Maud gazed at the opulent dark grey facia of the gallery she was visiting and thought how much Nancy would have loved it there. Maud didn’t mind attending functions alone, she’d got used to it over the years. She didn’t have the confidence to talk to men very often and was more comfortable in the company of the children at the school – she didn’t get tongue-tied and go bright red in conversation with them, and they didn’t judge her or find her lacking. None of her friends appreciated art, except for Daisy, and Maud was pretty sure that she was with her boyfriend, Ryan, tonight. Holding her invite out to the smart doorman, who ticked her name off a list on his clipboard, she stepped inside. Her eyes lit up at the sight of the dark and expressive art that hung on every wall. The lighting in the gallery was just right to draw your eye subtly to each sultry work of art. The colours depicted tempestuous city views, but Maud almost felt embarrassed to be looking at them, there was something deeply sensual and tempting in each stroke of the artist’s brush. Her skin grew warm and flushed, so she self-consciously pulled her hair across her face to cover her reaction.
She’d read about the famous artist who painted these pictures. He was from a big creative dynasty. She thought she’d heard that the love of his life had died tragically when they were teenagers, but this could so easily be celebrity gossip. Rumour said that she had died in an accident on a lake. Maud felt desperately sorry for him if that were true.
She stopped in front of the second piece and tilted her head before blushing again. How could a painting make her flush like a schoolgirl? It was so embarrassing. She glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, but they were ignoring her, as people usually did, and were crowded round a large installation further into the gallery. Shrugging and smoothing her hands along the sides of her dress to calm her nerves, she wished she’d worn some jewellery so that she had something to fiddle with other than her hair, as she drank in every nuance of the painting mounted on the wall. She began to fidget and crossed one leg behind the other whilst she tilted her head from side to side to take in every detail and etch it onto her brain, so that she could tell Daisy all about it at work the next day. She leaned her nose nearer to the canvas, then realised her mistake and valiantly tried to untangle her feet. She stumbled and gasped in horror as she tipped over and began to fall.
A hand reached out and she fleetingly glimpsed scarred arms as they folded around her and set her none-too-gently back onto her feet. Her saviour noticed her staring at his hands on her arms and he glowered slightly before snatching them away. ‘I’m so sorry...’ she blustered, mortified to be caught gawping at him. ‘Thank you for helping me.’
He paused, taking his time, perusing every detail of her appearance, and she cringed, knowing he would find her lacking. ‘You’re welcome. What was so interesting that it required you to study it in such close detail?’ He cocked his head to one side and examined her as if she was a strange flower.
Maud blushed furiously again for being caught making a fool of herself, as usual. Why on earth couldn’t she go for one day without causing herself some sort of embarrassment? She chanced a peek in his direction and was immediately drawn to his thick jet-black hair, dark brooding eyes, and amused expression. He appeared as if he was really interested in the answer. She put her head down and looked at her feet, feeling tongue-tied in front of such a gorgeous man. There was no way on earth he would have stopped to talk to her if she hadn’t practically fallen into his lap. Daisy had wanted Maud’s knickers to thaw, but this man could set them alight!
He was still waiting patiently for an answer and she glanced about her in panic. People had begun to notice that he’d moved away from his group and was talking to her, and some were blatantly curious.
Oh, well, she thought, I may as well be honest. ‘I was immersing myself in the detail of the painting. It’s so full of turmoil and passion. I have to keep looking in case I’ve missed anything,’ she explained. ‘I feel like there are people in there hiding somewhere, but every time I look they’re gone again.’ She wished she could stop sounding like a prissy schoolteacher and prayed even more that she hadn’t said the word passion out loud.
Hearing him roar with laughter at her candour, Maud smiled shyly and Dotty looked round the shoulder of the businessman she was talking to, raising her eyebrows in surprise. ‘I haven’t heard Nate laugh like that in public for years,’ she hissed into Elliott’s ear, making him wince as he was standing close to her side and Dot’s whispers were quite loud. ‘He usually hates these kind of events, he’s such a grump.’ Dot stared at the blushing girl by his side, before grinning. ‘The woman next to him looks awkward. Maybe Nate’s charms have failed him for once?’ she smiled, her eyes alight with mirth. ‘It had to happen sometime, and it looks like today’s the day.’
Maud tried to muffle a giggle into her hand at how funny the stranger seemed to find her. She had gone and said exactly what she was thinking again. It didn’t usually matter in her job as a school teaching assistant, as the children were far too busy to notice her mutterings, but she really wished she could stop blurting stuff out when she was nervous. Luckily, it seemed to have amused her saviour and she darted a look around to see who else had noticed her faux pas.
Unfortunately, it seemed that everyone had, especially the funny-looking girl with pigtails sticking out of her head at all angles. She saw Maud look at her, smiling and waving before turning back to the conversation she was having with a group of expensive-looking men and women. From the size of the diamond around the one of lady’s necks, Maud guessed that they were all regulars at places like this and didn’t have to win a ticket in a competition.
Nate was waiting patiently for Maud to stop gawking at everyone else and look at him. ‘I’ve been watching you study the paintings, from the moment you stopped in front of the first one. The inquisitive way you moved around it and turned your head from side to side as if it held a secret for you, intrigued me.’ Maud knew she looked normal enough in her simple black dress, with her glossy straight blond hair falling just past her shoulders, so maybe it was the delicate flowers creeping around her heels and towards her ankles that had caught his eye. She wondered in horror if she had something stuck to her shoe. He certainly kept staring at her legs. She looked at him pointedly and he had the grace to look a bit abashed to be caught out.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised, seeming to find it difficult to drag his gaze away from her silky skin. ‘The tiny flowers on your shoes look hand-painted, they’re exquisite.’ Luckily, after a quick peek at the floor, she knew she didn’t have anything like toilet paper trailing from them, which was a relief, as this had happened before. Maud should have known it wouldn’t have been her legs he was looking at. He just liked the design on her shoes. Maybe he wore ones like them at home? Just because she’d thought he looked so manly, like he wanted to eat her alive, didn’t mean he didn’t have his own shoe collection, she sighed. Why did she always lust after men who weren’t interested in her? It was the first time someone had wanted to swap clothes with her, though. Maybe he had a foot fetish?
‘Ahem...’
Maud tried to look him in the eye, but he was just too good looking and it would get even more embarrassing soon, as she was sure she would start salivating all over him or trying to lick his face. It seemed like he wanted to talk to her, but maybe it was for a bet or something? Either way, she was momentarily lost for words which, to be honest, stopped her from saying something inappropriate for at least three seconds.
‘Did you come here alone?’ the low timbre of his voice swirled around her like velvet and made her nostrils flare.
‘Ah no... of course not!’ She didn’t want to look like even more of a sad loser, frantically glancing round and seeing the girl with the pigtails looking at her again. ‘I came with her,’ she said, pointing to the girl briefly, then turning back to him. She grabbed a brochure about the evening from a nearby pedestal for something to do with her hands and then nearly threw it at him as if it had scorched her s
kin after seeing his photograph under the name Nate Ridgemoor. Oh bloody hell. Could this get any worse?
Nate frowned at the group of chattering people. ‘Do you mean Dotty?’
Yes, it could apparently. Maud cringed as he obviously knew everyone here, it being his private viewing. ‘Ah, yes, Dotty,’ she hedged, crossing her fingers behind her back and crossing her legs over in nerves, before remembering how that turned out last time and quickly straightening them out again.
Nate smiled down at her and she felt her knees buckle at the smell of his aftershave, it was pure sex on legs. ‘I haven’t heard her mention you, but then I don’t know your name.’ He left the question hanging in the air and Maud all but swooned, before shaking herself and trying to think of a way out of her blatant lie. She had guessed that the crazy girl would be the least likely to know him well. Now what was she supposed to do? Keep as much to the truth as possible, she quickly decided. She cleared her throat and tried to stand up a bit straighter, which only managed to thrust her chest out and she saw his eyes go wide in surprise. She held her hand out towards him and tried to recapture his attention. ‘I’m Maud.’
He took her hand and studied her legs again, a smile touching his lips. ‘Are those shoes artisan?’ He was rudely staring now, but seemed like he was rather enjoying himself.
Maud frowned and lifted her foot in confusion. She’d momentarily forgotten about his interest in her footwear. ‘My shoes?’
‘They’re beautiful, as is the woman wearing them,’ he said simply, staring at her thigh as she examined her shoe.
Maud was taken aback by the compliment and begun blushing furiously before dropping her foot with a clunk. She noticed that people were breaking away from their groups and heading their way now. ‘I painted them,’ she said simply as if he was a bit slow and he sent her a wolfish grin. If he was surprised to see such an ordinary girl in great shoes, then he didn’t show it, he just gazed into her eyes as if they shared a delicious secret. Her toes curled up and her pulse began to race. She felt like she was standing before him naked, in just her towering shoes.
She was about to explain about the shoes when the pigtail girl, Dotty, joined them in a flurry of sparkles and layered skirts. She gave Maud a strange look before sweeping Nate away, with what felt like pretty insincere apologies. Maud tried to catch her breath before she collapsed into a gushing heap, but Nate sent her an apologetic smile before letting himself be drawn into a discussion about a different piece of art, with a lively group of people standing nearby.
She drooped against the wall to catch her breath and, when she found the courage to glance his way, he didn’t look up and was engrossed in whatever dazzling repartee the diamond necklace woman was saying as he gazed into her eyes, the same way he’d gazed into Maud’s a moment before. Maud sighed as the bubble of elation burst. Maybe it was a party trick, picking up women and telling them they were beautiful, to make sales? Choose something about them to make them blush and remember him, then move on to a brighter conquest. It would take Maud years to save up and be able to afford a small painting, so he was wasting his time with her.
It had been delicious to bask in his attention for a short while, but he’d already moved on and she felt like a complete idiot for coming to an upmarket event like this on her own. Taking a deep calming breath and a chilled flute of champagne from a passing waiter, she gulped some down and silently moved away to view each painting quickly. They were too good to miss. Then she would go and bury her head under the covers at home, and try to forget the whole debacle.
She did fleetingly think of trying to pick up a dishy man so that she had something other than art to tell Daisy about, but looking around and finding everyone paired up or in small groups, she felt isolated and stupid. These guys were way out of her league. What had she been thinking?
Chapter Six
Nate wandered over to Dotty and gently touched her back, which made her jump and scold him. ‘Who was the girl with the amazing shoes?’
‘Huh?’ Dotty was busy working out delivery schedules for the paintings they had sold the previous evening, her smile reaching from ear to ear. The preview show had been so successful that she felt like she was floating around on a cloud while hot men massaged her shoulders. Nate had actually been charming, for once, and not bitten the head off everyone who approached him. She didn’t know why that was, but she wasn’t going to worry about it.
She had enough going on with keeping the gallery diary up to date and managing the events calendar. She looked down at the little glittery unicorns on her tights and despaired. Her stomach clenched suddenly and all of the earlier satisfaction faded away. Everyone expected her to look this way now, but it made her skin itch and her back hurt.
She’d begun being a bit more outrageous in her choice of clothes to copy her nan, who was bonkers, and to make her parents annoyed, but being arty weirdos themselves, they absolutely loved that she was ‘finally able to express herself creatively’ or some such bollocks. She knew she should tone it down, but the more outrageously she dressed, the more they applauded. It was getting to the stage where she would have to start putting antennae in her hair to up her game, then she remembered her nan had already done that last month. The whole process was exhausting.
Dot scrolled back through her memories of the previous night to see whom her brother might be talking about, then struck on the awkward girl in the amazing shoes. She shrugged and went back to her paperwork. ‘No idea.’
Nate frowned and she could see his mood darken. ‘The girl interested me for some reason. The way she gazed into my work as if it held a secret made me notice her.’ Dot silently added that he’d then spotted those sexy shoes and long legs and his groin had taken a hit. Dot thought back and there was nothing about the girl he’d been standing with that had suggested she’d wanted anyone to notice her, but the shoes were a subtle indication of her personality. Girls understood these things. Dot glanced at her brother, who was looking grumpier by the second. Men often missed the signals completely. While the dress the woman was wearing was chosen to blend into the wall, the shoes dripped with seduction. It was a contradiction. In fact, her clothes and lack of make-up or jewellery positively screamed leave me alone, while her shoes hinted at creativity and passion. Dot could see why her brother’s interest had been piqued. The woman had played her game well.
Nate coughed into his hand and straightened his back, trying to regain his sister’s attention, as she seemed to have wandered off into one of her dream worlds again. ‘She said she was a friend of yours? I think her name was Maisy, May or something.’
Dot turned and frowned. She was sure she hadn’t spoken to the girl before, but to be honest she met so many people at parties and openings that they might know each other vaguely and Dot could have forgotten about it. Dot was quite prolific as a top art agent, even though she was only twenty-four. Pretty much everywhere she went someone knew her, even if she didn’t know them. She shrugged and was tempted to ignore him. It would just be another woman he would ask Dot to send flowers to, and then get her to dump on his behalf. Dot was a serious artistic agent and not his slave. If he needed someone to run his personal life, he should hire an assistant. ‘I can’t remember where we met,’ she said honestly, much to his disgust.
‘Can you find her?’
‘Why?’
Nate gave her a hard stare, but she was his sister and had seen him pee his pants when he was five, so he didn’t intimidate her with his, ‘I’m a famous artist’ game. ‘She was wearing a fitted black dress, and those shoes with roses painted all over them.’
Dotty was used to her brother’s odd behaviour, and he’d been living in his own hell since Lena died. He’d been so sweet and adorable when he was a teenager, but the accident had changed everything. Dot knew he blamed himself, but Lena was a head case and it would have happened sooner or later. She had killed herself and tried to take him with her and it had left lasting scars, not just the ones that snaked their way
up his arms.
Dot waggled her eyebrows theatrically at him, trying to decide how nice she wanted to be to her big brother today. ‘Oh, well.’ Nate’s forehead creased and he looked like he was about to growl at her, so no change there. She did love him even though he drove her nuts with his perfectionist demands and mind-boggling artistic abilities. She sighed at how unkempt he looked today, his thick black hair all messed up and his t-shirt full of holes and threads as if it had seen better days, although this could be an enormously expensive designer T-shirt that was supposed to look like it had been stolen from a tramp, for all she knew. ‘Ok. You look like crap and I feel sorry for you, so I suppose I could check the guest list for last night’s event and find her for you.’ She went up on her tiptoes and dropped a feather light kiss on his nose. ‘How much do you love me?’
Nate looked at her silky shoulder-length hair, freshly dyed bright pink to match her slouchy top and the manes of the sparkly unicorns that danced around on her tights, and smiled. ‘A lot. You are so much like Nan,’ he said affectionately. ‘When you get older, you’ll drive an electric scooter covered in graffiti too and terrify the neighbours. God help the universe.’
The first answer seemed to satisfy Dot, although the second was mightily rude. She gently smacked his backside and then looped her hands around his waist and squeezed him into her slight frame for a big warm hug. He was a hulking wall of man, even to her lanky five foot ten frame, but she had hugged him like this from childhood, with her head fitting snugly into his shoulder. His arm came round to scoop her into his chest as he rested his chin on her vibrant head for a moment. He wouldn’t tolerate all of the love she lavished on him, but he usually gave in eventually and let her hug him like this. It was a beautiful habit and she gave him a squeeze before letting him go and walking over to make them both a strong coffee, whistling out of tune as she went and making him wince at the high pitch. All of their family could hold a tune, and parties involved raucous dancing and singing, but Dot was a complete anomaly, who could make birds drop in fright mid-air with the noise she made, so they had stopped the group sessions. It was a bit of a family joke, but Dot just thought they’d all grown out of that phase, and she still loved to whistle and sing at work. Only Elliott found it charming. She didn’t know why Nate wound him up so much, saying that he felt his friend’s pain when Dot treated him like another brother, i.e., a pain in the arse. She secretly thought Nate was jealous of Elliott’s relationship with her, but he should be used to that by now, and the things Elliott had been through with them all had earned him the title of honorary family member anyway. And, in this case, two brothers were better than a single moody one.
If You Love Me, I'm Yours Page 3
