“So?”
“So, this is what I want to do! It’s been my dream since I was five years old.”
“Kelso is nothing but trouble.”
“How do you know that? How do you know him? What are you even doing here?”
He holds my gaze with his and says, “He used to be my business partner.”
My arms drop to my sides while I struggle to understand what he said. I give up and say, “I don’t understand.”
“We were business partners. I’m Lawson Heywood.” When he utters his name an explosion goes off in my head.
Lawson Heywood. Of the worldwide hotel chain Heywoods. Even I know that.
A rich bastard.
Fuck.
And I trash-talked the rich right to his face. Repeatedly. Mortified, my cheeks burn and my stomach twists. I step backwards, knocking over my paints. The crash echoes around the entrance hall.
Spilled Paint
(Lawson)
I reach out to steady Skye. My hands grab her elbows, and I hold her firmly.
This wasn’t the way I wanted to tell her I’m one of these horrible rich people she seems to hate so much.
When I arrived here this morning, she was the absolute last person I expected to find in Kelso’s half-finished house. The asshole can’t even finish his own house on time. I’ll be sure to point that out to him.
Right now, I need to figure out a way to convince Skye to leave. I know Kelso, he won’t keep his hands off her for long, whether he has her consent or not. Not that any of his antics would ever make it into the newspapers; he must’ve spent more money in buying women’s silence than he has on this house.
There’s no way I’ll let him lay a finger on Skye.
“Thanks,” she says, looking at the floor.
I grab her chin and tilt it up to my face. Her cheeks are red and she keeps her eyes shifted down.
“Look at me.”
Skye remains frozen but I don’t let go of her chin. I rub my thumb over her bottom lip, in an attempt to soothe her. At last her eyes slide up my face, until they meet mine.
“I have to clean up my stuff,” she says.
“Let me help.”
Supplies are scattered over the floor, and I crouch to pick whatever up I can. Skye crawls on her hands and knees, gathering things. It’s distracting to watch her, and it makes me want to move behind her and pull her ass up against me.
We set back up the table she’s fastened out of a board and two folding chairs. Different paint colors now stain my right pant leg and the cuffs of both my arms. It doesn’t matter, I’d rather make her feel at ease. The faster I can do that, the sooner I can convince her to get out of here.
Once we’re satisfied the board is steady, we start loading it. Skye seems to have some organization system. I pass the fallen pieces to her and she puts the item where she wants it.
“What’s he paying you? I’ll triple it.” I say.
Her lips snarl. “No way, I’m not having you pay me off. I’m going to earn my way in life.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I’m not part of your entitled crowd. I prefer to earn my place in life.”
“What? You think I haven’t worked for everything I have?”
“No, but—”
“But what? I’ve worked hundred-hour weeks for the past decade. Does that meet with your approval?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what? It doesn’t fit with your little narrative?
“I don’t know what happens to you when you put on a suit, but it sure turns you into a prick.”
“It’s not me who changes, it’s you. I’m exactly the exact same. You, on the other hand, see what you want to see.”
Skye stops what she’s doing and stands, turning to face me with a small frown. “I do no such thing.”
I set down her brushes and cup her cheeks. Her eyelids become heavy, half shielding her brown eyes.
“You do, I’ll show you,” I say. I bring my lips to hers, and she readily submits to me. Our kiss deepens and I slide one hand behind her head, working my fingers through her hair to hold her in place.
She tastes so good I could stay like this all day, but I can’t risk Kelso coming in and seeing us kiss. That would only spur on any plans he has for Skye.
I pull my head back, trying to break the kiss, but she goes up on her toes, not letting me go. Enough. I hold her head in place with my hand and stand to my full height.
Out of her reach, I look down at her and ask, “Still seeing the big, bad rich guy?”
Her shoulders raise in a shrug, and she flashes a coy smile. “Maybe.”
“Is that an attempt to get me to kiss you again?”
Skye’s smile increases, revealing her perfect teeth. I release my hand from her hair and run my fingers down until I reach the small of her back. I snap her to me, the length of our bodies tight against each other.
Leaning, I put my face to the top of her hair. The flowery smell is divine and I inhale several breaths of it.
Skye is quiet, and I notice she’s trembling in my arms.
I kiss over her hair and bring my lips to her ears. I say, “I worry about you, is all. Trust me, Kelso is a first-rate scumbag.”
“Lawson? What the fuck are you doing here?” As if on cue, Kelso’s voice booms through the cavernous entranceway.
In a natural movement, I release Skye and leave her behind as I move to Kelso.
“Just helping your artist pick up her dropped paints.”
He glares at Skye and says, “That better not stain my floor, Ms. Simmons.”
I position my body between Kelso and Skye, shielding her from his glare.
“It won’t,” Skye snaps.
My breath pauses at her reaction, prompting me to smile broadly at Kelso.
“I’ve come to discuss the lawsuit. Shall we?” I offer, my left hand on Kelso’s arm and my right pointing down his hallway.
Stunned, Kelso looks around before he turns and leads me deeper into his half-finished house.
“You’re wasting your time,” he says.
“And you’re wasting your money. Do us both a favor and drop this legal crap. It’s straightforward enough to carve off your part of the business. We’ve always treated it as a separate division. You have no claim over the hotel side.”
“I built them.”
“Anyone could’ve built them. Why do you keep deluding yourself otherwise? It’s only your money you’ll end up losing, not mine.”
“If that’s the case, then why do you care? Why bother coming here at all?”
“Because you’re being a pain in the ass. I’m tired of wasting my time with it.”
Kelso leads me into his office, the first room in the house that’s finished. I’ll have to remember to point that out to him.
I hit Kelso with all the legal points I’ve spent the past two days going over with Julie. It’s a no brainer and even he must see that. But he has such a big ego, I have to be careful to give him a way of saving face or else he’ll dig his heels in and fight to the end.
Forty-five minutes later, I stroll out of his office, confident he’s seen the light. Kelso doesn’t bother getting off his ass to see me out, and that’s fine, I’ll let him lick his wounds.
When I get back to the entrance hall, Skye has a paintbrush in her hand and a serious look of concentration on her face. She’s so focused on her painting, she doesn’t notice me.
I creep over, and stand beside her.
“Looking good,” I say.
“I’ve just done the roughing in. You can’t even see anything yet.”
I shrug. “It’s still better than anything I could do.”
Skye tilts her head, examining her work. “Come back in a few days and judge it.”
“I don’t want you to be here in a few days. Kelso is dangerous. If you really must do these paintings, then paint them somewhere else and drop them off to him.”
“I need the light of the room they’l
l hang in. Besides, one of his conditions was that the paintings are painted on-site.”
“Who cares about conditions, you need to paint them elsewhere.” My teeth are gritted.
Skye turns and squares her shoulders, and immediately I regret the way I worded everything. “How dare you just come in here and tell me what to do? Just because you wear a fancy suit, you think you can tell people what to do?”
I sigh. “Skye, I’m telling you this…”
She interrupts, “I’m sorry, weren’t you just leaving?”
“Not without convincing you.”
“Then you’d better get a sleeping bag. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Get the fuck out of my house,” Kelso snaps from behind us, making me jump. I hadn’t realized he’d left his home office. Guess he finally managed to move after the mental blow to the head I delivered him.
I look at Skye, but she turns away and messes around with her paints. Kelso moves toward me. The last thing I want him to realize is there’s any connection between me and Skye, so all I can do is glare at him, and exit the house.
Craving
(Skye)
“How do you know that asshole?” Kelso snaps at me, his eyes flaring.
My heart pounding, I say, “I don’t, he just came in and started talking to me about my painting.”
He stares at me, his breath huffing and his brow somehow sweaty once again. I hold his stare, daring him to call me a liar but praying to God he doesn’t.
“Get back to work,” he says and goes back down the hall.
My heart is pounding against my ribs. There’s no way I can paint right now, my hands are shaking too much. I sit on the floor and grab my water bottle.
The water fills my mouth and I let it swirl around while I reflect on what just happened.
Hot tattooed guy is Lawson Heywood. The Lawson Heywood. Never saw that coming.
What do I do now? I can’t get involved with some billionaire. I don’t belong in his world any more than he belongs in mine.
But when he looks at me, my insides melt. And when he touches me, my body sets alight with flames fiercer than I ever knew existed.
Frustrated, I gather myself enough to get back to my work. The sooner I get it finished, the sooner I get the money and get away from creepy Kelso.
I work on the base of the temple in the painting, blending it in with the grass and bushes around its stones. It’s not meshing the way I want and I decide to take a break from it.
With my sketchbook and pencil in hand, I decide to get some ideas for the other rooms. I head down the hallway, intending to reach the family room at the back of the property. At least I think it’s the back; it’s difficult to tell in such a big, maze-like house.
I take a wrong turn and up in a short hallway by an ajar door. Kelso and another man’s voices spill out of the room and I turn to flee before Kelso sees me. Before I take a step, Kelso’s voice becomes clear.
“This lawsuit is killing me. I’m going to have to cut my costs everywhere I can.”
“Florida is your best bet,” the other man says.
“Agreed. I’m flying out there tonight.”
My eyes widen. Shit, am I one of those costs? I hurry away, though my feet are heavy and it’s a struggle to be silent.
There’s no point in trying to generate new ideas right now, my head is swimming. I find my way back to the entrance and carry on with my destroyed temple. This painting might turn out to be more prophetic than I thought.
Now there’s an even greater sense of urgency to get these pieces finished. I have to collect my money from Kelso before he runs out of it.
I bite the end of my brush, trying to decide where the line is between quality and speed. Is anyone other than Kelso ever going to see these paintings? What if I sign them with a different name?
The minute the natural light drops too much to work, I grab my things and get out of there. Thankfully Kelso didn’t make another appearance that day. After what I heard, I don’t think I could look him in his beady eyes.
Besides, he might fire me on the spot. If I can finish, he will at least owe me for the work completed.
When I get home, I head straight for my studio. Since the Kelso job, my salvation, might fall through, I want to finish other pieces to try to sell them through Gordon.
I finish the evening dress on the beach painting. It’s the first of the three in that series that I’ve finished.
It’s after eleven. Exhausted, I brush my teeth and flop into bed. The events of the day churn in my head.
Lawson Heywood. The man whose touch fuels the desire within me. The man who I’m supposed to be going to dinner with on Friday. The man who put on a suit and turned into a rich bastard.
How dare he think he can tell me what to do like that?
I try clearing my mind by thinking of the temple, and what stage I need to get it to tomorrow so I can be finished by early next week. My mind runs.
From the ruined temple, to Kelso and his lawsuit. Hold on. He’s going to Florida tonight. He didn’t say when he’d be back. But with him gone, this is definitely the time to paint his bedroom erotica.
My biggest nightmare would be him walking in while I’m in there painting it. If he made all those disgusting comments just talking about it, I can’t imagine what would he do if he found me actually painting it. My skin crawls just thinking about it.
Lawson would never behave like Kelso.
Not in that way, anyway. But he’s still a billionaire, and still against everything that I’ve ever stood for. The man would make me a sellout. I think. I should ask Ava what she thinks. She’ll know what I should do.
In the morning, I lay my completed painting in the trunk of my car, wrapped and protected by dust sheets. I’ll drop it to Gordon after I leave Kelso’s this evening.
My plan had been to save it for the gallery show Kelso is funding, but now that I know about his money problems, I need to secure any income I can get.
It’ll just mean working late every night to create enough paintings for my show.
I dig the sketchbook with the full frontal image out of my bottom drawer, chuck it face down on the passenger seat and leave for Kelso’s.
The plan is to finish is as fast as I can. Even if it means the quality suffers. I can always claim any rushed brush strokes are artistic license. Really, I hope that the painting will be ruined in a fire. No one can ever see it, or know that I painted it.
The sketch is transferred to the canvas in record time. If I hurry, I should be able to finish in a couple of days.
My easel is alongside Kelso’s round bed. The canvas is only a few feet from where it will hang. In amongst all the animal print.
What will women he brings back here think? Though, having met the creepy man with the glandular problem, I’ve got to think any woman getting to this point is only interested in his money anyhow.
I bet even Lawson’s first date, Freya or whatever her name was, would come this far. So long as he gets her a quinoa salad beforehand.
The alarm on my phone goes off at six. I set it to make sure I don’t get caught up in my painting and lose track of time. I’ve got to get to Gordon’s before he leaves for the night.
Not that I needed to worry about losing track of time. Each stroke of this painted woman’s folds is a painful reminder of what I’m doing.
And how no one has ever stroked mine.
I’ve got to go on the date with Lawson tomorrow. I need to feel his touch. My body craves it.
Having made the decision, I feel much more settled. Much more at ease with everything. I’ll deal with anything else later.
I get in my car and head for Gordon’s. Traffic is light, and I make it in no time. As usual, there’s no parking in front of his store. A spot opens up a reasonable distance away and I take it.
The Examination
(Lawson)
I hang my car back, not wanting to be seen. Yet. Skye parks her car and gets something out of her
trunk. It looks like a painting, which makes sense, I assume she’s dropping it off at the gallery.
While I wait for her to go inside, I send a note to my assistant telling her to check with the gallery to see if they have any more pieces available to buy yet.
When Skye vanishes inside the gallery, I pull my car past hers and find a spot a little ways down.
From here I have a clear view of the gallery. I wait in the car, watching for Skye to come out. The plan is to intercept her on her way back to her car and convince her not to return to Kelso’s.
She’s been inside for what seems like too long. For all I know, the gallery owner lives upstairs and she’s having dinner with him.
Relaxing back in my seat, I occupy myself by sending work emails while at the same time keeping an eye out for her to return.
I worked from my home office today, which I do as often as I can, so I’m just wearing jeans and a black T-shirt instead of the suit she thinks changes me.
Twenty minutes later, she comes out of the gallery, balancing a pile of items and struggling even more than when she went in.
I hop out of my car into the noise of the passing cars and rush her.
“Skye, let me help you.” Her arms are overloaded with supplies and I start taking them off her.
“Hey, fancy seeing you here,” she says.
“I was just picking something up and saw you come out of the store.”
“Sure you weren’t stalking me?” My eyes widen briefly but when I look at her, she’s smiling. I breathe a sigh of relief to see she’s only joking around.
“Maybe I should, then I’d be here to help whenever you get into trouble.”
“Oh? Do I get into trouble often?” The packages redistributed, we walk toward her car.
“I don’t know, do you?”
“Not until I met you.”
“Oh, it’s all my fault, is it?”
“Guess it is.”
“Must be because of all my money.” Skye stops walking but I keep going.
“I… about earlier… I didn’t…”
“Didn’t know who I was and would’ve kept your beliefs secret from me if you’d known?”
Billionaire's Secret: The Complete Series Page 69
