by Laura Moore
“I’m sure I’ll be delighted to meet him,” Gen replied, pleased with how convincing she sounded. She couldn’t imagine anything duller than someone who made money. Unless it was the performance artist who drew near-perfect imitations of dollar bills, then set out to barter them for goods. That was interesting.
So now as Mrs. Miller had predicted, the nephew was calling her. No, summoning her was more like it.
Gen sighed, resigned to following the prescribed rules of the art game. It was time to go and sell herself. That was how Gen viewed the task of promoting her work. She wanted to create, not peddle her art—her heart and soul—and she hated having to wow and impress potential collectors by opening her portfolio and then watching their faces as they examined her work. It was a most painful form of self-exposure, ending only when judgment was passed on her art.
And listening to the cool, clipped voice on her answering machine, Gen knew at once that Alex Miller was not a man easily impressed.
SIX
The address of Alex Miller’s office was in midtown, which ruled out driving her car. It would take Gen a century to find a parking place, and the cost of a public garage would dip her checking account into a negative balance. Besides, this morning she’d lucked into a plum spot for the rusted-out Yugo, steps from the loft; Gen had adopted enough New York habits to understand she’d be a fool to give it up. And taxis were as prohibitive as parking garages. So that left the subway.
Unfortunately Gen missed the express train to Forty-second Street, and on Fourteenth Street a screaming match broke out between a gang of schoolkids who were blocking the subway car doors and the conductor, who was trying to close them. The shouting lasted forever. By which point everyone else in the crowded cars had joined in the fracas, a primer in multilingual cursing.
Gen had given up checking her watch by the time she climbed the stairs leading out of the Fifty-first Street station and into the hustle and bustle of Lexington Avenue. She caught the scent of sugar-roasted peanuts, pretzels, and hot dogs mixed with heavy blasts of bus exhaust. Heading west, she passed a street vendor selling Kate Spade and Prada knockoffs, and grinned as she spotted a bag identical to the one she’d bumped into at the gallery the previous night.
At Park Avenue her pace unconsciously slowed. Neck craned, she gazed up at the towering steel and glass buildings, noting how the sunlight blazed reddish-bronze against the endless sheets of glass.
The architecture of money and power.
Not her territory, but definitely the nephew’s, as Gen had come to think of Alex Miller. She didn’t know why, but for some reason she’d developed a vague animosity toward the owner of the cool voice on her answering machine. Probably because like the buildings all around her, it was designed to intimidate. Gen didn’t respond well to people bossing her around, the result of having eleven older brothers and sisters, no doubt.
Passing men in business suits, Gen mentally sketched a composite portrait of Alex Miller. He’d have graying hair and carry a slight paunch from too many business lunches, she decided happily. Oh, and his face would already be sinking into fleshy jowls.
Alex Miller’s office building was as imposing as the others she’d walked past. Constructed of black steel and glass, its front doors were large enough to roll a tank through. Gen checked in with the security guard at the desk, who asked to see her driver’s license. The guard picked up the phone. “A Genevieve Monaghan here to see Mr. Miller,” he said into the mouthpiece. Hanging up, he motioned Gen to stand in front of a compact digital camera.
Seconds later he handed her a small photo printed on an adhesive label. Gen gave it a passing glance before sticking it over her left breast. Yup, she sighed inwardly. She looked like one giant freckle.
She stepped into an elevator equipped with a TV. An anchor for CNBC kept her company on the ride to the thirtieth floor, helpfully recapping the rise and fall of the NASDAQ. Gen tried to tune him out. After the chaos of the street, the interior of the elevator felt like a high-tech, stereophonic tomb. She longed to be back in the colorful confusion of the street. She didn’t want to be here, meeting some stuffed shirt; wouldn’t be here, except that she wanted to be as generous as Grace Miller had been with her, which pretty much ruled out insulting or ignoring Mrs. Miller’s nephew.
Second door on the left, the guard had told her. Plain, bold lettering marked the door. THE MILLER GROUP. Gen took a breath, plastered a smile on her face, and pressed the button. The door opened.
And Gen’s jaw went slack as she stared stupidly into one of the most beautiful faces she’d ever seen outside of a museum. The man was gorgeous. All sculpted planes and perfect proportions, he rivaled Apollo, surpassed him with eyes the color of blue lightning, thrilling and dangerous. Her fingers instinctively curled as though holding a drawing pencil. Could she even capture such masculine perfection, do it justice? A wild thought entered her head: Thanks to her recent sale of Day One, she would have some serious money coming her way. Maybe she could ask him to model for her. The thought made her grin.
“Ms. Monaghan? I’m Alex Miller.”
“Oh, damn. I was sure you’d look like a toad.” She’d been certain, too, that he’d be middle-aged, but Alex Miller looked like he was only a few years older than herself.
Alex’s brows shot upward and he laughed. This was certainly a novel greeting, he thought. He’d come to the door to meet this Genevieve Monaghan personally, hoping to catch her off guard. Yet instead it was he who’d been taken off guard and charmed in spite of himself. The woman with the wide, impish grin standing before him was clearly out of the ordinary . . . unusual and prone to the unexpected, he decided.
She was still staring.
Alex was used to stares. Women stared because of the way he looked. Women and men stared once they knew who he was—that Alex Miller, the one who’d made a pile of money. Being ogled no longer made much of an impression.
But Alex wasn’t accustomed to staring back. Yet he realized he was doing exactly that, and quite intently, too, as he tried to match Genevieve Monaghan with the shrouded figure in Day One. Difficult when the woman standing before him looked far too young to have made such an extraordinary and powerful painting, let alone be the figure emerging from that dark, wintry landscape.
His gaze lingered. Her face was one of subtle colors, from the liberal sprinkling of freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose to the rise of her cheekbones. Her lips were a soft, dusky pink. Bare of lipstick, they were nonetheless temptingly inviting. But it was her eyes that truly captivated him: they seemed to change from second to second, a shifting of blue, green, and brown. Alex was reminded of a poster that had hung over the foot of his bed throughout high school, the one constant in a passing parade of rock stars and Yankees players. He’d spent hours gazing at that aerial shot of the world, lost in the greenish browns of continents, the blue of oceans wide and deep. The world was there, in Genevieve Monaghan’s eyes. For a moment everything else receded, except for his desire to spend the next few hours lost in their loveliness.
The ringing sound of the elevator being summoned, followed by the metallic slide of the doors shutting, had Alex abruptly remembering where he was. He cleared his throat and stepped back. “Come in, won’t you?”
“Thanks.”
“You had no trouble finding the address?”
“No. I’m really sorry to be late. There was a problem on the subway—” She broke off with a regretful shake of her head. “Actually, to tell you the truth, I seem to be constitutionally incapable of being on time. My mother claims she holds the grand record. I kept her waiting for ten days.”
Biting back a smile, he gave a light shrug. “I had some reports to review anyway.” Sam’s report on the Monaghan family, to be precise. It had made for absolutely fascinating reading.
The time had flown by.
Alex stepped back, and Genevieve Monaghan brushed past in a baggy forest green sweater that fell over a straight ankle-length black skirt, and what appeared to be Con
verse high-tops, the faded red canvas coated with a spiderweb of paint splatterings. Her brown hair was in a topknot held in place by two lacquered chopsticks. A bulky red backpack, slung over her right shoulder, completed the outfit. She was tall, Alex thought appraisingly, and slender. He found himself wondering what her legs looked like.
Alex’s secretary, seated behind her desk, was staring with open curiosity.
“Would you like some coffee, Ms. Monaghan?” he asked.
“It’s Gen, and yes, thanks, I’d love some. Black, no sugar.”
“Cathy, would you please bring us two coffees?” he asked his secretary.
“Certainly.”
“Thank you,” he said. Extending his arm toward a door at the end of a short corridor, he gestured for Gen to proceed.
Gen walked in front of him, feeling oddly unnerved. She told herself it must be the sleek sophistication of the surroundings. The hall’s carpeting was so thick, she couldn’t even hear her footsteps. Its walls were covered in what looked very much like a dove-gray ultrasuede. She willed herself not to reach out and run her fingers along it, and test its softness.
But no matter how polished the interior of Alex Miller’s firm, she knew her nervousness was caused by the man himself. An extraordinarily handsome man who was walking silently behind her. When his arm reached around to open the door to his office and brushed her own lightly, Gen’s heart skipped a beat.
Just as his office door swung open, another door off to the right opened, too, and a man thrust his head through the gap. “Alex,” he said, and Gen caught the urgency in the man’s voice, “I’ve got Bill Reynolds on the line. He has some questions. Would you mind?”
“No, I’ll be right there, Robert,” Alex replied. He turned to Gen with an apologetic smile. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“That’s okay, I don’t mind,” she hastily reassured him. In truth, she was relieved to be given a chance to regroup. She wasn’t used to being this aware of a man. Slipping her backpack from her shoulder, she added, “It’ll be good for me to wait. A taste of my own medicine.”
In response, the corner of Alex Miller’s mouth lifted in a half smile that made his face, if possible, even more handsome—and made Gen’s pulse go a little haywire. “Then if you’ll excuse me,” he murmured before leaving Gen alone in his office with the door slightly ajar.
Wow, she thought dazedly. Although she realized that such good looks were merely the result of a lucky scramble of genes, it was awfully hard not to be dazzled by such masculine beauty. Drawing a calming breath, she looked about her, curious.
The spacious office suited him, she decided. Understated and elegant, the furniture he’d chosen had the clean contours of the best in Italian design. A wide bank of windows faced eastward, and from where Gen stood she could see barges and motorboats chugging up and down the East River. To the north and south, she made out the crisscrossed spans of the bridges that connected Manhattan to the outer boroughs. Cars were moving along them at a rush-hour crawl. But it was the framed pictures crowding the bookshelves that had Gen’s feet moving for a closer inspection.
In contrast to the orderliness of the rest of his office, Alex Miller’s bookshelves were filled chock-a-block with drawings and photographs. This must be his family, she said to herself. The two blond cherubs, a young boy and girl, had to be Alex’s children. Their features were painted from the same palette . . . and with a master’s hand.
A beautiful woman with deep blue eyes and wildly curling hair smiled at Gen from a frame of burled wood. “And this must be his wife,” she murmured softly, and was brought up short by the sharp stab of regret.
Get real, Monaghan, she admonished herself with a laugh. This man’s in a whole different league from you.
Determined not to think about Alex Miller’s private life, Gen resolutely moved away from the photograph of the woman and fixed her attention on the drawings lining the shelves instead. She examined them, her grin growing, loving their spontaneity, the joy and energy evident in each squiggle, slash, and cyclone whirl that made up the dog, the tree, the huge yellow sun—
“I’m afraid I’m running out of room.”
Gen spun around. The door had opened—even the hinges were silent in this place. Alex Miller stood inside the threshold, regarding her with an inscrutable look on his face.
She felt embarrassment heat her cheeks. How long had he been watching her? She didn’t want him to think she’d been prying, poking about his personal belongings. Her words came out in a hurried rush: “These drawings are fabulous. That’s obviously an adored dog. Your children are beautiful, too,” she added awkwardly, realizing anyone else would have mentioned the children first.
“Thanks. Jamie and Sophie definitely love to express themselves,” he said and his voice was filled with tender amusement. He grabbed hold of the edge of the door and pushed it so that it swung shut with a quiet click. “And that’s two dogs,” he continued with a nod at the drawings as he walked toward her. “Radar and Annabelle. My present to the kids. Sophie and Jamie are twins, so I felt compelled to buy two puppies. Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for how beautiful they are—” Alex was about to say more when a knock sounded.
Frowning at this latest interruption he turned around and went back to open it.
A woman’s eager voice floated into the room. “Alex, darling! I decided to drop by on the way to a meeting with the writer for the Digest. I know, I know, I should have called, but I missed you so.” And a tall, chicly dressed brunette swept into the office. Then her gaze lit on Gen. “Oh!” she said, and her artfully shadowed eyes widened in surprise.
Alex’s secretary entered on the woman’s heels, coffee cups in hand. Gen thought she mouthed “Sorry” to him but couldn’t be sure.
Silence settled over the room. Just as it was growing awkward, Alex spoke, his voice bland as he made the introductions. “Sydney, this is Genevieve Monaghan, an artist whose work my aunt admires very much. Aunt Grace is hoping Ms. Monaghan will paint a piece for the Children’s Hospital.” To Gen he said, “Sydney Raines does public relations for the Miller Group as well as the TLM Fund.”
Sydney Raines’s handshake was like her smile: cool and perfunctory. Not that Gen was feeling overly friendly either. She found it off-putting that Sydney hadn’t been in the room for thirty seconds and already she was firing off an unmistakable warning from her dark eyes: He’s mine.
As if Gen had the slightest interest in an affair with a married man. It made her queasy even to contemplate causing pain to those laughing children in the photographs. She hadn’t thought that Alex Miller would be the type of man who’d cheat on his wife.
“So Mrs. Miller has approached you about doing a piece for the hospital?” Sydney asked with the slightest trace of hostility in her voice.
“Yes, we’ve talked about it.” Gen turned to Alex Miller. “I can see you’re busy now. Perhaps another time.”
“I was hoping you could show me some examples of your work,” Alex said and from the cool challenge in his eyes, Gen realized he’d guessed how much she wanted to leave. “Especially as my aunt is convinced you’re the artist we’ve been searching for. Of course, if you’re not interested in the commission, I’m confident we can find someone else. . . .” Letting the sentence trail off, he smiled and gave a careless shrug of his broad shoulders.
Gen stilled. Was she going to jeopardize a wonderful opportunity just because she suspected Alex Miller of indulging in an extramarital affair? Of course not. What did she care about him? She wanted this commission because it would be an incredible opportunity to share her art with the public in a meaningful way. Instead of hefting the bag onto her shoulder, she bent down and pulled out a thick portfolio. She carried it to his desk, and unzipping the leather case, she spread it open.
“These color transparencies are of some of my recent work.” Without sparing a second glance at either Alex or Sydney, she moved over to the windows and pretended to survey the scene below.
The next fifteen minutes passed with only the faint slap of vinyl sheets marking the time as Sydney and Alex studied Gen’s portfolio.
At last Alex spoke. “My aunt is right. Your work is strong and evocative, perfect for the hospital wing.” His words had the quiet ring of sincerity.
Gen turned away from the window to find his intense blue eyes fixed on her. Flushing slightly, she told herself that it was the knowledge that she was going to get the commission which was making her feel so warm and breathless. “Yes, I agree. Your work is very strong,” Sydney offered.
“Thank you,” she replied, unable to think of what else to say in the face of their praise.
Alex gestured toward a pair of chairs and a small sofa arranged around a kidney-shaped coffee table in the far corner of the office. “Won’t you sit down?” he asked.
Gen chose one of the chairs, while Sydney and Alex sat on the sofa opposite her. Though Alex had initially lowered his lean frame onto the opposite end of the sofa, somehow Sydney kept shifting, inch by inch, until her long legs were almost brushing Alex’s. A little closer and she’d be in his lap.
Seated across from them Gen could see why Alex Miller would be attracted to a woman like Sydney Raines. She was stunning and expensive-looking, with that high-end polish that came from weekly trips to the salon, monthly visits to the spa. Everything about her spoke of class and sophistication. Gen realized that Sydney was taking the opportunity to scrutinize her just as closely, but doubted that she’d draw the same conclusions. . . . Not if she was to judge by the small, satisfied smile she gave Gen before saying, “As I act as the liaison between the TLM Fund and the Children’s Hospital, it would be helpful if I could have some background information to give to the hospital and to put into the press packet we’re compiling.” Sydney glanced over at Alex. “Would it be all right with you if I asked Ms. Monaghan a few questions?” Her voice had changed when she addressed him, taking on a husky, intimate note, as if they were alone in the room.
