Share this. She tapped on the plus sign. Facebook was the very first site listed. She tapped that too. She could post this on Nishi’s page. Richard might not be checking Facebook since Marie’s page had never been a personal one and she hadn’t used it in months.
She added a message to the post: Closes Dec. 20. Noon is a good time to see it. Not crowded. She tapped “post” with her thumb, then crossed her fingers that Nishi would understand. She was running out of options.
Chapter 26
Washington and Paris shared two famous architects, Luc thought as he stared up at the glass and steel geometric ceiling—Pierre L’Enfant, who provided the original vision for Washington, DC, and I.M. Pei, who designed both the pyramid at the Louvre and the east wing of the National Gallery of Art. It was the latter’s ceiling Luc was staring at.
He preferred the west wing, personally. It was infinitely more intimate. Quieter, too. The east wing was more like a train station, a cavernous space where everyone was surrounded by hundreds of people and yet they were all completely, utterly alone. Even the giant Alexander Calder mobile suspended from the ceiling left him cold.
But Marie was here and so he would stay. He had guessed right. A senator from Pennsylvania was inclined to attend an opening reception for a retrospective of Philadelphian Stuart Davis. Luc’s own connection to Stuart Davis was tighter than Senator Macintyre’s. Luc’s grandfather had known Davis in Paris.
But that was neither here nor there. Luc had seen plenty of Davis’ paintings in museums.
He was here to see Marie.
Getting an invite had been easier than expected. His renewed notoriety had brought all sorts of faces out of the woodwork. Some, like the asshole in New York, Luc wanted to shove back into the woodwork. But others proved to be more beneficial. One of his former students, it turned out, was now a senior curator at the National Gallery. She’d been only too happy to procure an invitation for Luc.
Now he just had to figure out how to pry Marie away from her husband. From the looks of it, that wasn’t going to be easy.
Marie looked lovely in a floor-length skirt and some sort of fussy white blouse with layers upon layers of fabric. It didn’t escape him that she was covered up from neck to ankles. He wondered whether that had been her choice, or her husband’s. Not that Luc minded so much. After all, he’d been the one to expose too much of her to too many people. He regretted that.
Her hair was pulled up into an arrangement on her head that rivaled the elaborateness of her blouse; small diamonds twinkled from her ears. Her cheeks and lips were rosy with makeup. This was a Marie he hadn’t seen before, official Marie, senator’s wife.
The senator’s wife did not look happy.
Luc wasn’t surprised by the stabbing pain in his chest. It had been nearly three weeks since he’d seen her, touched her ... kissed her. The withdrawal was killing him. Sam was closing down his show early due to the precipitous drop-off in sales that had occurred—people were fine with naked pictures of a senator’s wife, but an ex-girlfriend who had killed herself was another matter, apparently. Luc couldn’t bring himself to care.
All he cared about was seeing Marie again.
He called her cell phone daily—hourly, some days. But her phone merely rang once, then rolled over to voice mail. She wasn’t returning his calls. But surely she had read his letter by now? It wasn’t like her to simply not respond. He knew her better than that. He did.
Her asshole husband might have taken away her phone. That thought had crossed his mind more than once. When his imagination ran away with him, late at night in bed—alone—he feared that she was being held hostage by him, even. Was he really going to send her away for rehabilitation, as the news kept reporting?
Her husband was keeping an iron grip on her tonight, that was certain. Senator Macintyre steered her this way and that, never allowing more than a few inches of daylight between them. Marie smiled brightly at everyone they spoke to. But Luc could see the flatness in her eyes and it took all his willpower not to run to her and tear her away from that man. He was showing her off like she was a pony at a fair.
I would treat her like a goddess.
He looked around at the crowd, well-dressed, well-heeled. Happy. Had it been just mere weeks since he had felt that way? Marie had illuminated his life—no, his heart—and the future had looked brighter than it had in years. Now his heart was black as midnight again. And he had no patience for Sam’s I-told-you-so’s.
“Professor Marchand?” It was his former student, the curator. She had done well for herself, and that at least pleased him. A post at the National Gallery of Art? It was what he had wanted for all of his students, a position where they got to continue their study of art, of the greatest art. It was what he had hoped for himself, long ago. A life spent immersed in scholarship and learning.
“I’m about to start a tour of the exhibit. Would you like to join me?” she asked. “Feel free to chime in whenever you like. I remember all the stories you used to tell us about your grandfather and Stuart Davis.”
Luc glanced back to look for Marie, but she was gone. Fear sliced through his heart. Had she left? How much of an appearance did a senator need to make at one of these events? She couldn’t leave before he had a chance to speak with her and ask why she was ignoring his attempts to contact her. Perhaps she wanted his apology in person. He could understand that. A letter was cowardly. He was a coward, which he freely admitted. A braver man would have rescued her, somehow.
His former student was looking at him hopefully. She had been kind enough to get him an invitation, so he turned and followed her into the gallery. It was the least he could do.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she announced, “We have a special guest with us here tonight, Professor Luc Marchand. Professor Marchand’s grandfather—the French artist Philippe Marchand—knew Stuart Davis during the year Davis spent in Paris.”
The crowd turned to gawk at him, but he felt only her eyes on him. Marie and her husband were ensconced in the center of the group. That’s where she had disappeared to. The senator pulled her closer to his side, and irritation flashed briefly in her eyes before her face settled back into a neutral blankness. The senator narrowed his eyes at Luc, in warning. The message was unmistakable. Stay away.
Luc followed the small crowd through the gallery, keeping to the periphery. He didn’t want to provoke a confrontation with Marie’s husband, and spoil his student’s performance. But he kept his eyes on Marie, every fiber of his being aching with need. They had been together for nearly three months and to have her just yanked away from him—it was like those dreams where you found yourself naked and wandering around some city that looked by turns familiar and completely strange.
He loved her. He belonged to her, and his heart was utterly indifferent to any evidence to the contrary.
For her part, Marie listened in rapt attention to every word of the tour, despite her husband keeping her too far from the actual paintings to really see them. Luc would never do that, taunt her with pleasure that way. He would take her right up to the art, explain it to her, ask her opinion, share his passion for it with her.
The museum had managed to borrow enough paintings to show the progression of Davis’ style, from Ashcan through his explorations of European modernism. The group was paused now before his Parisian paintings. The curator was speaking about the streetscapes and the delicacy of Davis’ lines, which lent them an appearance that was as much drawing as painting.
“These always remind me of delicate pastries,” the curator said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Professor Marchand?”
Luc pretended to consider one of the paintings. “Or a delicate woman, perhaps. Yes?”
His former student was an excellent tour guide, enthusiastic about the art and affable in the face of elementary questions. When she deflected a more complicated question to Luc, he answered it easily. He missed lecturing, missed the give and take with students, missed seeing their eyes light up when they
finally understood something, missed—yes—showing off his knowledge. Teaching suburban housewives to draw or helping high school kids polish up their portfolios for college was nice, but not the same as commanding a classroom.
When the tour ended, the group began to disperse. Luc lingered, hoping for an opportunity to speak to Marie. He saw his chance when a man in a tailored suit angled into Senator Macintyre and extended a hand to shake. The senator turned away from Marie.
Luc hurried over to her and before she could stop him, kissed her on each cheek. Not how he wanted to kiss her, of course, but with her husband mere inches away, it seemed the prudent course of action. When he drew back, her eyes were a mirror image of his—filled with longing and sadness. And desire. A frank, desperate desire.
“I have missed you.” He wanted those four words to convey everything he’d been feeling for weeks, even as he knew they were entirely inadequate.
“Night and day,” she whispered in reply.
And then their moment was gone, too brief for Luc to say all that he had rehearsed, to ask her why she hadn’t returned any of his calls. The reason was obvious now, anyway, especially with her husband reeling back around to face them.
“Good evening, Senator,” Luc said politely. He had a pretty good idea of how this scene was going to play out—after all, this was a man who had drugged his wife and dumped her on a street corner—but Luc wouldn’t be the one to start it.
Sure enough, Senator Macintyre extended his hand. But not to shake Luc’s. When the senator’s fist collided with his jaw, Luc staggered, stumbling backward. He heard shocked gasps in the background. He was willing to bet money that no punch had ever been thrown in the National Gallery before. There was a disgustingly self-satisfied look on the senator’s face as he grabbed Marie’s arm and jerked her toward him. She winced at the sudden pain and Luc lunged forward.
Punch me, you bastard, but don’t hurt her.
He tried to put his body between Marie and her husband. If he was going to punch him again, he’d have to punch him in the back, hardly a manly move.
“You don’t have to stay here,” he said to her. “I’ll take you home.”
She looked at him sadly but, bafflingly, made no move to leave. “Luc. Just go away. Please.”
Senator Macintyre butted Luc’s side with his shoulder, attempting to reclaim Marie. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a black-suited security guard running toward them. Getting arrested wasn’t going to improve the situation. He gave Marie one last—confused—look, then let go of her. The crowd was parted behind him, having already sensed that he was going to lose this battle. Just as quickly, they swallowed her back up.
Chapter 27
The Phillips Collection was unusually noisy. Dozens of teenagers scattered throughout the galleries, defying the attempts of their teachers and chaperones to stay together. Marie’s eyes lit up at the sight of all the kids—and not just because she was remembering the joy of a field trip from her own days at school. She wove her way through the crowd of kids, to the staircase. That the museum was filled with rambunctious kids was a stroke of good luck for her. T. Rex had looked none too pleased when she pulled into the Metro station parking lot in Vienna. She was making him get out of his car and follow her on foot.
Well, if you’re going to shadow me today, you’re going to work for it.
Not to mention, the noise that dozens of teenagers could produce would make it harder for him to eavesdrop on Marie and Nishi. If Nishi showed, that was.
She trudged up the stairs in her jeans and winter coat, her mood torn between hope and despair. What was Luc doing at the National Gallery last night? She sighed. She knew why he’d been there. To see her. But it had been a dumb idea on his part, monumentally stupid. Now Richard was even angrier than he was before. He would have her watched more closely, which would only complicate her plans to get away. And she had to do it. It was her only option.
But god, for a moment there, it was wonderful to see him again. For an instant, she had imagined herself shoving people out of the way and running to him, grabbing his arm and the two of them running out of the museum and into a magically waiting cab. Speeding off into the sunset.
She had wanted to kiss those lips and run her fingers through that thick luscious hair ... unbutton that crisp white shirt and flatten her palms against his chest ... wrap her naked body around his and never let go. No one had ever made her feel the way Luc Marchand had, and she missed it.
Desperately.
But it couldn’t be. She had to leave this area if she were ever going to have a life of her own. She’d meet someone else. She exhaled loudly at the top of the stairs to drown out the voices in her head shouting no no no.
“Damn. You need to get in shape.”
Marie looked up just in time to see a security guard shoot Nishi a sharp look.
“Oh, right. Sorry.” She glanced over at a pair of teenagers closely inspecting Anne Calhoun’s breasts. They gave no indication that they’d even heard Nishi’s four-letter word, not that “damn” would arouse much attention from a high schooler anyway.
Marie nearly fainted with relief at the sight of her friend sitting on a bench in the middle of the room. “I didn’t know whether you’d understand.”
“Yeah well, I’m smart that way.”
Nishi rose from the bench and Marie let herself fall into her friend’s hug, her leather jacket and perfume-scented scarf warm and comforting. “I know you are. Is there a guy behind us?” She felt Nishi’s head tip up.
“Leather jacket, cargo pants, obnoxious earpiece? Yup. Richard’s having you followed?”
“That’s T. Rex.”
“He has a code name?”
“From me anyway. God, it’s good to see you again. I’ve been sequestered in that house.” Marie relaxed in Nishi’s embrace. She was going to miss her when she moved.
Nishi shot T. Rex a withering look, then laid an arm casually across Marie’s shoulder and pulled her over to a row of paintings. “Saw a photo of you and Dickhead from the National Gallery last night.” She squeezed Marie’s shoulder. “Killer blouse. But you’re losing too much weight.”
Marie sighed. “I’m afraid to eat anything that’s had any contact with him.”
“Makes sense, but still. You need to eat. How was last night?” Nishi chuckled.
“Please tell me that’s not out there.”
“In certain circles, alas. If you’re plugged into the right information sources. Which I am.”
“He’s an idiot, showing up there like that. Then Richard punched him, making it worse.”
She had wanted to cradle Luc in her arms, kiss the bruise blooming on his skin. But that might have gotten him killed, so she had told him to leave. The hurt look on his face had broken her heart. It had been almost enough to throw caution to the wind and run after him. But she couldn’t let emotion overrule her head, not if she wanted to escape Richard once and for all.
“He’s an idiot but you love him,” Nishi said.
“We’re both idiots. Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything, you know that.”
“Since I don’t have a clean phone, can you call him and tell him not to pull any more stunts like that? It just sends Richard’s rage into the stratosphere.”
“I’ve taken care of the first thing. But yes, I’ll call him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shh. Later.”
Nishi leaned the two of them in closer to the painting, Elizabeth Calhoun seated on a wooden chair, her head lowered, her face obscured by a then-fashionable cloche hat.
“So was this show the inspiration for ...?” Nishi spoke in a low voice, mindful of prying ears.
Marie sighed. “Yes. He needed new work for the show and I wanted him to paint me. It was a stupid idea.”
“I don’t think it was stupid. The paintings are gorgeous.”
They were gorgeous. And modeling for Luc had made her feel gorgeous, too.
�
��They didn’t work, though. Not the way I had hoped.”
“Yeah, we were wrong about that making him refile.” Nishi glanced over her shoulder to check on the whereabouts of T. Rex.
“I can’t believe he’d rather have a wife in rehab than just divorce me.”
“I hate to say it, but a wife in rehab gets him sympathy points. People will give him a pass on not accomplishing jack for his constituents because he’s been dealing—” Nishi made air quotes with her fingers—”with his wife’s health issues. You need to be more embarrassing than a wife in rehab.”
“You’d think nude pictures would be pretty embarrassing.”
“I would have thought so, too. His re-election prospects must be looking really grim. That’s my only guess.”
They began to stroll toward a group of smaller canvases, attaching themselves to the small cluster of teenagers gawking at them. As long as they stayed near other people, T. Rex would have a hard time hearing what they said.
The smaller paintings were close-ups of Elizabeth Calhoun’s body. A wrist and hand draped with an elegant diamond bracelet. A calf and the back of a knee. A long spine, punctuated with rose petals.
“These are hot,” Nishi said. “I can see why you wanted him to paint you.”
Modeling for Luc had been hot, even hotter than the recurring dream that had started the whole thing. It had made her feel mysterious and sophisticated, too. Special. Nothing had made her feel that way, until Luc.
The teenagers moved, en masse, down the wall several more feet. Nishi and Marie followed. They stopped in front of a medium-sized canvas, not as large as the big stately portraits on the wall behind them, but larger than the tiny ones they’d just left. Elizabeth Calhoun was lying in the grass, her face tilted up to the sky. A sheer scarf fell over her nose and closed eyes and gently parted lips. It was the one in which she could most readily be recognized.
Drawing Lessons Page 23
