She shifted restlessly yet again, her arms dropping to her sides, those damn bracelets making that silvery noise. Then she lifted one hand and smoothed her hair over one shoulder.
The woman was in constant movement and it was starting to annoy the hell out of him. His threat senses, already getting twitchy the longer they stayed in the apartment, were now starting to kick into overdrive and the way she kept shifting and moving her hands was not making things any easier.
Weren’t you supposed to be not letting her get to you?
He could feel his jaw getting tight, a whisper of impatience threading through him. He locked it down. Hard.
“I can’t leave,” she was saying, turning around to look at the canvases stacked against the walls. “I can’t leave all this behind. My pieces, my paints, my brushes … everything.”
Lucas ignored her, moving over to the window again, his threat senses pricking at him harder. Jesus, they needed to get out of here and the sooner the better. He had no illusions about his own abilities, no false modesty. He was one of the best there was, but even he was only one man and if they sent an army after Grace he was not going to be able to protect her in this shithole.
There was nothing outside, the alleyway clear, but that didn’t mean there was no one there or no one watching.
Christ, they couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
He turned back to the room, finding Grace’s amber gaze on his. He met it. “We’re leaving,” he said with finality. “You have five minutes.”
* * *
Five minutes? To gather together the work of a year? And how was she going to take her canvases, let along all her art gear?
The answer was, of course, simple. She couldn’t. He was asking her to leave it all behind.
That cold, hard lump of fear hadn’t gone away, but now it was joined by sharp, electrical surges of anger. Because no, just no. She wasn’t going anywhere without her paintings.
Meeting his silver-blue stare, she lifted her chin. “I have a gallery showing in two weeks. Two. Weeks. And these?” She threw out her hand at the canvases. “These are my exhibition pieces. I can’t leave them here. I won’t leave them here. They took me all year to complete and I’m not leaving all that work behind.”
Lucas didn’t even look at the canvases. “Your work doesn’t matter,” he said coldly. “Your life does.”
The electrical surges became a jagged bolt of fury and she found herself taking a few steps toward him. “Don’t you dare say that.” She didn’t bother to keep her temper out of her voice. “And don’t be so goddamn dismissive. Don’t you understand? My work is my life.”
His icily perfect features didn’t change, his complete lack of expression chilling. “So you’re quite happy to die or be tortured for a piece of fabric with some paint on it?”
Her anger gathered tighter and so did her throat, an old and painful grief locking it. She hadn’t had anyone dismiss her work so completely since she’d been thirteen and had finally gotten up the gumption to show her work to her father.
He’d been an artist himself, temperamental but brilliant, and as a kid she’d idolized him. But as the years had gone by and his paintings had failed to sell, he’d gotten bitter, turning that bitterness on her. He’d taken one look at her drawings and declared them talentless wastes of time and that she should try something she was good at. Not that she was good at anything at all, according to him.
“Yes,” she snapped, starting to feel furious now. “I pretty much would.”
“You have four minutes,” Lucas said, infuriatingly calm. “If you haven’t gotten your things together in that time I’m picking you up and carrying you out of here.”
Her instinct was to take another step and get in his face, yell at him that she wasn’t going anywhere and that if he laid a hand on her she was going to call the police. But she had a feeling that Lucas Tate, cool, calm, and logical, would simply let all her blustering roll right off him, pick her up anyway, and take her away whether she liked it or not.
It made her feel panicky.
Sucking in a breath, she forced herself to go for cool, just like him. “I need my pieces, Lucas.” She struggled to keep her voice even. “Like I said, I have an exhibition in two weeks and it’s important to me. It’s an opportunity that took me a long time to get and I can’t miss it.” She swallowed, clenching her hands into fists. His face was expressionless, his perfect features giving her nothing back. The look in his eyes could have frozen fire and she knew he wasn’t going to understand. He wasn’t the kind of man who knew about dreams or passions. He wouldn’t know what it was like to want something so bad it hurt. To spend years and years fighting for it and now to have it so close she could almost taste it. And yet she had no other option but to at least make an attempt to get through to him.
“It’s my very first exhibition ever,” she went on, enunciating each word. “It’s been my dream to show my work as an artist since I could first hold a crayon. I’ve been working toward it for years and it’s only now that I have something good enough to show.” She met his icy stare, willing him to understand. “I can’t leave these here. They’re too important.”
His gaze flickered toward the canvases, then back to her. “If it’s that much of a big deal I’ll get you some more canvases and paints. You can just paint some more.”
She almost laughed. No, of course he wouldn’t get it. Why had she thought he would? “I can’t just ‘paint some more.’ It doesn’t work that way. And even if it did I can’t do the work of a year in two weeks. I have one piece left to finish and I don’t know how I’m going to finish it as it is.”
But Lucas just looked at her. “Three minutes.”
Beneath her anger, the panic twisted, and she found herself taking another step, so she was standing directly in front of him. Then before she could stop herself, she’d put out a hand and gripped the hem of his bike jacket, the stiff leather warm beneath her fingers. “Please, Lucas.” She stared up into his eyes, light blue and silver, such a beautiful color and yet so icy. The color of a cloudless, cold, perfect winter’s day. “My work has to come with me. It has to. I don’t know what those people will do to it if they come here. I can’t leave it behind.”
He simply stood there, a wall of black leather. Immovable as a mountain and just as hard. His gaze didn’t even flicker. “Two minutes.”
Her throat closed. Jesus, why even bother? Her father had done all he could to crush her dreams of being an artist just like him, and since her mother did whatever he said, she hadn’t helped. Even Grace’s grandparents, who’d been the only ones to support her dreams of going to art college when she’d been younger, had backed down when push had come to shove. Griffin had appreciated her art, but he hadn’t been terribly interested in it, and that had suited her, since all she’d wanted was to be left alone to create it.
All those people who hadn’t understood … Why should Lucas be any different?
She could waste more time trying to convince him or create a huge scene and declare she wasn’t going anywhere. But she knew what would happen if she did that, he’d do exactly what he said and pick her up and carry her out of the building over his shoulder. She would certainly survive that, but maybe her pride wouldn’t.
No, as much as she hated to give in, her only option was to do what he said, grab her things and go with him. Maybe if she did that she could try convincing him to go back and get the canvases. Or hell, maybe he wouldn’t watch her 24/7 and she could even go get them herself.
Grace let go of the leather of his jacket and turned away, trying to hide the slow acid drip of disappointment. It was always a mistake to let people know how much you cared and it was a trap she fell into every time. A mistake because of course they could use it against you later, use it as a way to manipulate you, get things from you. Yet she’d never learned the knack of hiding her emotions and then, when she’d gotten older, her own stubborn nature refused to make herself even try.
“Be quiet,” her mother used to tell her when she was being too loud or too happy. Too angry, too sad. Too anything. “Your father’s working. He doesn’t like outbursts.” And when she was little, she’d tried to be quiet. But as her father’s bitterness had begun to color her life like a streak of black paint in pristine white, turning everything gray, she’d stopped being the good, quiet girl who kept herself under control all the time. She’d let herself be wild instead.
Sometimes that was a good thing, but more often than not it wasn’t. Like now, for instance.
Now she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that she was thirteen again, her dreams being crushed by yet another uncaring prick of a man.
Grabbing a bag, she threw some clothes into it, not even paying attention as to what they were. Then she went into the bathroom to grab her toothbrush, pausing only to sweep the few other toiletries, including her collection of nail polishes, into the bag as well.
Coming out again, she picked up the bag, then grabbed her purse. Forced herself to meet Lucas Tate’s uncaring gaze, and this time she didn’t bother trying to hide her fury. “I know you’re trying to protect me. And I know you think my life is more important than my art. But without my art my life isn’t worth living. Just remember that.”
He gave her a long, cold stare and she had the impression that the passionate words had simply bounced right off him. “Come with me then.”
What did you expect? That he’d change his mind?
Of course not. Because no one ever did, not about her. She’d told Griffin she didn’t want him to go away again, that she was tired of being alone, and he hadn’t listened to her. He’d re-upped without even talking to her about it. And when her father had refused to accept her grandparents’ offer to pay for art college for her, they hadn’t argued.
Lucas was just another in a long line of people who hadn’t given a shit.
The only one who cared enough about her was herself, which made this situation, where she was at the mercy of someone else’s decisions, a fucking nightmare.
She didn’t want to follow him. She wanted to scream at his leather-clad back and throw things. Or sit on the floor and refuse to move. Let him see if he could pick her up and carry her out of the building after all.
But she didn’t do any of those things. She followed him silently back down the hallway to the elevator and then down to the first floor. And she followed him to where he’d parked his motorcycle, got on when he told her.
And when he told her to hang on to him, she did. Without a word. Feeling as if she’d betrayed herself somehow by giving in.
This time the ride wasn’t exciting and she felt nothing at the other end, where he parked in an underground car park beneath a white building, then led her to the elevator. It was a much nicer elevator than the one in her own building and they went up to the top floor. But she didn’t take much notice of that either.
When the doors opened and she stepped into a big echoing space, she kept her attention on the dark polished wooden floorboards beneath her feet. She didn’t want to look around. She didn’t care.
Except then she noticed the colors on the floor in front of her. Reds and blues and greens and golds. How strange. Looked like light through stained glass. She looked up to see where it was coming from and the breath caught in her throat.
She was standing in a long, vaulted space, with a high, dark-beamed ceiling overhead. The walls were white, providing a stark contrast to the dark floor and a perfect surface for the light coming through the massive stained-glass windows to the left of her. They reached high and wide, the ceiling and the wall down one end of the long gallery-like room cutting them off, which meant that the rooms beyond the one she stood in would have some of the window too, as must the floor above her.
The colors were exquisite, even in the dull gray light of a New York winter, and she couldn’t help taking a few steps toward them, staring at them in wonder. It looked like a huge rose window of a church, with angels and other religious iconography all set in the glass.
The rest of the room was virtually empty, apart from a big white sectional couch and a couple of armchairs. There was no art on the walls and no rugs on the floor, it was as if the stained-glass window was all the color and life the room needed.
She could sense Lucas standing behind her, the silence coming from him heavy and dense, like a black hole sucking away all life and heat. She ignored him, staring instead at the rose window and the space around her.
It was beautiful, light. Airy. Simple and uncluttered. She had no idea spaces like this even existed, let alone that she could be standing in one of them. That it looked like she would be living in it.
Suddenly she ached for a brush in her hand. For her paints. For a blank canvas in front of her. Ached so badly it was almost pain. What would it be like to paint in a place like this? To have all this color and brightness in front of her and around her. It would be amazing. She could almost feel her soul uncurl, as if it had been stuffed into a small, dark box and was only now being set free.
How strange that a man as emotionless and uncaring as Lucas Tate would have a place so full of peace and light and beauty. It didn’t make any sense. She would have picked some heavy, industrial-feeling place or one of those sleek, clean, shiny penthouses that only the very rich lived in.
He is one of the very rich, don’t forget that.
She took a small, silent breath and tried to school her features, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of showing him how much she liked this place. Because no matter how lovely it was, she still didn’t have her canvases. And he was still a complete bastard for not even understanding how very important they were to her.
“Bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms are up the stairs on your right,” Lucas said, his voice toneless. “Kitchen is down the end of the gallery. I’ll leave you to explore.”
She turned around. “Why? Where are you going?”
To her surprise, she thought she saw something flicker through his sharp blue gaze. Something that looked awfully like emotion of some kind.
“Where do you think?” He raised one blond brow. “I’m going to get your fucking canvases.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Lucas had no idea why he was bothering, because retrieving her canvases made no difference to the danger surrounding her. She was still under threat whether she had them or not, and going and getting them for her could blow their cover. It went against every instinct he had, not to mention all logic, to return to her apartment simply to get a few paintings.
And yet …
Her plain features had glowed when she’d told him how much they’d meant to her. How long she’d been working on them and how her exhibition was her dream. Without my art my life isn’t worth living.…
He didn’t understand that, not one bit. Life was so very precious and complex, and it could be taken away in an instant, less than an instant. How could a bunch of paintings ever be worth more than that? No, he didn’t get it, so it was a bit of a fucking mystery as to why he’d told her he was going to get her paintings back.
Nevertheless, he was doing it, turning away and leaving her standing in the living area of the apartment, for some reason not wanting to see the look on her face. The unfurling expression of shock, then surprise, then sheer joy.
In fact, he hadn’t been able to get out of there fast enough, heading back down onto the street and taking his phone out of his pocket, putting a call through to one of the Tate family employees.
Yes, there was a van that could be put to good use and yes, there were a couple of other guys who could help. And most important, yes, they could do it immediately.
Lucas knew that going himself probably wasn’t a good idea, since it would link him more completely with Grace if anyone was watching. Yet, again for reasons he couldn’t explain, he didn’t want a whole bunch of people handling those canvases without taking proper care of them.
It’s almost like you give a shit what she thinks of you.
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Lucas frowned as he put his helmet back on and got on the bike. Well, to a certain extent he did give a shit, because he needed her to trust him. But there had been a sharp sensation in his chest when he’d ignored her pleas back in her pokey little apartment and he didn’t like it.
Any kind of sensation that destroyed his focus was bad, both for him and for the mission. So of course he had to deal with it. And if retrieving her canvases was one way of getting rid of that feeling then he’d do it.
Sounds like a great justification.
He dismissed the thought. It wasn’t justification. It was ensuring the success of the mission, that’s all.
An hour or so later, having successfully supervised the removal of the canvases, at the same time as keeping a lookout for potential eyes on the apartment, Lucas directed the van to take a zigzag route back to his Village apartment. He followed a couple of cars behind it on his bike, making sure there were no tails, before telling the guys to park it in the private car park underneath the apartment building.
He was fairly certain they’d managed to take out Grace’s canvases without anyone spotting them, though it didn’t help that the things were fucking huge and it was painfully obvious as they’d gotten them out of the apartment what they were doing. With any luck, though, anyone watching would think the van was simply transporting Grace’s art somewhere and not actually taking them to her in her hiding place.
And even if they did, Lucas was certain that they wouldn’t be able to get inside his apartment anyway. He had a state-of-the-art security system, plus a number of different, hidden exits that he could take her out of if anyone did happen, by some miracle, to find their way in.
You could also call your brothers to help.
Lucas shook away the thought as the men he’d employed unloaded the canvases. No, he didn’t need his brothers’ help nor did he want it. Van was a SEAL commander and a bossy bastard, and Lucas didn’t want him sticking his oar in where it wasn’t wanted. Lucas was in charge of this particular mission and he wanted to stay in charge, period. And as for Wolf, well, that asshole was far too volatile and Lucas did not do well with volatility. Especially when he was trying to protect a civilian.
The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance Page 6