Mending Walls With The Billionaire (Artists & Billionaires Book 3)

by Lorin Grace

  Tanner put his arm on Boyd’s shoulder. “Nothing you can do now. We have to wait it out, then check on it.”

  “Worst case, we should only have to redo one coat,” said Brandon. “At least Kyle’s girlfriend thought of bringing those tarps up.”

  “She’s n—” Kyle thought better of the denial on his lips. Tanner’s raised brow begged him to finish the sentence. “She’s nice and thoughtful that way.”

  “Thought you were going to tell us she wasn’t your girlfriend. Which would be nice because I would love to take a turn kissing her too.”

  “Too?”

  “First the driver, then you. She didn’t look like that kind of a girl, but . . .” Tanner wisely trailed off.

  Kyle counted to five before answering. “Araceli is not that kind of girl. I don’t know what you heard about what happened with the driver, but if she had not kissed Aselòm as those thugs at the manifestation requested, there is a very real chance she could be in the hospital today. As for kissing me, that is between the two of us.”

  Tanner held up his hands. “Backing off. My bad. I guess I didn’t understand the full situation when I heard the other drivers talking.”

  “I can’t keep watching this. Let’s go see what we can do inside, like measure the director’s kitchen.” Boyd headed downstairs, the others following behind him.

  As they hurried down the stairs to the staccato beat of the falling rain, Kyle glared at the back of Tanner’s head. He couldn’t remember the last time he wanted to punch someone over a woman.

  They’d finished measuring the counter when the lights flickered twice and went out. Kyle glared at the single bulb overhead. “Y’all better pack it up. Unlikely they will get power back today, and we don’t want to drain any extra resources. I’ll meet you down at the vans.”

  Even on the brightest of days, many of the areas on the third floor were cast in shadow. Kyle narrowly avoided running into a couple of boys who had been playing with cars in one of the unused rooms. “Come downstairs. It’s almost dinnertime.”

  “No, it’s not Mr. Kyle. You know we got at least two hours, and with the power out, it won’t be no good anyway.”

  “Any good,” Kyle automatically corrected. “And we have a generator, so the ovens will still work.”

  The boys parked their cars in the corner and followed him downstairs. Marci held a battery-powered lantern at the entrance of the storeroom. Kate and Madison set their paint cans back on the shelves, and Araceli supervised the cleaning up in French.

  “Please put all the brushes in here.” She held a plastic bin full of murky water.

  “I hope you aren’t planning on washing those.” Kyle spoke in French, knowing every child over ten understood them and wouldn’t wonder what was being said.

  “No, I understand that when the power goes out the water doesn’t always work, and they don’t like using the cistern unless it’s an emergency. The paint is water based. Keeping the brushes wet will work until a better time to clean them arises.”

  “I see you thought of everything.”

  “Your mother did.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  Araceli shook her head and turned her attention to a boy who had as much paint on his hands as his brush.

  Instead of taking the stairs, Kyle used the ramp to the main floor. The sewing area was nearly clean. Several other girls wore new dresses. “Jade, do you need anything?”

  “We need to store the machines in one of the offices.”

  “Let’s put them in the one I use.” He pulled the key ring from his pocket and picked up two of the sewing machines by their handles. Jade followed him down the dimly lit hallway. With the blinds closed, the office was dark. “Please keep the door propped open while I put these away, and then I’ll get yours.”

  As Kyle set the second sewing machine next to the first, he heard the door shut behind him. He turned and tried to see in the darkened room. He pulled the phone out of his pocket. “Jade?”

  The dim light of his phone revealed that she was only inches away. She placed her right hand on his chest. “What does Miss Artist have that I don’t? I’ve been coming on these trips for years. I understand your family. I know what you need. According to Cassie, you didn’t even think a mural was a viable project. I hear she is free with her favors. Is that it? Was I playing too hard to get?” Jade reached for his phone, her fingers covering his as she turned it off, her lips covered his before he had time to react. They tasted of artificial strawberries, the heavy coating of gloss slithering along his lips. He pulled away, but she tried again, this time finding his neck.

  “Jade, stop this.” He took her by both shoulders and held her at a distance. “I’ve never had anything but a friendship with you. I thought you understood this years ago.”

  “No! No, I don’t understand.” She found the exterior door outlined faintly by the closed blinds and rushed out.

  Kyle leaned against his desk and rubbed his temples. Only two days in and his biggest headache was women.

  fourteen

  The gray light filtering through the rain beckoned Araceli to the outside door, where she found Jade blocking her exit from the building. “Kyle will never be yours. Go back to Podunk Indiana or wherever you’re from!” Jade’s smudged lipstick twisted the hard-edged words.

  If a Picasso could speak, it would look just like Jade. The absurd thought nearly made Araceli laugh. The angry girl pushed past Araceli and went back into the building. Most of the volunteers stood about the patio watching the rain. Kyle was not among them. On the far side of the patio, his office door stood ajar.

  She entered. “Do you have a headache?”

  Kyle lifted his head. The other half of the Picasso. The not-so-funny half. Araceli turned, hoping Kyle hadn’t seen her reaction. They were fake dating, so the heaviness she felt in her stomach should be fake too.

  A hand on her elbow stopped her. ‘‘Hey, what’s wrong?”

  She turned to face him. “That shade of lipstick clashes with your—”

  ‘‘Oh!” Kyle pulled a tissue from his pocket and rubbed his face, farther smearing ruby red. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

  “I am not your real girlfriend, so it doesn’t matter what lipstick all over your face looks like to me. Just others. And considering Jade’s lipstick is also smeared across her face, I suggest we clean you up.” Araceli dug for a baby wipe in her pack, then ran it with more pressure than necessary across his face. She folded the wipe before erasing the trail of red kisses on the side of his neck. Where skin met cotton, she stopped. “Next time, I suggest you ask her to wear less lipstick. Getting the stain out of clothing is a pain.”

  “Celi—”

  “Araceli.”

  “Look, I didn’t kiss her.”

  “The evidence says otherwise. I don’t know what game you like to play with your volunteers, but I don’t want to be part of it. I’ll take my chances of having someone destroy my mosquito netting rather than becoming some pawn or conquest for you.”

  “Please—”

  It was the same please Wesley must have given the Dread Pirate Roberts in her favorite book. She sighed. “I’ll listen.”

  “I was helping Jade put the sewing machines away. It was dark in here, and I literally didn’t see her coming. She has danced this same dance with me for years. It has never been more than friendship, and after today it may not be even that. I know what we are doing isn’t, well . . . you know, but I am not the type of guy who goes around making pawns of people or conquests of women. I was honest about what we agreed to this morning. You are not a number, and I hope you are my friend.”

  She wasn’t sure when he had taken her hands in his during the speech, the gentle warmth radiating from them melting her insides. If he did want to manipulate her, he had
the perfect weapons. Remembering their relationship was fake was easier than believing it was real. She pulled her hands out of his. “So how do we play this? Do I act like I have forgiven you or I don’t know?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Slap Jade. Slap you, maybe. Kiss you. The last thought had to be a mistake. “We should probably join the others. And let’s keep our relationship to holding hands for now.” People may assume something more anyway, and it was safer for her heart.

  “Let me make sure this room is locked.” He retook her hand as they stepped back on the porch.

  Araceli wished she liked his touch a bit less.

  Kyle counted heads. Where was Jade? He’d turned to ask Marci to go find her when Jade walked out of the building, makeup fixed and chin held high. She marched past him and into one of the vans. The van he was supposed to be in. Of course, she took the last remaining seat—the one next to Araceli.

  “Jade, Chelsea is in the other van holding a seat for you.”

  “Oh, this is fine. You can go in the other van.”

  “Marci is in the other van, and we need a Haitian speaker in this one. Just in case we run into another manifestation. Tensions are still high, and with another power outage . . .” Tensions were high, and his blood pressure was spiking.

  “Make someone else move, like Articili here.”

  “Her name is Araceli, and you were the last one out. Please go get in the other van.”

  Boyd opened the door to the front-passenger seat. “Here, dude, I’ll move.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Good luck,” Boyd whispered as he passed Kyle.

  Kyle climbed in and glanced back to where Araceli sat next to Jade. Side by side, it was easy to make comparisons. Where Jade looked like she had walked out of a fashion magazine, one of those that put models in the faux real-life situations, Araceli looked relaxed and prepared. Her clothes were neither new nor very old, and she didn’t seem to mind having paint on them. Spirals of hair poked out from her messy bun. She watched out the window the same way she watched everything else, including him—as if she were studying and learning. Jade watched people too, but only to see who was watching her.

  As they started to turn the first corner, the driver stopped. The rain had washed another section of soil away near the large pipe. “Everyone must walk, or I not get van over.” The driver’s English was not as clear as Aselòm’s.

  Kyle hopped out and opened the rear door to the van. “Come on, y’all. I know it’s raining, so let’s hurry.” He looked sternly at Jade, daring her to argue. She glared but got out, the passengers in the other van were getting out as well.

  “Tomorrow I’ll come out here and look at what we can do to fill this. I noticed some brick builders near the bridge. Would the locals have left a few cobblestones behind?” asked Tanner.

  “Maybe we can get some broken pavers that haven’t been appropriated for another use.” Kyle followed the others down the road to where the vans now waited.

  Jade climbed back into the van after Araceli. This was not going to be a fun ride. In the time it had taken to drive the mile or so to the paved road, the dirt road had become a small river. Kyle was grateful they’d left when they did. The runoff would have prevented their exit if it had risen much higher.

  The occupants of the van were strangely quiet. Rain often had that effect on people—perhaps it was the origin of the phrase “dampened spirits.” The traffic moved slowly as usual, although there were fewer moto taxis. The advantage of no traffic lights was that they couldn’t go out to cause further problems with the power outage.

  Thirty minutes into the drive, Marci texted him. Boyd asked about the lights over in Pétion-Ville. Can we rearrange things and go this afternoon?

  Good idea. I’ll phone the guesthouse. I don’t think they will have started on dinner yet.

  Kyle spoke to the driver in Haitian as he dialed the guesthouse. “Do you mind driving to Pétion-Ville?”

  “No problem.”

  Mrs. Delino answered on the third ring. Kyle explained the change of plans.

  “Since I didn’t make it to the market before the storm hit, I am pleased. Without your group, I will have enough food to serve the others.”

  Kyle texted Marci back. Good to go.

  See you there.

  Kyle turned to face the rest of the passengers. “We are taking advantage of our early end to the day to take a drive through Pétion-Ville, where we will also stop for dinner.”

  Jade clapped her hands. “Pétion-Ville is one of my favorite parts of the trip. Shopping!”

  “We will have to go souvenir shopping another day. With the rain, most of the street artists will have closed shop. We won’t be stopping at Rivoli as that store is closed on Sunday, and you don’t need another Rolex for your father. We will stop for dinner.”

  They meandered up the hill into what was perhaps the most prosperous area of Haiti.

  “Whoa, a stoplight. I didn’t think those existed here,” Tanner said from the back seat.

  The driver glanced in the rearview mirror. “This week the light is not working. It shows red to both sides. So we take turns.”

  “It wasn’t working last year either.” Jade leaned into Araceli, trying to see out the window.

  Kyle resumed his role as tour guide. “Pétion-Ville is home to several embassies, and foreign dignitaries tend to choose to live there. It isn’t as exclusive as Labadee, but still, most everything sold in Pétion-Ville is out of reach for the average Haitian.”

  “Where is Labadee?” Araceli didn’t look away from the window as she asked.

  “Labadee is on the north part of the island. It is meant for tourists only. Although locals work there, they don’t live there. The cruise ships dock there. Many tourists claim to have been to Haiti, but they only see the facade that is Labadee. No cinder-block huts and no beggars. Like Pétion-Ville, you can find many street artists in Labadee.”

  “Are we going there on this trip?”

  “Probably not. I need to go to Jacmel, in the opposite direction.”

  Jade stuck out her lower lip.

  Maybe Kyle would find a way to go to Jacmel without Jade.

  The driver wound through streets, passing several embassies and European-style churches. Kyle was content to follow the van Marci directed, knowing she would hit all the highlights. No doubt her tour was better than his. They stopped at a midrange restaurant featuring local Haitian bands and music.

  Kyle managed to sit next to Araceli. Her hair hung free of the bun. If they were genuinely dating, he would find a way to play with those corkscrew curls. Dinner was over before he was able to have anything close to a meaningful conversation with Araceli, but the food and music put Jade in a better mood. Perhaps she wouldn’t repeat her performance.

  The rainbow stretched over the city and disappeared into the mountain. As the van descended into Port au Prince, the streets grew busier and dirtier. Within six miles of the restaurant, Araceli watched another world materialize. It was like driving from the mansions of Beacon Hill to project housing Roxbury in Boston, only poorer. She thought she had been prepared growing up in a large city. She had seen US-style poverty firsthand through church service activities supervised and structured for safety and exposure. But this was beyond anything she had ever witnessed.

  This was a place she could make a difference. But how to get involved? There was the Evans Foundation. But the foundation was Kyle’s work, and she wasn’t sure after this week she could handle being around him. It was hard enough to sit next to him in the restaurant knowing he’d kissed Jade. Or she had kissed him. Either way, Araceli couldn’t risk another kiss or see him every day. Counting the driver and the guy she had kissed in a game of truth or dare when she was fourteen, she had kissed exactly three guys in her life
. And every kiss had been pretend.

  As soon as they reached the guesthouse, Araceli went in search of a place to be alone for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the only place affording any privacy was the bathroom. She sat on the edge of the tub and brought up the group-chat app. Hopefully someone was in a place they could answer. Her fingers flew as she typed on her phone.

  So, how is your spring break? I am trying to win an Oscar on mine. Yesterday I pretended to be our Haitian driver’s fiancée and even kissed him to possibly save my life. Now I need to pretend to be Kyle Evans’s girlfriend because the driver’s girlfriend has threatened me. I mean really threatened, as in nasty retaliation. So anyway, he kissed me. Then he kissed someone else, or she kissed him. So now I am acting like I don’t care and that our kiss didn’t mean anything. I know it shouldn’t, but I guess having a hibernating crush on someone for fourteen years can really mess a girl up. If I can pull this off for five more days, I will be ready for a Hollywood contract. How did I get myself into this? How do I get out?

  P.S. I love Haiti and working with the children. I feel like I could find purpose here if I can find a way to do it without the Evans Foundation. Mandy, do you know of any other groups?

  P.P.S. He apologized for what he said when I was ten. It would be easier to fake the girlfriend thing if he hadn’t. Candace, I may beat your record of most ice cream eaten in one week. Please, someone, stock up before I get back.

  She stared at the screen, hoping someone would be on and respond.

  Ping.

  Tanner: Araceli, did you mean to send this to us?

  Araceli dropped her phone on the tile floor.

  Ping.

  Ping.

  It took her two tries to retrieve the phone. It didn’t feel broken, but it was hard to see through her tears.

  Ping.

  Ping.

  Maybe she didn’t want to be able to see after all.