by Shelby Reed
“Max—?”
Before she could finish her question, he withdrew a blue velvet box from inside his suit pocket, laid it on the table, and flipped it open. Pearls. A single strand. Luscious and priceless. “These might encourage you to finish what you’ve started. You can wear them to your next opening.”
Shock flooded Sydney’s face with warmth. He occasionally gave her gifts for no reason, but this was different. She touched a fingertip to one of the pearls. “They’re lovely . . .”
“Would you like to try them on?”
No. No. It was the last thing she wanted, pearls, gifts, shells of proclamations rather than the spoken sentiments and communication she so craved.
But the moment held an odd intimacy, so she gave a short nod. He wheeled around to her side of the table and drew the strand around her neck, fastened it, then dropped a kiss on her shoulder bared by her spaghetti-strap dress.
“You are the lovely one,” he murmured. Sydney pulled back to meet his eyes. In the candlelight they shone the color of gunmetal. In the candlelight she might believe he desired her still, that the old love between them still existed. She couldn’t ask herself if she felt the same. Not with Max’s pearls hanging on her neck.
“Thank you, Max. I’m so surprised.”
He wheeled closer and bumped the table, jostling the glasses so that Merlot splashed crimson onto the linen cloth. “Can’t you see it, Sydney? Can’t you see how much I love you?” His voice was low and nearly grim, the words clenched with a strange determination she’d never seen before. “Everything I do is for you, for us. You are my world. You must know that.”
Her pulse pounded beneath the strand of pearls as she stared into his eyes. “But you don’t have to buy me gifts to show me. Just talk to me. Come with me to counseling. We could start there.”
He wheeled back. “It brings me pleasure to dress you, to give you pretty things. How does that merit counseling? Oblige me tonight with . . . this.”
So she did; there was nothing left to say.
They rode home in the limousine without speaking and went their separate ways with the usual brief kiss goodnight. Sydney methodically undressed, sat down at her vanity to brush her hair . . . and burst into tears. But a part of her she’d never accessed had awakened and didn’t join in the grieving. Her world was crumbling to expose something new and not altogether unwanted, although she couldn’t yet read its abstract composition.
* * *
She slept until just before dawn, then went to the studio, where she stared at the beginning drawing she’d done of Colm. It was obvious she hadn’t been concentrating yesterday. The static lines also told her she’d been frustrated. She ought to dismiss him, let him go back to his life in the city and leave her to her own issues. He was too much of a distraction. She should let him go and forget pleasing Max for even one more day.
No, damn it. The paintings she was about to create would continue to support her financially and even more, she’d be doing the kind of work she really wanted to do—completely unassociated with Max for the first time. She had to see it through. And if she could say one thing about Max, it was that he was right about her work coming alive when she used live models. No more photographs. It was time to get over her fears.
Maybe she should thank Max after all.
When the day’s early sun streamed golden through the studio windows, a brief knock sounded at the door and Colm stuck his head in. “Good morning.”
Sydney slid off her barstool as though she’d been caught doing something illicit. “You’re up incredibly early.”
“I saw your lights on.”
She offered him a wry smile. “Your enthusiasm is without measure.”
“I like this job.”
Warmth crept up her neck. Before she could respond with something dismissive, he said, “I need coffee. The machine in my room doesn’t work.”
“I’ll have Hans replace it.” She studied his damp hair and thought about him standing under the showerhead just minutes before. Her gaze ran over his untucked blue shirt and jeans. There was a hole in the left knee of his Levi’s and they were terribly faded. Terribly sexy, too.
He nodded at the small coffeemaker on the table where she kept jars and extra supplies. “I know you serve Shiraz around ten a.m., but how about Starbucks at seven?”
Good Lord, why hadn’t she offered him her coffee yet? She was standing there like a besotted fool. “Will Folgers do?”
“Sure.” He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, then meandered down the ramp to where she stood at her easel. “Is that drawing what you did on our first session?”
“I kept only this one warm-up sketch. The rest are in the garbage.”
“You should never throw away a single work you do, Sydney. I’ll take them rather than see you do that.” His hair was a darker brown when wet, the chestnut highlights muted. He smelled like Irish Spring and shampoo. If she ever smelled the same scents again, she would remember this moment when a man would fish her crappy drawings out of a trash can rather than see them go to waste.
“What are we doing today?” he asked.
“I haven’t decided yet.” As she went to the table that held the ancient coffeemaker and poured some in a chipped mug, she spoke more brightly. “Did you talk to your friend about modeling?”
“I did. His name is Garrett. He’s available Wednesday night and Thursday in the morning.” He took the mug from her and sat on the edge of the platform. “He understands the nature of the project and he’s very . . . malleable.”
“Good.” She returned to the easel and set a blank prepared canvas on it. Today she would work on a portrait of Colm since they couldn’t start on the ménage until Wednesday. She wanted to gaze at his splendid male beauty and use her finest, most honed artist’s skill to render the perfect portrait—an ever elusive goal, but the drive was stronger than ever. She glanced at the play of shadow cast from her work lamp on the left side of his face. Her pulse thudded. A long time had passed since her heart had begun painting before she did.
“How do you need me today?” he asked, setting aside his coffee mug.
She jerked awake. “Oh . . . just as you are.”
“More warm-up drawings?”
She made a face. “Not today, since they obviously warmed up a whole lot of nothing yesterday.”
The way he smiled told her that had somehow come out wrong, but she waved his humor away.
“You know what I mean. I want to do another study of your face and shoulders today. Maybe work on it for the next two days until our models can get here and we begin on the ménage.”
“So I don’t need to change.”
“No,” she said. “Well, maybe remove your shirt.”
The slide of material on skin teased her ears and she focused hard on her toolbox as she picked out a piece of charcoal.
The wooden platform creaked.
Sydney peeked.
Colm had done as he was told, hanging one leg off the side of the stage, the other knee crooked, his bared upper body gleaming in the light. Sydney wanted more of that. His skin was so tactile, his musculature so sleek. But something about his face today . . . not as smooth and perfect. A weariness about the eyes and mouth she hadn’t noted before. Secret unhappiness in a beautiful man. It seemed like a fascinating premise to capture on canvas.
She wanted more of the shadow touching his chin and nose and left eye, so she adjusted her lamp, rose from her barstool, and approached him. “I’m going to pose you, okay?”
“Sure.”
Her fingers threatened to tremble as she gingerly touched his chin and tilted his head ever so slightly away from the light. He’d obviously shaved, but what little shadow remained prickled her fingertips. When she left a smudge on his jaw, she used her other hand to gently wipe it away. “Sorry—charcoal.”
The whole time he watched her with those all-seeing green eyes, and suddenly she couldn’t help herself. She let her gaze slide down his t
anned throat to his chest.
And there it was, up close. The tattoo over his heart. Amelia. Nothing more than that. A shrine on flesh.
“Who’s Amelia?” she asked, staring at it.
He glanced down, realized he’d broken the pose she’d created and resumed it. “Someone who means a lot to me.”
Sydney backed away. “Is she still your . . . ?” Jeez. “I mean, is she still in your life?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers rolled the charcoal back and forth, back and forth as she moved away and seated herself again. She’d never seen him more solemn, and something told her not to push the subject, although a strange sensation had fisted in her solar plexus, a sort of burn in her that stole her breath.
She didn’t put on any music; they didn’t talk, nor did he ask any questions this time. They worked in sweet, heavy silence, and her charcoal sketch gradually took on the features of the man sitting in such obedient stillness six feet away. The only thing Sydney couldn’t quite capture was the expression in his eyes, but she told herself that would come with the actual painting.
“Would you like to stretch?” she asked after she’d finished the preliminary sketch.
Colm got to his feet, paced a few steps, and raised his arms over his head. The muscles of his back flexed and he yawned, giving a shuddering, full-body stretch. Sydney tried not to watch, but she couldn’t stop herself. Even now, knowing she was still with Max and Colm was a man in love with a woman named Amelia, the female in her couldn’t stop ogling. A work of art on legs, Max had called him. Yes, indeed.
When they resumed working, she felt restless and distraught. Squeezing beads of paint on her palette, she tried to distract herself. “Tell me about your friend Garrett.”
Colm half smiled. “He’s a good guy. Walks the wild side. That’s why I thought of him for your project.”
“He’s uninhibited?”
“In every possible way.”
Sydney smiled. “Are you?”
His gaze shot to hers and she grimaced. She needed to stop talking or she would humiliate herself. Women probably fell all over him, and it wasn’t her style. She wanted to be different. She was different. “You don’t seem like the type to have wild friends.”
“You don’t know me yet,” he said softly.
She quickly returned her attention to the canvas. “To quote your earlier declaration, I’d like to change that fact. So I have a few more questions.”
“Shoot.”
“What gives you that expression in your eyes?”
He hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a somberness about you I didn’t see before. I know I’m prying, but it might help me with my painting. Do you mind?”
“Your boyfriend paid me to do whatever you want. Pry away.”
Something about the edge to his words told her to shut up, but she couldn’t. Her curiosity controlled her like a puppet master. “Tell me more about your background.”
His fingertips went to the tattoo. “I grew up with one sister, a twin. My mother died of cancer when I was eighteen, my dad of a heart attack when I was twenty-five.”
She stopped in the midst of mixing flesh tones. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
She felt his eyes on her, stripping away her defenses when she was the one asking the probing questions.
“How old are you?” she continued, without looking at him.
“Thirty-one,” he said. “You?”
“Twenty-nine. My thirtieth birthday’s on Friday.”
“Ah. Sad about kissing your youth good-bye?”
She couldn’t help but smile. “I’m asking the questions, Mr. Hennessy.”
“Don’t start that name thing again.”
She pressed her lips together and lapsed into silence again, studying the way the light fell across the bridge of his nose and defined the beautiful bow of his upper lip, the shadowed dip below his full bottom one. She sensed his attention on her all the while, and when she looked into his eyes, his gaze caught and held hers. And like a fool, she said, “I assume you’re not married.”
The right corner of his mouth tugged up. “What makes you say that?”
“Well . . .” No explanation would come. Her throat tightened, then she blurted, “Well, you’re free to come here for two weeks, for one thing.”
“Maybe I have an understanding wife at home.”
“You don’t wear a ring.”
“I don’t like jewelry.”
She knew he didn’t have a wife at home. For all his clean-cut appeal, there was something of an untethered animal about him, as though he’d broken away from his keeper but didn’t know where he wandered.
A stray.
“Have you ever been married?” she asked as she applied a shadow to his image’s jaw.
“Once,” he said, and that was all.
The curiosity burned her in the dearth of conversation that followed until she thought she’d burst out of her skin. “Colm.” She laid down her brush and looked at him. “I’m curious about you. I know it’s none of my business, despite how much Max is paying you—”
“It’s fine.” He shrugged. “We’re getting to know each other, which will relax you and make it easier for you to do your work. Right?”
“Right.” But the awkwardness had crept back, drawing her attention from the canvas to his face again and again, not for the sake of her work, but for the masochistic sweetness of looking at him without being able to read him.
Intimacy swirled around them, a hot tension drawing them tight together, and the questions burst forth again. “Was Amelia your wife?”
“No. Jill was my wife.” He moved suddenly, straightened from his pose. “I’m a widower.”
Surprise stole Sydney’s breath. “Oh, Colm. I truly am sorry.” He’d lost so many loved ones. Now she understood the weary look about him today. Maybe he’d lain awake last night, missing Jill. Or missing some beauty named Amelia he had loved enough to engrave her into his skin.
He’d said Sydney could pry as she wished, but the vibe in the room had changed. She finally gathered her wits. “This is coming along nicely. The painting, I mean.”
“Plan to finish it before you begin the ménage project?”
“I’d like to. Do you have that many hours in you?”
He smiled. “Sure. Can I take a break and see what you have so far?”
“Of course.”
He hopped off the platform and came around to look at the canvas. He stood there a long time, studying it with the same intensity he had when he’d looked at her work two nights ago at the gallery.
Two nights ago. Had it only been that long? The minutes passing between them had been so full of . . . she didn’t know. Something electric and rich. Something that was changing her. She didn’t feel guilty. Her interactions with Colm, her thoughts and growing fantasies belonged to a sacred, secret part of her.
“It looks just like me,” he said at last, and Sydney released the breath she’d held.
“It wasn’t difficult. You have beautiful eyes.”
Colm glanced at her.
“Unique,” she hurried.
“You do, too. So blue. They catch the light.”
Sydney tried to look away, but she couldn’t. He’d snagged her. She felt drawn in, caught, paralyzed, even her heart. Then it resumed its beat, hammering now, and she licked her lips. “Have you had a long enough break?”
“Sure.” Wearing a faint smile, he returned to the stage and sat again on the edge.
She picked up her brush and went back to work. It was too quiet now; she should have put on music. The clean scent of his bare skin still lingered around her and teased her senses. And this painting—it was one of her finest, she could already see it.
“Sydney,” he said into the quiet.
“Yes?”
“My turn to pry.”
She hesitated. “I reserve the right to pass on anything inappropriate.”
/> She thought he might laugh, but his expression was serious. “Do you get lonely?”
You already know the answer. “What makes you ask?”
“I’m not sure. You seem like an only child.”
She released a breath. He was talking about her lack of siblings, not her relationship with Max.
“Do you?” he repeated, shifting just the slightest bit, his head tilted in a beguiling way she wished she’d captured before she started painting.
“Sometimes. And I was an only child. There was just my mom and me.” Maybe in another time, another place, she would tell him the whole story. But not yet. Not after just two days.
“You miss her?”
Darkness swept through her, left her cold. “Not really.”
“Something else, then?”
She didn’t reply. The question was dangerous.
“What are you missing, Sydney?”
She opened her mouth to reply, to ask him politely not to pursue the topic, but then the studio door swung open and Max rolled in, the gilded morning sunlight silhouetting his form.
“How’s it going in here?” He wheeled down the ramp, the door closing behind him with a particular slam that made Sydney feel chided for her wayward conversation with Colm. This creeping intimacy between them had to be palpable to someone as astute as Max.
“It’s going fine,” she said, her tone light and cheerful. “Come see.”
He wheeled himself to her easel and gave the painting a cursory glance. “Where’s the eroticism?”
Colm rose from the platform. “She does amazing portraiture.”
Max’s lip curled just a little, but Sydney quickly said, “This is just to tide us over until the models come on Wednesday.”
Disapproval darkened Max’s expression. “Colm’s got an unexpected vacation until then? How fortunate for him.”
“No, we’re absolutely working,” Sydney said. “This portrait—”
“I’m doing my job,” Colm spoke at the same time.
Sydney wanted to groan for both of them. Thou dost protest too much.
Max merely smiled. “I actually came by to ask Colm if he’d like to join us for dinner tonight. Colm? How about it?”