I would like to be the air that inhabits you
~ Margaret Atwood ~
CHAPTER ONE
Would selling Butterfly Lovers really free him of painful memories he’d rather forget?
Common sense told Oliver Hart that Butterfly Lovers was just a painting. An inanimate object, incapable of controlling him. But that was the trouble—it did control him, seducing him with its beauty, twisting his heart with bittersweet memories.
He’d intended to keep it…her…forever. His heartbeat seemed to almost stop as he thought of Ruby Diaz, the woman who had inspired the painting’s commission. He rubbed his powerful chest, trying to ease the painful tightness that constricted his lungs as he surveyed the crowd gathered for the charity art auction.
It was time to let them both go. But would he ever be free?
His gaze swept over the minimalist, exquisitely designed interior, lingering over the priceless abstract by Rothko adorning a charcoal-black wall, at Hillcrest, his newly acquired mansion, and New Jersey’s most expensive country estate.
Tonight, though, it was Butterfly Lovers which held in its grip women dripping with diamonds, and men clad in Armani. Locked in shared awe, they clustered around the painting, studying every line, every pulsating color.
Oliver wondered if their eyes ached as his did with a heady mix of pleasure and pain just to stand in its spellbinding presence. Or were they trying to decode the painting’s hidden secrets?
Like a moth to a seductive flame, his eyes drifted to the bottom of the painting. Nobody, but one other person, would ever be able to decipher the graffiti-styled line of poetry scrawled in throbbing orange along the bottom of the painting.
Painful memories bled into his consciousness. Why the hell couldn’t he shake her?
Butterfly Lovers. The painting was aptly named, he mused forcing his mind from the woman who had inspired the purchase. The dancing kaleidoscope of color reminded Oliver of his collection of exotic butterflies—his hobbyhorse and quiet obsession.
Dazzling sapphire blues, glistening watermelon pinks, pulsating canary yellows with shimmering oranges—flew from the canvas, and ricocheted off the marble floor which had been polished to a mirror-like gleam.
He had commissioned the painting in a move of uncharacteristic impulsiveness eight years earlier when he was 22 and madly in lust with Ruby. A 20 year-old exotic beauty, she’d fluttered into his life, bringing with her eternal sunshine, and air so fresh it seeped through the iron fortress he’d built around his heart.
Butterfly Lovers encapsulated the vitality, optimism and positivity she exuded. It was a rare piece which the serious art connoisseurs who gathered here this evening would die to possess. Oliver’s brow furrowed, aware many were drawn here not by the desire to possess the contemporary art world’s finest paintings, but insatiable voyeurs hungry to glimpse the inner world of one of America’s wealthiest and most elusive bachelors.
Immensely private, he’d never opened any of his palatial homes to the public before. Not homes, houses, he corrected. He congratulated himself as he glanced around the clinical, museum-like surroundings. The dark walls and sophisticated lighting, spotlighting priceless works of art, created a sophisticated, yet austere, facade. If a building was truly a reflection of its owner, as many designers believed, the interior aptly reinforced the stereotypes perpetuated in the media—moody, dark, mysterious and strictly hands-off.
There was some truth to that, but it was not the whole truth.
Oliver’s eyes drifted to the spiraling staircase and the heavy gold braided rope barricading the entrance to the upper level. He never let anyone get beyond the ground floor of his psyche. Some tried, but few persevered. No one, other than Ruby had ever penetrated his fortified armor. And that was a mistake.
He was complicated.
No doubt someone here tonight would go home and tweet that he was something of a social outcast, and arrogant to boot, Oliver thought as he hovered in the background. The fact was that he preferred his own company to engaging with his guests—predominantly wealthy financiers and bankers.
He knew his contempt was hypocritical, given he didn’t care who reached into their pockets. But there was something decidedly unpalatable about bankers and the merciless way they preyed on the vulnerable. Tonight, he would gladly encourage them to part with their millions.
As he glanced at his reflection in the floor length window it struck him how far he had come from the days when just finding money to support himself and his little sister had been a struggle. Resplendent in an immaculately tailored Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo cut from the finest Italian wool, he looked like he belonged.
Oliver rubbed his hand over his pecs, powerfully aware of the Maori-inspired tattoo coiled over his shoulder that the crisp white linen of his shirt concealed. His hands pulsed with renewed conviction. It was his touchstone—a symbolic reminder that he was fierce and untouchable—a warrior businessman and an impenetrable lover.
On a good day, he even fooled himself.
But no matter how easy it was to make millions, no matter how many things he acquired, he’d never found a sense of contentment.
Except with—
Oliver bit down on his teeth, grinding them together in a futile attempt to crush memories he was determined not to revisit.
He glanced at his Rolex. 7:03:02. Irritability coursed through his veins. What the hell was the auctioneer waiting for? He fixed him with a piercing look, firing his unspoken annoyance through the crowd.
Tardiness was something he abhorred, and doubly-so tonight, he thought as he locked on the important call he had to make. In one hour it would be 8am in New Zealand and his sister, as punctual as he was, would be anxiously waiting.
As though feeling the pointed tip of Oliver’s anger the auctioneer looked up. His relaxed smile quickly shattered as he was forced to confront the aggressive glint in Oliver’s eyes, the rigid set of his shoulders, the brutally hard line of his jaw.
The auctioneer banged his hardwood gavel on the sounding block with short urgent thuds, his florid face ballooning as the chatter continued.
“Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention?” More insistent hammering. “Attention! Attention!”
The chatter fell to an orderly whisper, extinguished finally by the auctioneer’s solemn voice.
“As you know, tonight is a unique opportunity to savor the extraordinary passions of Oliver Hart. Renowned as an astute business man, Oliver Hart is also an obsessive collector,” he said.
“He has one of the most significant collations of contemporary art in the world. Not only a man of significant wealth, Oliver Hart, founder of Hart Luxury Hotel Consortium, is a man of outstanding generosity. All the funds raised by tonight’s art auction will provide relief for those affected by last month’s devastating earthquake in New Zealand, where he spent much of his childhood.”
Oliver studied his feet as a thunder of applause quaked through the room, amplifying as it echoed off the walls.
Childhood.
The word was like a vicious punch to his stomach. Oppressive memories pounded his brain, and this time there was no silencing them.
Suddenly he was four years old again. Four years old and frightened. Lonely. Abandoned. Trapped in a jungle of strangers. Abandoned by bickering parents into a boarding school, neither one willing to let the other have custody. Selfishly caring more about winning against each other than the needs of their own child. And then there was his father.
His jaw locked as he bit down hard, swallowing a toxic cocktail of grief and anger. The brutal beatings hadn’t hurt nearly as much as the verbal abuse and discouragement he’d suffered when he told them he wanted to be like his grandfather and study butterflies. The abuse had only intensified when he turned his back on the legal career his father had wanted. ‘You’ll never achieve anything. I wish you’d never been born. How dare you defy me you worthless piece of shit,’ the pain of these beatings had long healed—but those words still
hurt.
Freezing sweat clung to Oliver’s body in a vice-like grip, as he recalled the scorn his father rained upon him during his few personal visits. He paced across to the open window, inhaling deeply as he struggled to rip himself free from the shards of the past. Jesus, what sort of father tries to have his son institutionalised?
To some, it might seem ironic that he should be so generous to a country where he spent such an unhappy childhood, but Oliver didn’t like to think of others suffering.
He forced his mind back to the present.
“Tonight’s opening painting Butterfly Lovers is a significant artwork,” the auctioneer continued, glancing down at his notes.
Oliver didn’t have to read his words to know that what he would reveal was a shallow rendition of the truth. Only two people in the world truly knew just what Butterfly Lovers meant.
He glanced around the room thinking Ruby might have come, hoping with all his willpower she hadn’t.
* * *
Did you enjoy reading this excerpt?
Flight of Passion
Book One in the True Love series available now
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Claimed By The Sheikh
Book Two in the True Love series.
Coming soon
A grief-stricken Sheikh Tariq na Hassir, the formidable ruler of the Kingdom of nAvana, arrives in Paris to claim his brother's child after a car crash killed his parents--only to find out from the hospital that the child isn't their biological son. It's Tariq's son, with his former lover.
Three years ago, after being banished by Tariq from his desert kingdom, renown architect Melissa Jones secretly gave her baby to Tariq's childless brother and his wife, in a swap the world was never supposed to discover.
The tragedy pulls her back to the world that rejected her and the man who abandoned her—the only man capable of tuning her carefully controlled world upside down.
Tariq will do whatever it takes to protect his legacy, including claiming Melissa as his bride and his son as heir before scandals ensue. But Melissa has other plans for her future—a westernised life where she's free to operate her own business and control her own life.
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The Italian Billionaire’s Scandalous Marriage: An Italian Billionaire Romance (Italian Billionaire Christmas Brides Book 2) Page 25