comments about the art on display.
Ethan didn’t mention anything about their upcoming nuptials. That announcement was for the gala. Instead he introduced Holly as a friend and painter from Florida whom he had been lucky enough to enlist for an upcoming commission.
Back in the town car again, they munched on the fancy sandwiches Ethan had had Leonard pick up from a gourmet shop. They discussed the paintings they had seen. Holly wanted two, and explained why she’d chosen them.
“If we had more time I’d have my brother send up some canvases that he’s storing for me,” she said. “If it was really our apartment I’d like to have my own work on the walls.”
“I would like that, too,” Ethan agreed, with such unexpected warmth it stretched at her heart.
He was masterful at throwing her off-kilter. When they’d been making breakfast that morning she’d had the feeling several times that he was going to kiss her. At one moment she had desperately hoped he would, while in the next she’d known she must turn away.
Ethan Benton was a bundle of inconsistencies.
Such a precise way he used a paper napkin to brush away imagined crumbs from the corners of his mouth. He was so definite about everything he did. Hobnobbing with gallery people or eating take-out lunch in the car—he did everything with finesse.
It wasn’t as if any crumb would dare stick to those glorious lips. Men who showered on planes didn’t get food on their faces.
Yet Holly knew there was something damaged underneath all Ethan’s confidence and class...
“Can I paint you?”
He contemplated the question as he slowly popped the seal on his bottle of artisan soda.
“You know those drab black and whites of the tree and the flower on the wall?” she went on.
Last night when they’d been critiquing those photographs, flickers had flown between them.
“Flat, corporate...”
“Impersonal,” she finished. “That’s where I’d hang a painting of you. It would bring personality to the whole room and really make it ours.”
“Yes...” he concurred with reluctance. “I suppose it would.”
In a flash, Holly understood his hesitation. People were often uncomfortable at the prospect of her painting them. It involved trust. They had to be reassured that she wasn’t going to accentuate their pointy nose or, worse still, the loneliness in their eyes.
A good portrait exposed someone’s secrets. What was it that Ethan was worried she would reveal to the world?
“Can I?”
“I doubt we could get a painting done in two days’ time.”
“Let me show you.”
Once people had seen Holly’s work, she was able to put them at ease. She pulled out her phone and thumbed to her website. “I don’t know if you saw these when you were on my site last night. But look. I don’t do a typical portrait.”
She showed him the screen. “I call them painted sketches. See how they’re a bit abstract? And not all that detailed? I would just catch the essence of you.”
He whipped his head sideways to face her. “What makes you think you know the essence of me?” he challenged.
Holly’s throat jammed at the confrontation. He was right. She didn’t know him. They’d met yesterday.
But she knew she could get something. Those big and expressive eyes. And, yes, there was some kind of longing behind them.
She might not know him, but she wanted to. This morning at breakfast he had been visibly shaken when she’d hinted at the hardships she’d endured. She had sensed some kind of connection there—a fierce similarity.
She hadn’t explicitly told him about the mother who had never consistently provided food for her children. She hadn’t mentioned the father who’d come around every couple of years with promises he’d never kept. How Holly had often had to fend for her younger brother and herself.
Yet the damage that dwelled behind Ethan’s eyes had made her want to lay her pain bare to him. And for him to lay all his beside hers. As if in that rawness their wounds could be healed.
But none of that was ever to be. They were business partners. Nothing more. Besides, she wasn’t going to make herself vulnerable to anyone ever again.
“Never mind.” She called his bluff. “I guess we won’t ever find out how much of the real you I could get on a canvas.”
One side of his mouth hiked. “I did not say no.”
“So you’ll let me paint you?”
“I will have you know right now that I have very little patience for sitting still.”
“You probably had to sit for family portraits with Aunt Louise and Uncle Mel, right? Dressed up in uncomfortable Christmas clothes by the fireplace? The dutiful family dog by your side? It was torture. You had to sit without moving for what seemed like an eternity.”
“I absolutely hated having to hold one position while a greasy bald man who smelled like pipe tobacco painted us.”
Flirty words tumbled out of her mouth before she could sensor them. “I promise I’ll smell a lot better than the bald man did.”
“No doubt.”
“And it won’t take long.”
“I think it might.”
Were they still talking about painting?
He lowered the glass separating them from the driver. “Leonard, we are going to change our next stop to Wooster and Broome.”
Leonard let them out in front of a painting supplies store the likes of which Holly had never been in before.
She ordered a lot of her materials online, because there were no shops in Fort Pierce that carried fine products like these. When she was low on money she’d make do with what was available at the local brand-name craft store, that also sold knitting yarn and foam balls for school projects.
She cowered at another memory of her ex-husband. As usual, Ricky hadn’t wanted to go shopping with her because he thought painting was silly and that she should spend more time going to motorcycle races with him.
Yelling at her to hurry up while she picked out some tubes of paint, Ricky had lost his patience. With a flick of his hand he’d knocked down a display of Valentine’s Day supplies. Heart-shaped cardboard boxes, Cupid cutouts and red and pink pompoms had crashed to the floor as Ricky stormed out of the store.
Humiliated, Holly had been left to make apologies and pay for his outburst.
It had been a few months later that she’d caught Ricky in bed with their neighbor. But she’d known that day in the craft store that she couldn’t stay married to him.
Now here she was, a million miles away in Soho, the mecca of the American art world, with another man who would never be right for her. Although in completely opposite ways.
Life had a sense of humor.
She chose an easel, stretched canvases in several sizes, new paint and brushes, and palettes and sketchpads, pastels and charcoals. All top-notch. This was the Holly equivalent of a kid in a candy shop.
At the checkout, Ethan opened up an account for her. “That way you can pick up whatever tools and materials you need for Benton projects.”
“My goodness...” Her eyes bugged out. “Thank you.”
“Of course, my dearest.” He winked. “And the next item on the agenda is buying my pretty fiancée some proper clothes.”