Lana stared at the card, insulted beyond words. Yes, she might have just drained her accounts in order to meet the payroll last month, but she wasn’t so desperate that she was going to use a man’s money to pay for a dress. Besides, hadn’t they just discussed not making assumptions? She was still confused and frustrated about her agreement to marry him! She wanted options! And if it came down to a marriage, Lana wanted to set the expectations for how their marriage would work going forward!
Ignoring the credit card in his hand, she walked to the door. “You have a meeting to go to and I have my own afternoon agenda. Thank you for your time.” She left the office with her chin held high, not even bothering to acknowledge the bitchy assistant. Although, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the blond sneer in her direction.
Lana ignored it all, walking out of the executive area with her head held high. Outside, she wanted to appear as if she had it all together. Even if she was about to fall apart inside.
She lasted until she got into her car. Her small, sporty convertible that her father had given to her for a college graduation gift taunted her now. When she’d first seen the car and driven it around, it was love at first sight. But now that her father was gone, she knew that he hadn’t been able to afford it. In fact, after his passing, she’d gotten a letter from the bank informing her that the payments were behind and she’d had to pay off the loan on it herself.
That had happened before she’d understood how deeply in trouble her father’s business was, but it should have forewarned her that things were desperately troubled. At the time, she’d been too steeped in grief over her father’s sudden death to connect the dots and figure out that the business was most likely in trouble as well.
Not good, she thought. Starting up the vehicle, she drove out of the underground parking lot and made her way across town. When she’d reached the small loft apartment she rented, despite her father’s objections when she’d returned from college, she dumped her bag right inside the door and pulled out her cell phone.
Linda, her fabulous agent and manager answered on the first ring and, without preamble, demanded, “Tell me you’re selling five more paintings.”
Lana laughed, feeling a sense of comfort in her agent’s aggressive conversational style.
“Not five. How about two?” she offered, thinking that two might be enough to finance an appropriate wedding dress. She knew she couldn’t get away with something bought at a discount place, although because of the time limit, she’d have to choose something off the rack. She suspected that Christoph would normally expect the lady on his arm to be dressed only in the latest designer fashions. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the time for that, nor would she even waste her money. Christoph might demand something bigger and better, but Lana was going to get what she could afford!
“I’ll take them,” Linda answered immediately. “Can you bring them over tonight? I have a buyer who is interested in anything you create. It’s almost a standing order.”
The tension immediately left Lana’s shoulders and she nodded. “Yes. I can bring over two paintings right now, if you’re in your office.”
One of the reasons Linda was so good at selling art was that she could hear the emotions in a person’s voice and see it in their body language. Linda knew how to navigate those emotions and make the sale. So it wasn’t a shock when Lana heard Linda laugh knowingly. “I can hear the stress in your voice, Lana. And I know this makes me incredibly self-centered, but your stress means that you’re about to paint something brilliant. What’s going on?”
Lana closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head even though Linda couldn’t see the movement. “Nothing is going on.”
“Is it your father?” she persisted. “I know that the two of you were close, even though he disagreed with your painting. He wanted you to be married and give him grandbabies, but…?”
“No. I promise. Everything is fine,” Lana told her agent, closing her eyes and hoping that eventually, she’d actually be fine again.
There was a long pause, then Linda said, “I know that you’re lying, but I don’t care. Your stress means that you’ll paint. In fact, start painting now. Just put your paintings outside of your doorway and I’ll come by to get them myself. You paint. I’ll sell.”
With that, she hung up.
Lana would have laughed, but Linda was right on target. Lana did paint when she was stressed about something. She’d been doing exactly that since she was about four or five years old and the habit had only become more intense as she’d grown up.
Walking into her second bedroom, which she used as her studio, Lana sorted through the finished and half-finished paintings leaning against the otherwise bare walls, and selected two finished works that she liked. The half-finished paintings were items that she’d tried to create, but the images hadn’t worked out as she’d wanted, so they’d been abandoned. Sometimes, it took her six or seven tries before she finally got the images to look right on the canvas. Sometimes, the images were right but not in the correct place on the canvas. Each of the pieces on the canvas had meaning and their meaning was enhanced by placement – or in connection to the other objects she painted near or around the others. If one object wasn’t in the right place, then the whole painting didn’t make sense.
Looking at the canvases, she sighed with…relief? A sense of success? A sense of rightness? Whatever, she nodded as she let her eyes move over the details of each painting. These two were good, she thought with pride. One of them, she’d worked on for more than six months, moving the painted objects around, going through several different canvases until she’d gotten everything exactly right. The second piece she’d finished in only a month. It was fresh, raw, and painful. Darker than her others.
She’d done it right after her father’s passing and the colors were sad, the image in the middle a picture of herself, or how she pictured herself, as she’d dealt with his passing. Although, very few people would realize that she was the image in the center. All the pain, confusion, and anger over his death were laid out in this picture.
After staring at it for several moments, she wondered if perhaps she should keep it. This painting was intensely personal. But after thinking about it for a moment, she shook her head and carried both pieces over to the wrapping station she’d created when she’d first moved into this loft. Carefully, she wrapped both paintings in linen, then paper to protect them from the elements. She’d just finished tying the string when a knock sounded.
Linda was early, she thought with a chuckle.
“Coming!” she called as she opened the door to her beaming, eager agent. Linda was several inches taller than Lana and wore about ten pounds of gold or silver jewelry, depending on her outfit that day. Most people preferred one or the other, but Linda wasn’t picky and she looked good in both gold and silver, her skin tone one of those amazing types that warmed with the color of gold and was enhanced by the chillier tones of silver.
“Where are they?” Linda demanded as soon as she stepped through the doorway.
“I just finished wrapping them up,” Lana replied, hefting them. They were large canvases, and not overly heavy. Just awkward.
“Shoot! Already wrapped and ready for me to cart out of here. Darn it! I was hoping to see them.” She took both with a shrug. “Okay, dear. I’ll get these sold and will let you know when and for how much. But you’ll be happy with the sale, never fear.”
“I trust you,” Lana replied, laughing at Linda’s gregarious albeit avaricious nature.
“Call you later, honey!” And she was gone.
Silence. Beautiful, blessed silence, Lana thought. She really should head over to her father’s office and brainstorm solutions, something other than marrying a man she barely knew and…well, hate is such a strong word. Besides, she’d kissed Christoph today, so did she really hate him?
Thinking about the arrogance around him, Lana nodded as she stripped off her clothes and pulled on her painting smock. “Yes, I ha
te him,” she said and pulled a canvas up onto her easel. “I hate him and I’m going to make him look like the devil,” she told the quiet room.
With abrupt motions, Lana started painting. She kept on painting until her fingers ached, and even then, she kept pushing herself. The wood floor grew cold under her bare feet as the night wore on but she kept going, needing to get this painting finished. For some reason, this particular painting was more important than anything she’d done in a long time. And for the first time, she wasn’t overly particular about the image placement. Possibly because the placement of each image on the canvas represented the chaos in her mind. Her confusion, her anger, her frustration at her current predicament. And worst of all, her guilt. She felt guilty for being so angry at her father. He’d cornered her in this undignified position of being forced to marry a man she didn’t love. Didn’t even particularly like. A man she knew would take care of the thousands of employees that depended on her father’s company for their income, but who would also bind her to him in a legal relationship that…that she wasn’t prepared for. She was so angry with her father! And furious with Christoph for not relenting. He definitely could have helped her. He could have saved her father’s company with his expertise.
Apparently, the big boys of the business world didn’t play that way though. What was the phrase? Christoph played to win. And he always won! At the bottom of the painting, right at the edge of the panther’s vicious paw, she created swirls. Swirls that, when one looked closely, were Euro signs. She didn’t care that the swirls weren’t very creative or subliminal. She wanted to scream at how unfair this whole world was. She wanted to stomp her foot and howl at how unfair everything was!
And she wanted her friends. She tossed her paint brush to the side. For the first time in her life, painting wasn’t helping. No, the second time. The first time it had failed was the day she’d been shipped off to boarding school by her father. When she’d heard the news that she’d be attending boarding school in London, the cold, dark, cloudy city where, in her mind, the sun never visited, and she’d never feel the warmth of a Greek sun ever again…that day when she’d gone to her father’s office to beg him not to send her away and he’d simply patted her on the head and told her that it was for the best…yes, that day had been the first time that her art hadn’t soothed her.
Disgusted, she pulled off her paint-stained smock and grabbed a soft, fluffy robe and her cell phone, wiping the tears from her eyes, tears she hadn’t even noticed. Dialing quickly, she held her breath until she heard Tamara’s voice.
“What’s wrong?”
Lana meant to laugh, but it came out as a sob. “I need help.”
“It’s him, isn’t it? Willow called earlier today and told me what’s going on.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I’m marrying him.”
There was a long silence, then Tamara said, “I need Willow’s help. You can’t marry a man you don’t love. Trust me, this won’t work. I’m going to conference her into the call.”
There was a beeping sound, a long, echoing silence, and then, “Lana? What’s going on? What’s happened since we talked earlier?” Willow demanded.
Lana was normally the vivacious one. Tamara was the angry member of their trio, having been engaged to the powerful sheik from a neighboring country since she was too young to know what was going on, and Willow was the shy one. In fact, Willow had been sent to The London School by her gregarious, superstar father, hoping she’d come out of her shell. Well, to urge Willow out of her shell as well as to get Willow out of the way so that he could more easily indulge his latest bride. The big, bad dad hadn’t known what to do with his shy, cautious daughter, so he hadn’t done anything. He’d simply shipped her off and demanded that someone else “fix” her.
Willow wasn’t shy. She was studious. She was curious, bookish, and loved to observe, loved to lose herself in her crafts. She was the complete opposite of her father. But she was beautiful, in a quiet, sincere kind of way. Once a person sat down and really got to know her, Willow was a bundle of energy and facts and was fiercely loyal to the people she loved.
Tamara was rightfully angry at the world, but she had a plan. How that plan was going…well, that was currently up for debate. On the surface, the plan was pretty ingenious. In execution, there were a few flaws.
But Tamara was brilliant at business. She worked diligently at her real estate business and was conscientious about providing a good value to her clients. At least, that was her day job. Often, she went out at night with her business partner to the various clubs around the city, trying to get her picture in the tabloids in order to anger her fiancé.
Any time now, Tamara believed her fiancé would get sick of hearing about his future wife’s antics and would call her home in order to formally call off the engagement.
Lana and Willow weren’t sure why the powerful ruler hadn’t done so already, but Tamara’s world was different from what they knew. So they trusted that Tam’s plan would work eventually.
“What’s wrong, honey? Talk to us.”
Lana groaned, flopping onto her overstuffed couch. “My father! I can’t believe he did this to me!”
“How much do you need?” Tamara demanded without hesitation.
“Whatever Tamara can’t cover, I can,” Willow added in.
Lana laughed, feeling her heart swell with love for her friends. Unfortunately, they couldn’t help. “More than both of you can provide,” she said with another sob, then proceeded to explain the dire situation her father’s company is in. “I can’t even sell my father’s house because it’s mortgaged several times over. Anything I get from the sale of his house, I’d have to pay to the bank. So…”
Tamara didn’t agree. “You’re not stuck! Don’t say you’re stuck! There has to be a solution.”
Lana sniffed, rolling over to stare up at the ceiling. “If either of you have an idea, I want to hear it. But whatever options you come up with, I have to be able to implement them in the next few days in order to meet payroll as well as a huge capital payment to the bank.”
Silence echoed through the line.
Lana had known that would be the case. But she’d still held on to hope. “It’s okay,” she told them, resigned to her fate and lying because they all knew that it wasn’t going to be okay. She was marrying a man, a stranger, to save the jobs of thousands of people she didn’t know.
“I’ll talk to my father,” Willow announced. That garnered another silence. Then Tamara spoke up. “You haven’t spoken to your father in six years, Willow. What would you even say to him?”
“Well,” she began and Tam and Lana could picture her shrugging her shoulders and tossing her fiery hair over her shoulder defiantly. “I’d start by telling him what an asshole he is.” They all laughed. “Then, I’d ask him to come up with a way to keep you out of a ridiculous marriage.”
Tam giggled. “I’d love to be there when you tell your dad that. The look on his face when you say that word would be enough reward.”
“Good. Then fly over here and watch me.”
“Don’t you dare say anything like that to your father!” Lana laughed, feeling better now. They didn’t have a solution, but just hearing their voices made her feel better. “Don’t go to him. It’s exactly what he wants. He’s been ordering you home for years now. Hold your ground until he apologizes for sending you away.”
Willow sighed. “You know that’s never going to happen. He still doesn’t believe he did anything wrong.”
“He sent you to boarding school halfway around the world just because he wanted to be alone with his newest wife!” Tamara grumbled. “The man’s an idiot.”
“Yes, well, he might be an idiot where I’m concerned, but he’s actually brilliant when it comes to business. I’ll talk to him. I’ll ask him what to do.”
“No,” Lana sighed. “Don’t. Please, Willow. This is my problem. I can figure it out. Honestly, I’m fine. I just…needed to vent and release the tension.
You guys did that for me.”
Tamara chuckled. “Your painting didn’t work?”
Willow realized what that implied and gasped. “No! Lana, is it that bad?”
“I’m fine,” she repeated, unaware of the sadness in her voice. “I’ve actually been painting for the past several hours.”
“And then you called us,” Willow finished, saying the words that Lana had left unspoken. “You’re right, Tam. It’s that bad.” She paused and typing sounds filled the line. “I can be on a flight to Athens in two hours,” she announced. “I’m booking it right now.”
“Willow! No, don’t do it!” Lana gasped. “You can’t! You have a deadline! You need to get your stuff done!”
“My flight is booked. I’ll be there by noon your time.”
“I’m online myself,” Tamara announced, and there was more clicking. “I can be there by three o’clock. You two go out to lunch, then swing back to the airport and pick me up. Lana, are you going to be okay until then?”
Lana wiped tears away again. “I’m fine. You guys don’t need to come here. I’ll be fine.”
“We’re coming,” They said in unison, and laughed.
Chapter 7
“Where the hell were you last night?”
Lana looked up from the contract she’d been trying to understand before he’d burst into her father’s office. Startled, she watched as Christoph stormed into the room, his long legs taking him across the space in only a few strides. He looked furious.
For some reason, Lana was comforted that she wasn’t the only one struggling with anger issues in this relationship.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t angry just now. In fact, her body was tingling with awareness of him as a man. This tingling sensation was much worse than anger, she thought. Anger was a more understandable emotion. This new, raw feeling was too confusing.
Her Enemy, Her Lover (The Ladies of The Burling School Book 1) Page 5
