by Ruby Cruz
Meeting is running late. Won’t be able to meet for lunch.
I bit back my disappointment. Okay. Thanks for letting me know.
I need to get back. I miss you.
I miss you too. Good luck with the rest of your meeting.
He must have been feeling very guilty for leaving me to my own devices if he was texting me. Either that or the nature of the meeting left him no opportunity to call.
“Lizzy?” Chase called out to me from the driver’s seat of his Porsche. “What are you doing there? How’d you get there?”
“You know you’re stopping traffic,” I pointed out, just as a horn started to blare behind him.
He waved nonchalantly at the other driver. “Are you by yourself?”
“Yes. In fact, I was coming to see if you were at the gallery so I could check things out. I’m glad I stopped for coffee first.”
More horns beeped insistently. “Give me a minute.” He pulled away and parked in an open spot further down the street. I watched him saunter lazily towards me, absolutely no hurry to his step. He had an easy lope as he casually made his way down the sidewalk towards the café.
“Don’t tell me you walked here,” he asked with a smile.
“Of course not. Nico dropped me off after I got my new phone.”
“Ah, and you were coming to find me to collect payment,” he finished, a twinkle in his eye as he sat down across from me. A waiter appeared and took his order for a double shot of espresso.
“I was looking for you, but not for payment. I’m curious about what type of art you display.”
His brows knitted slightly. “You know the painting above the fireplace in the living room at the manor?”
I nodded in response.
“That’s one of mine.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise at his answer. The painting he was talking about was absolutely gorgeous. A landscape of rolling waves on sand, the sunrise over the water, sea gulls on the breeze, a lonely sailboat on the horizon. The scene was so simple but…not. The colors were complex, the paint had movement across the canvas. It was a fantastic piece, and I told him as such.
He grinned, the pride evident on his face. “That one is one of my favorites. It’s the view from our cottage, obviously. Mr. DeBourgh was one of the first people to buy one of my paintings.”
“It’s wonderful. You’re very talented.”
He flushed at the compliment, a response which sort of surprised me. “Do you want to see what else I have on display?”
“Of course. Will’s meeting is running late, so I’m free until Nico picks me up.”
“I’ll get the car.”
“Please don’t. I may not be the most graceful on crutches, but I can make it two blocks.”
We finished our drinks and I allowed him to lead me down the street. I moved relatively quickly with the crutches as I found my rhythm.
“You seem to have gotten the hang of those pretty well.”
“It still takes all my concentration not to fall on my face and bust both legs.”
When we reached the front of the gallery and he began to unlock the front door, I noted the art in the display window. Smaller prints on easels, beautiful ceramic multi-colored bowls, mosaic landscapes. “I would’ve been here earlier, but I was at a client’s house supervising the installment of one of my paintings.”
“You don’t have to explain. It was a last minute decision to drop by, born more of curiosity and boredom than anything.”
He opened the door and flipped on a light switch. I followed him into the space and allowed my eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight outside.
The colors caught my attention first. They were dazzling, shifting and swirling from more of the ceramics I’d seen displayed in the front window. I was drawn to one particular group of vases. They looked somewhat familiar to me, and I realized the funeral home had displayed a similar set outside the viewing room last night.
“This artist resides in Montauk but he’s grown quite a following here.”
“These are wonderful.” I was drawn to one bowl that had a mix of burgundy, teal, and indigo within its swirls and an iridescent overlay which gave the colors a three-dimensional illusion.
The next artist worked primarily in glass mosaics to produce large abstract works reminiscent of the ocean, with varying blue and green tones in the glass. “She incorporates sea glass into her work,” Chase explained. The effect gave the impression of undulating waves, the smooth surface of the glass lending to the movement of the piece.
The back of the gallery was where his paintings were featured, and I held back a gasp. The painting at DeBourgh manor, while wonderful in its own right, was nothing compared to the masterpiece in front of me. This one was more abstract, similar to the sea glass art, but the colors were breathtaking, each brush stroke deliberate, the raw power of the sea represented in shades of cerulean and turquoise, dabs of white floating above the deeper colors.
Surrounding the painting were more traditional, smaller pictures similar to the one at DeBourgh manor, but my eyes kept being drawn to the abstract one.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s…it’s wonderful. I can’t take my eyes off it.” Looking at it was like being drawn to the waves on the shore, the pull of it almost sexual in nature.
“Thank you. Some people say it makes them uncomfortable.”
Probably because it feels so raw and personal, I thought. I continued to stare at it, the colors mesmerizing me.
“What does it make you feel?”
His voice was so close I jumped and nearly fell over. I deliberately stepped away from him, not liking his proximity. His eyes reflected the colors of the sea, and I could now understand why Ana thought he was so dangerous to be around. He had the same mesmerizing pull of the ocean and there was no way I wanted to be caught up in that.
“I…I’d better go. Nico said he’d be here to pick me up by eleven.” It was 10:50.
“You have time. Come on. Let me know what you think.”
“It’s like the ocean personified,” I blurted without thinking. Then I flushed. “That sounds silly.”
“No, it doesn’t. You’re right, in essence. It’s the way the ocean makes me feel. It’s passion and longing and relentlessness.”
“You have an amazing gift to be able to create something this beautiful.” Despite myself, my eyes were drawn back to the painting. Jane had always been the more artistic one in the family, with her ability to sing and craft pretty things and her fashion sense. I could play the piano, but I never possessed the passion or technical precision to truly make music.
A long moment passed as we both stared at the painting. As if predicting the direction my thoughts had turned, he said, “You have a gift as well.”
“How’s that?”
“You have a way with people.”
“No I don’t. I’m friendly, but I’m hardly Miss Congeniality.”
“I’m serious. You get people to open up to you. People respond to you.”
I thought of Darcy’s aunt. “Not everybody.”
I could feel his gaze on me, and when I turned to face him, emotion roiled like the ocean waves within his eyes. “I really do need to go,” I said quickly.
“I’ll see you this evening, then.”
He escorted me to the door and held it open for me as I stepped into the sunlight, all too eager to escape from him.
Nico was waiting for me by the curb, and I gratefully accepted his help into the car. “Did you enjoy the gallery?” he asked me with genuine curiosity. “I’ve never been inside.”
“He has some amazing pieces of art,” I answered truthfully. Did I enjoy my visit, though? That question wasn’t so easily answered.
Ana had been totally right. Chase Hammond was definitely someone not to spend too much time with.
CHAPTER NINE
Damaged
Back at the manor, I escaped to the suite and sat
on the balcony. I was racked with guilt and unsure why. Scratch that, I knew exactly why, but didn’t want to admit I’d been attracted to Chase.
Attraction does not equal cheating, I reminded myself, but again, I was lying. I’d been tempted by his flirtation, by the raw emotional power of his art. His work had moved me, had stirred overwhelming feelings of longing within me. Longing for what? Not for Chase, no, he’d been merely the happenstance bystander.
The ever-shifting waves, the feeling that everything was fleeting, elicited in me a longing for something more. Something permanent. Something that wouldn’t be destroyed in one second by the relentless passage of time and force.
Darcy loved me. That was a sure, immutable fact. And my love for him was boundless and indescribable. I found that every moment I wasn’t with him I spent wanting to be with him, as if my life were on hold until he was in it, that my moments without him were moments spent waiting to be complete.
So what did that mean? We’d been together a year, had been practically living together for nearly five months. Was he ready for something more permanent? We’d talked about getting married in abstract, but had never made any concrete plans. I’d always thought it was too soon. After all, I knew people who waited years to be married only to be divorced within months of the ceremony. How did I tie myself to someone without really knowing that person?
I loved him, that would not change, but did I know him? He told me he loved me all the time, but never once had he told me about his grandfather or his childhood friends. He wouldn’t even tell me about his grandfather’s company and why he was so involved in whatever business they were conducting this week, during a time when he should be mourning.
The more I thought about things, the more I had to admit that he was like the ocean, his depths ever changing, his thoughts and feelings hidden so deep they may never surface.
The realization that I knew so little about the man I loved disturbed me. I knew surface things, like his favorite food and drink (sushi and scotch), and that he hated watching reality TV and didn’t understand what Snapchat was. But I didn’t understand what made him decide to become a doctor, or how he maintained a relationship with his aunt. Family and history were so important to me. I realized that in my forgoing an understanding of his family and history, I’d neglected to learn the most important things about him and why and how he’d become Darcy.
I never knew that looking at one painting, that talking to one person, would surface so many doubts I never knew I had. But maybe I needed to stop thinking about what I didn’t know and remember what I did.
Fact: I knew Darcy was a good man.
Fact: I knew Darcy loved me.
Fact: I knew I loved him.
And maybe that last fact was all I needed to know.
~
By the time the meeting ended, it was mid-afternoon and I had made my way downstairs to the sunroom. I spent some time exploring the different books and pictures within the room and was especially entranced by the family portraits adorning the walls. I thought back to my visits to the Dakota, and many of the same portraits were displayed here. Glaringly missing were portraits of Darcy after his graduation from college, which had occurred more than ten years ago. There was a recent portrait of Ana from her college graduation, but I noticed none of Darcy from medical school. Had his grandfather been so bitter that he hadn’t taken over the family business?
Voices sounded from the hallway, low and hushed, but urgent. I hobbled to the doorway to hear Ana’s and Darcy’s unmistakable tones. “You can’t keep hiding this from her.”
“I am going to tell her, but not here.”
“Then when? When it’s done and she has no other choice? Sooner or later she’s going to find out. She has to know.”
“Who has to know?” I asked as I rounded the corner.
They turned to face me, guilt evident on their faces.
When they didn’t answer, I repeated breezily, “If you don’t answer me, I’m going to have to assume you’re talking about me.”
Ana threw Darcy a significant look, then fixed a smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “It’s just business stuff, which my brother has to continue dealing with this afternoon. I know you’ve been cooped up, so why don’t I take you for that cup of coffee?”
“Oh, uh, okay.” A glance at Darcy’s face told me he wasn’t too happy with whatever they’d been discussing, but he didn’t disagree with Ana. He crossed to me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear in a gesture that never failed to feel intimate. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy.”
“It’s fine. We’ll talk later.”
He kissed me on the cheek before turning back towards his aunt’s study. Ana beamed brightly at me. “I’m going to change into something more appropriate for the weather and then we’ll go.” The temperature had warmed considerably since the morning and threatened to break into the nineties, and with the high humidity, the outside now felt like a sauna.
I waited patiently in the sunroom and played with my new phone, texting Luke who was supposed to be arriving that evening. While he hadn’t been invited to stay at the manor, Darcy had arranged a room for him at a local inn, which apparently had been no small feat as it seemed several hundred people were expected to arrive for the funeral the next day.
Ana confirmed the number as we waited for Nico to bring the car. “My grandfather was active in local politics as well as the business. All the past and present board members are coming, council members, as well as many of his associates and acquaintances from the area.”
And I’d thought he’d had quite an impressive showing at his wake, with more to come this evening.
“This has been quite a large blow to Aunt Catherine. She has enormous shoes to fill with his loss.”
“So is she actually going to take over the company now?”
Ana’s face became more closed off. “That’s much of what this morning’s meeting was about. Nothing has been set in stone yet, but I think we’re close to making a decision about what’s going to happen.”
Nico drove the car around, but, instead of the town car, he brought a Jaguar and stepped out of the driver’s seat to help me into the passenger seat. “This is what you’re driving?” I asked Ana.
“It used to be my grandfather’s,” she answered with a shrug. “I thought it appropriate to give it one last spin.”
As we buckled our seat belts, she asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“There’s a café I stopped by earlier. They make a great latte.”
“Works for me.”
As we waited for our orders at one of the outdoor tables, I gestured down the street. “I also stopped by the Heritage Gallery earlier.”
Ana’s face became stony. “Why?”
“Because I was curious. And because I’m not one to let well enough alone and needed to judge for myself whether Chase Hammond is a douche bag.”
“And?”
“Jury’s still out, though I am leaning towards the douche vote.”
“Why? What did he say?”
“Not really anything he said. Just a vibe.” Ana raised an eyebrow. “It just sort of seemed like he was coming onto me. It could’ve just been the art we were talking about, but there was a weird, pseudo-sexual vibe going that sort of creeped me out.”
“With Chase, usually your first instincts are correct. He doesn’t pull any punches. So…what did you do?”
“Got my ass out of there, of course. I could’ve been reading too much into things, but…it was just weird. It just justifies the theory Luke and I have about hot guys: they’re attached, gay, or damaged.”
“George Wickham was a classic example. Talk about totally damaged.”
“I was thinking more psychopathic.” I thought of Lydia and the fact she was still technically married to him, even though he’d dropped off the face of the earth.
She turned to me. “I’m going to ask you something
and feel free to ignore me.”
“All right.”
“Did you and he ever…you know?”
“I can honestly say no to that one. We kissed a couple times, but that’s it. Your brother pretty much ensured that would be the extent of our relationship when he paid him off, which I resented at the time but totally am grateful for in hindsight.”
“Be really glad that you dodged that bullet. Not that it wasn’t…entertaining at the time, but…well, you’re lucky you never really got involved with him.”
“Lucky for me, not so lucky for Lydia.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Well enough, considering the circumstances. She’s still living in my apartment, a situation neither of us is completely happy about, but she can’t afford to get a place of her own, and she really doesn’t want to move back in with her mother. We see each other at work and we hang out sometimes, but that’s it. She doesn’t really talk to me anymore, come to think of it.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, well, she is seeing that therapist her mom is forcing her to see, but who knows what good it’s doing. Only good thing is she seems to have sworn off guys.”
“Seriously?”
“She calls it her ‘self-imposed sexile.’”
“Good for her. Not that I blame her. I mean, when George left, I’d practically become a hermit. The last thing I wanted to do was date anybody. It took me a long time before I was ready to consider the possibility.”
“And are you dating anybody?”
“I’m really too busy to have much of a social life. Besides, it’s not like I have an abundance of men flocking to my door.”
“You can’t tell me you don’t have men fawning all over you.”
Ana laughed. “Me? No. Actually, that would be a hell no. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.”
“What do you mean? You’re gorgeous, you’re smart, and you’re funny. I’d do you if I were a guy.”
She grinned even more widely. “If only you were a guy. Unfortunately, I’m very intimidating to the opposite sex.”
I looked at Ana, who looked the farthest thing from intimidating to me. “How’s that?”