Grace was calling him.
His chest tightened and his breath caught. Part of him didn’t want to answer it, but that part was a coward, so he hit the answer button. “What is it?”
“Lucas?” She sounded hesitant, her voice a little hoarse. “Are you okay?”
He found his jaw had gone tight, tension crawling over his shoulders. “Yes.” It was a struggle to keep his voice as cold as he wanted it to be. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s only that you weren’t here and I wondered where you’d gone. And then I remembered de Santis and the drop-off and…” She trailed off, then cleared her throat, adding in a stronger tone, “But obviously nothing’s wrong and you’re fine. So that’s good.”
Yet he’d heard the worry in her voice. He’d hurt her yesterday, been cold and callous to her, and yet here she was, calling him to check he was okay.
“Everything’s fine.” He kept every scrap of feeling from the words, making them as expressionless as possible, because he couldn’t afford to break or give in. “I gave de Santis the message. I’ll let you know when it’s all done and you’re safe.” If de Santis did, in fact, agree to his demand.
And what if he doesn’t?
If he didn’t … Well, Lucas would give all the information he had to the authorities and they could deal with it. Griffin’s name would be mud, though, and Grace would no doubt be dragged through the media too … Christ. That was’t a good outcome either. Then again, it was better than being dead. Wasn’t it?
“Okay.…” There was a brief silence, and when she spoke again her voice dropped, a husky edge to it. “Thanks, Lucas. Thanks for … everything. I appreciate it.”
It wasn’t much, only a simple thank-you, and yet it stuck in his heart alongside that fucking knife that her tears had put there yesterday.
But there was nothing he could do about that. He’d made his decision, and once he made a decision he never ever went back on it.
“It was my father’s directive,” he said, reducing everything. Making it smaller, turning it into nothing. “Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon.”
There was another, long silence and he could almost feel her longing like a palpable thing. And he found himself holding his breath, his fingers tight around his phone, waiting for her to say something, though he had no idea what.
But all she said was, “Okay.” Her voice was small and it made everything in him draw into a tight, hard knot.
Then she disconnected the call without another word.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lucas didn’t come back. Not that she expected him to, but she kept half an ear out while she worked all the same. Listening for the sound of the elevator chime or the doors opening.
Neither came.
It was okay. She knew he wouldn’t return. She’d thought he might leave her with a text or something, though, just to let her know where he was and what he was doing. That he was okay. He hadn’t and she’d been forced to call him, which she hadn’t wanted to do. But she couldn’t stand not knowing.
Hearing his voice and the cold note in it had been unexpectedly painful. Hearing the way he’d dismissed his protecting her as his “father’s directive” worse. He was minimizing it, of course, and probably to protect himself. She understood that. Didn’t make any of it easy to bear, however.
Grace put her phone down on the floor, then turned back to her canvas.
She felt exhausted. She’d been in the studio, working like a madwoman, for a full twenty-four hours straight. A painting hadn’t consumed her this way for a very long time, and it was still consuming her. She’d slept in the studio when she was tired, stopping only for bathroom breaks and to grab coffee and a couple of sandwiches. Once or twice she’d stopped to stretch out painfully cramped muscles or to walk around as she turned something over in her head.
Every so often she would stand back to study the painting and see where she was headed with it, but viewing it as a whole was too painful, so she had to focus on small sections of it instead.
It was coming together. It was going to be amazing.
It was probably also going to kill her.
But waiting around, listening for the door, hoping it might be him and yet at the same time dreading it would be him, was too much for her. Losing herself in the painting was the only option, so lose herself she did.
Time passed; she didn’t know how long.
Her phone buzzed a number of times, but since she had her fingers covered in paint and she didn’t want to stop, she didn’t pick it up until she’d finished the section she was on.
When she did, she saw there were a number of texts from Lucas telling her that de Santis had called off the dealers. That she was safe and that she could move back into her apartment whenever she liked, though she could stay where she was for as long as she wanted to as well. All she needed to do was text him when she wanted to move and he’d send around some people to help her with her canvases.
So, he wasn’t coming back, was he? That day in the long gallery as he’d told her it was over, that was the last time she’d ever see him.
Pain and fury lodged inside her chest and she very much wanted to smash something. He was a coward. A fucking coward. Perhaps she’d pick up her paints and fling them all over the white walls, all over the white cushions of his precious fucking couch. All over the floors. Get color everywhere and permanently so he could dismiss her all he liked, but he’d never be able to get the traces of her out.
She’d done that the night she’d left, after her father had told her he’d refused to let her grandparents pay for art college. That if he hadn’t managed to get them to pay for him they certainly weren’t going to pay for her. So she’d gone out and spilled house paint all over his shitty car.
But that had been years ago and she wasn’t a child any longer. She wasn’t going to spill paint around Lucas’s lovely white apartment. He’d told her it was over and so it was over. She’d accept it and move on, because she was a fucking adult. Because she wasn’t destructive like her father. And anyway, did she really care that much about Lucas?
Her gaze fell on the painting in front of her, the one she’d been slaving her guts out on. And the fury rose up inside her, making her want to take to the canvas with a pair of scissors as if that would cut out the pain.
But she didn’t do that either. She moved over to it instead, reaching out as if to touch the cheek of the man she’d painted on it, the hurt and the fury bubbling away inside her.
It was too personal, this painting. Too revealing. It was also too important.
No matter how bad she felt, this painting reminded her of the good too and she had to keep it. She couldn’t destroy it.
It was part of her and she cared. She cared very, very much.
Too much.
She didn’t respond to Lucas’s texts until the end of the day, telling him in a short, no-nonsense response that she’d be ready to go the following morning and that yes, some help with the canvases would be required. He answered with a terse Fine.
It all seemed so anticlimactic. After the danger and the passion and the intensity, that a couple of texts was all it took to let her know that she was safe and that she was not needed any longer. She could go about her life as if nothing had happened.
The next day, as the men came to remove her canvases, Grace watched them carefully to make sure they didn’t damage anything. The last painting, the most important one, she kept covered with a sheet because she didn’t want anyone seeing it. She kept vacillating about whether she wanted it in the exhibition or not, but since it was supposed to be the piece that drew everything together, she supposed she was going to have to use it.
As the removal men finally left the apartment, Grace stood there for a couple of moments, looking around at the place that had been her home for the past couple of weeks. She’d thought she’d feel sad about leaving, but she didn’t, and at first she didn’t really understand why, since she’d felt very comfortable h
ere, even though some very uncomfortable things had happened. Even though she’d had some of the happiest moments of her life here.
But no, she knew why.
Lucas wasn’t here and without him it was just a house. A nice house, but just a house all the same.
He made it home.
Grace shook her head, denying the thought. She couldn’t afford to think those things. It was over. It was done. And now she was going to move on with her life, without any stupid man cluttering it up.
Before she left she laid an envelope on the coffee table in front of the couch. An invitation to her exhibition. She had no idea if he was going to return here—if he’d ever return here—but if he did he’d see it and maybe he’d open it. Maybe he’d even decide to come.
But if he didn’t then she could tell herself that he hadn’t gotten the invitation rather than he simply didn’t want to see her again.
It was a cop-out and she knew it. But the alternative was hunting him down and shoving the envelope into his hand herself and she didn’t think she could do that. She didn’t think she could face yet another rejection from him.
Cop-outs were all she had left.
* * *
Lucas stayed away from the Village apartment. Five hours after he’d gotten out of de Santis’s limo, the asshole had sent him a terse text informing him that he’d dealt with Oliveira, that he wouldn’t be bothering her again. De Santis neglected to send proof, telling Lucas he would just have to take his word that the situation had been handled.
The prick.
Lucas decided to hold on to the information he had on the bastard in that case, and even though he’d already decided he wasn’t going to see Grace again, he found himself keeping an eye on the apartment just the same. Watching her for a couple of days to make sure everything was okay wouldn’t be a bad idea in case de Santis was a lying sack of shit.
The media storm about Van’s relationship with Chloe was at its height and Lucas knew several of the sharper media outlets were trying to track him down for comment. But no one knew where he lived, which made finding him difficult, so he was able to evade the media spotlight. Evading Van’s calls was even easier. Lucas simply didn’t answer them. He didn’t want to know why Van was marrying their adoptive sister or why he’d suddenly changed his mind and decided to give up the military, become the Tate heir the way their father always wanted.
Lucas didn’t want Van prying into his life and asking him what the fuck was up with him either. All he wanted was to make sure Grace was safe and then he’d be giving up his directorship of Tate Oil and heading back to base, like he’d always planned.
Wolf called him a couple of times, but Lucas decided he wasn’t going to answer him either. Lucas didn’t know what his brother would be asking him about and he didn’t want to know.
Instead he hung out around the apartment, watching out for Grace and making sure there was no one shady around. He thought she might leave immediately, but she didn’t. A day passed and then the removal men arrived. They parked in the basement and he was able to find a vantage point so he could see them remove all the paintings one by one. The last canvas they carried down was covered by a white sheet—the one she’d been working on, he guessed.
He didn’t want to see it. He really didn’t.
Not long after the removal men had gone, he returned to another vantage point where he could check the front door of the building, and soon enough the front door opened and Grace stepped out. Tall and elegant, her purse slung over one shoulder. She wore jeans and one of her paint-spattered T-shirts, that black leather trench coat belted around her narrow waist. Her hair was pulled up and coiled in a messy bun on her head, though not with a paintbrush this time. Standing on the top of the steps, she blinked, as if the weak winter sunlight was too bright, and hunched her shoulders.
His chest hurt, like he’d broken a rib, a dull, aching pain. He couldn’t seem to drag his gaze away from her. Even on a dull gray day with snow in the air, wearing a black trench coat, she burned like a bonfire. Her hair the color of summer, her skin pink from cold. He couldn’t quite see from where he stood, but he knew that her eyes would be gold.
He wanted to close the distance between them. Wanted to put his arms around her, hold on to her bright flame, let her burn him to ash and fuck everything else. But he couldn’t. He had nothing to offer her, nothing to give her but a few more days of hot sex, and he knew—he knew—that that wasn’t what she wanted. The tear that had slipped down her cheek the day he’d left had told him everything he needed to know about that.
She’d started to care and he couldn’t have anyone caring about him. Especially not when he couldn’t care about her in return.
But you do care about her.
Maybe he did. But he shouldn’t. He should pack that emotion away, put it back in the box it had escaped from, and never let it out again.
That’s impossible.…
Lucas ignored the thought as Grace stuck her hands into her pockets and started down the stairs. She didn’t take a taxi, she headed straight for the subway, and he followed, telling himself he only wanted to make sure she got home safely, that it had nothing to do with not wanting to let her out of his sight.
It was almost a disappointment when she arrived home without incident, disappearing into her building. He’d already made sure that her apartment would be as she’d left it. Turned out that Oliveira and his men had broken in and made a bit of a mess in their efforts to locate her, but Lucas had had some Tate employees come in and straighten it out. She probably wouldn’t even notice.
He waited outside the building, feeling a bit like a dog beside the grave of its dead master; then because he needed not to feel that kind of shit, he returned back to the Village to make sure Grace hadn’t left anything behind.
It was curiously quiet without her vibrant presence, the emptiness echoing around him. The faint smell of turpentine and paint lingered in the air, but he didn’t go up to the studio where she’d been. He suddenly didn’t want to be anywhere near that room. It was too full of passion, of heat, of the memories of her silky skin under his hands and the softness of her hair wound around his fingers, her cries in his ear.
Even here was too much, standing in the long gallery with that weak sun shining through the stained glass, casting colors all over the white cushions of his couch. There was a gold stain on one of them, where he’d spilled her nail polish …
Memories flooded his head, hot and dirty and raw, and he had to take a couple of breaths to force them away. He couldn’t be thinking about this. He shouldn’t be thinking about this. Not about her. She was out of his life and that was the best thing all-round.
His gaze settled on a white envelope sitting on the coffee table. Frowning, he moved over to it and picked it up. His name was written on the front in a sprawling, untidy script. Grace’s handwriting? It had to be. No one else could have put that envelope there.
Opening it up, he slid out the piece of paper inside and unfolded it. More of that untidy, sprawling handwriting covered the page. On it was a date and a time, and an address. The art gallery where she’d first approached him. And underneath that she’d written:
Lucas, I know you’re not interested in art, but you told me once you might be interested in mine. So if you are, take this as an invitation to my exhibition. It’ll be my very first one ever and you know how much this means to me. I’d love it if you would be there, but if not …
She hadn’t added anything more, just let the sentence trail off. She hadn’t even signed the note.
He wouldn’t go of course. He couldn’t. A clean break was better, even though it would probably hurt her if he didn’t go. But what would be the point? He still couldn’t offer her anything, didn’t want to offer her anything, and anyway, he was a SEAL through and through. He wasn’t giving up the Navy for anyone. Grace had already lost one husband; it would be cruel of him to let her have him, only to leave on a deployment he might not come back from.
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Excuses, excuses.…
They weren’t excuses. They were facts. That’s all there was to it.
Taking his phone out of his pocket, he texted the housekeeper who looked after this place to make a special dry-cleaning trip for the couch cushions, adding another note to look out for paint stains in the front left bedroom. Then he turned and left the apartment, leaving Grace’s note sitting on the coffee table.
He wasn’t going to go to her exhibition, but he kept an eye on her for the next day or so, waiting outside her apartment so he could see when she went out and following along at a safe distance when she did. Nothing ever happened to her and he didn’t see anyone shady following her either—no one except him at least.
It was starting to look like de Santis was as good as his word. But of course as long as the incriminating information Lucas had on de Santis stayed on his hard drive and wasn’t sent to his military contacts then Grace would remain safe. It wasn’t something he was comfortable with, not when de Santis was such a fucking traitor, but if it kept Grace safe then he wasn’t going to argue.
Since when has she become more important to you than your country? You could pass the intel along and let the authorities protect her.
He could, but something inside wouldn’t let him. He didn’t want her safety to be in anyone else’s hands, only his. Which, of course, meant something. But he didn’t want to think about what it meant, so he didn’t.
He simply watched her, telling himself it was only about her safety. Only that and nothing more.
Despite all of that, the night of the exhibition came around a day or so later, and he found himself outside Grace’s apartment, watching as she came out of the building, heading straight for the cab that had pulled up to the curb.
His breath caught, because she was looking stunning tonight. She was in a flowing strapless dress of emerald green that wrapped tightly around her breasts and hips before flaring out into long, fluttering skirts that swirled around her legs, all silky and liquid. She wore no jewelry except her bracelets and the stunning veil of her hair, let loose down her back like a waterfall of red-gold.
The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance Page 27