and that she could lead a normal, happy life with very few constraints, was the greatest gift he’d ever received.
His other gift had just leaned her head on his shoulder. “What do you think about this one?”
“I love it,” he said promptly.
“You say that about all my paintings, Patrick,” she scolded him.
He nodded. “Because I love all your paintings, Amy.”
“Ain’t I the lucky one?” she chuckled.
“You sure are.” Patrick put a hand on her belly and eavesdropped on his mother, who, only a few yards away, was talking about her daughter-in-law, the talented artist. He turned his head and found his beaming mom talking to Barbara and an older gentleman, who studied one of Amy’s paintings with interest. His sister returned his gaze and rolled her eyes briefly, which he could understand. But he was glad Barbara had come to support Amy today. It meant she was finally ready to welcome his wife into the family again.
“Mom’s bragging about you again,” Patrick whispered into Amy’s ear. “It looks like she’s about to sell off all your paintings.”
“Oh!”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, love.” His voice faltered. “I knew as soon as I met you that you’d be a famous painter one day.”
She turned around and looked into his eyes, beaming up at him. “And when did you know that you love me?”
“That didn’t take long,” he murmured lovingly, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “When we kissed the very first time, I was done for. I knew I could never be without you again.”
She uttered a satisfied sigh and put a hand on his chest. “Was it really that quickly?”
Patrick nodded. “All it took was a single kiss, Amy. Just one kiss.”
Preview: Just One Moment
As she steered her car up the well-maintained driveway to her ex-husband’s house, Barbara Ashcroft straightened her shoulders mechanically and glanced in the rearview mirror, just to make sure she didn’t look like a scarecrow.
She shouldn’t have actually cared anymore what she looked like when ran into James. Their divorce had been finalized two years ago now. That should’ve been enough time to break the habit of raking a hand through her hair, checking her lipstick, and fidgeting with her clothes every time James was around. But the habit had a different purpose now. She no longer needed to impress him, or win him over. No, now it was mainly about demonstrating how great she was doing since she’d gotten rid of him.
They were barely on speaking terms. If it hadn’t been for their two sons, who were sitting in the back seat, impatient to spend the day with their dad, Barbara would have no reason and no inclination to exchange another word with James.
Getting a divorce had been the only solution. But for the sake of nine-year-old Hamilton and seven-year-old Scott, they put on polite faces and interacted civilly—at least when the kids were around. Beyond that, Barbara didn’t want anything to do with the man. She still got a stomachache if forced to spend too much time with him—anything over ten minutes, really.
And yet she had to cross his path several times a week, when she took the boys to his house, or when he brought them back in the evening, when Scott had a soccer game, or Hamilton had a swim meet. Both parents were still very involved in their children’s lives, so it was virtually impossible not to run into each other. At school plays and other functions, they even sat together to show their sons that Mom and Dad were getting along fine, that they were still a family. Barbara didn’t want her sons to know how hard it was for her to face their father and keep her composure.
It was for their sake that she and James had agreed to go through this divorce in a calm, rational way, without fighting or bad-mouthing each other. There had been no mud-slinging, no fighting over money, and they shared custody with downright perverse cordiality. Barbara, Hamilton, and Scott had stayed in the house they’d bought after they got married, while James had moved into a house that looked almost identical, only a few blocks away.
Yes, Barbara and James would probably go down in divorce history, for there had certainly never been—nor would there be—a divorce as civilized as theirs.
In fact, Barbara’s friends still liked to tell her that her and James’s separation seemed just as perfect as their marriage had been before it. In reality, that marriage had failed after the textbook seven years. Whenever anyone mentioned it, Barbara remained silent. She didn’t tell her friends how much it hurt that her dream wedding to her dream guy—and former best friend—had led to a marriage that eventually turned into a nightmare. Nor did she tell them why she still had a hard time looking James in the eye without bursting into tears. Of course, there were rumors about their breakup, but Barbara would not do anyone the favor of revealing the truth.
Nobody would have understood anyway.
She’d gotten used to the fact that part of Connecticut’s high society thought she was to blame for their divorce, some alleging she was a spoiled bitch who was never satisfied. That particular rumor stemmed from the fact that her late father had been something of an East Coast tycoon while James was “merely” CEO of a smaller corporation. But it was utterly ridiculous if you took into account that James not only had complete control of his company—and the salary to match—but also that his father was none other than Archibald Scott Campbell, who owned half the State of Virginia.
All that notwithstanding, when she’d married James, she’d never calculated what a good catch he might or might not be. She’d married him at twenty-four because she was madly in love with him. A year older, he’d been her boyfriend ever since they’d met in her first week at Stanford.
While one half of society had singled her out as the cause of their breakup, the other half thought James was guilty, and didn’t hesitate to speculate about his indiscretions. But Barbara didn’t listen to those rumors, either, instead forcing herself to ignore the malicious gossip.
You could say what you wanted about James, but he was a good father, and he loved his children to the moon and back. Barbara was ruminating on that as he came out of the house with a cheerful wave.
“Dad!” Scott squealed enthusiastically as Barbara parked the car in the driveway. The seven-year-old unbuckled himself from his seatbelt, pushed open the door, and jumped from his mother’s Mercedes as soon as she put in park.
Barbara knew her youngest was impatient to tell his dad about yesterday’s soccer practice and couldn’t be bothered with safety details when he was excited, so she didn’t admonish him. She just watched with a sinking feeling as the blond boy hugged his father and started to chatter without pausing for breath.
James gave his son his undivided attention, listening closely, and mussed up Scott’s hair indulgently. Nobody could deny they were father and son. Both Scott and Hamilton had inherited James’s blond hair, his blue eyes, the dimple in his chin. Not to mention the rascally smile Barbara’s ex still possessed at the age of thirty-four—though she’d rarely had occasion to seen it over the past two years.
While
she switched off the engine and pulled the key from the ignition, Barbara covertly studied the father of her sons. He was a handsome man with pale blond hair, a charming face, and a tall frame, which was currently clad in a pair of Bermuda shorts and a blue polo shirt. He’d always been passionate about sports, spending his spare time rowing, running, and playing tennis, so he still possessed an athletic body that hadn’t changed much since college.
Before they’d gotten married, they’d gone to Aspen or Switzerland to ski each winter, and in the summer, they’d gone to Colorado to go rafting in the canyons or rock-climbing. They’d also played tennis year-round, playing mixed doubles against other couples. Looking back, Barbara had to admit that they had been extremely active, and had had a lot of fun together. Thanks to their common interests, they’d been on the same wavelength right from the start. So it wasn’t surprising at all that James had not just become her first boyfriend, but also her best friend.
“Mom?”
Her head jerked toward Hamilton, who was still sitting in the back of the car, a thick drawing pad in his lap. It had become his constant companion a while ago.
“Yes, honey?” She gave him a tender smile and reached out to lightly caress the bruised knee he’d gotten the day before when trying out his new skateboard, a present from his uncle, her younger brother Stuart.
At nine, Hamilton was rather quiet, at least compared to his boisterous brother, and he was exceptionally sensitive and perceptive for his age. He tilted his head now, chewing on his lower lip. “When can Scott and I go visit the babies? I have a present for them—and for Aunt Amy and Uncle Patrick.”
Barbara squeezed his leg, touched by his gesture. Both Hamilton and Scott were ecstatic about becoming cousins to a pair of twins born only last night. “That’s very nice of you. Why don’t you call Uncle Patrick later and ask him? Maybe he’ll invite you guys to the hospital to meet them tomorrow morning.”
Just one kiss (The Ashcrofts Book 1) Page 29