by Isla Dean
“Yes we are. Open until nine this evening.”
“You are? But you weren’t last night.”
“No,” the woman on the other end of the line hesitated. “We had to close for operational reasons.”
“Operational reasons. What does that mean? This is Ivy Van Noten. I was supposed to have a show there last night.” An edge crept into her voice.
“Ivy Van Noten. One moment please.”
The sound went blank as she was placed on hold, and Ivy scooted to the edge of the desk chair, stood, then sat back down, unable to keep still.
“Ivy, hello. This is Margery Applebaum. We tried to get ahold of you several times about last night. You didn’t get the messages?”
“No, my phone is… What happened? Why were you closed?”
The silence thrummed with anticipation.
“We had to close for operational reasons.” The woman’s words were forced, focused.
“What does that mean exactly? I don’t understand. And what happens next? We reschedule the show? I stood outside the gallery last night apologizing to people and I told them I would keep them posted on my website. But I just stood out there like an idiot and I’d like to understand why.”
“You did? You were here last night?”
“Yes.” Ivy took a deep breath, closed her eyes. “I stood outside the gallery last night because I thought my show was going to happen. I saw all the paintings hung, and they looked wonderful,” she said, her voice softening. “I’m just asking to understand what happened. Please.”
Another long lull, and Ivy opened her eyes, looked out the office window to the fog bank that hovered on the horizon.
“Ivy, I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but the reason your show was cancelled is, honestly, kind of a mystery to me too. All I know is that we received a call yesterday afternoon from a man who told the owner of the gallery that if we closed our doors immediately, he would donate a sizeable sum of money to our fund. And, well I shouldn’t be telling you this either, but it was more than we could’ve made off your show. More than ten times that amount. So the owner didn’t really see a choice but to accept the generous donation from Warren Townsend.”
The name choked in Ivy’s throat. “Warren Townsend.”
“I’m so sorry, Ivy. I was really looking forward to your show. We’ve actually taken down your paintings already. Mr. Townsend, he said that—”
“I get it.” Ivy stood, feeling heat flame to life. “My paintings can’t be there. I’ll arrange to have them picked up by a courier within a couple of days.”
“I’m sorry, Ivy.”
“Makes two of us.” Ivy dropped the phone back on the receiver and stormed through the kitchen in search of Donatella, needing to vent.
When she heard voices coming from the driveway, she shoved open the front door and stepped out to find Aiden, Emmett, and Logan unloading bags from the villa’s golf cart.
Aiden’s face fell the moment he spotted her. Letting go of his bag, he met her halfway, rushing forward. “What’s wrong?”
“My show,” she blurted out. “Warren Townsend.”
“What? What does Warren Townsend have to do with your show?”
“He cancelled it,” she said, a heated roar churning. “He cancelled it with his money.”
“He cancelled your show?”
Confusion turned into ferocious fury. All the work she’d put into painting, pushing herself day after day toward the finish line, her cancelled show, all of it stormed out of her. “I hate that man! I don’t know if I’ve ever hated anyone more than I hate him. Why would he do this? Why would he care about my show so much that he’d need to do such a thing? How did I even become a blip on his radar that he needed to destroy?
“I’ve worked so hard for this. I’ve turned my entire being inside out and have bared all of who I am to create. And my paintings just sat there like sad little puppies in a window. They sat there inside while people were outside looking and pointing.
“And I felt so stupid!” She spewed, rage crashing. “I stood outside smiling, doing my best and I felt so stupid just standing there.”
She took several gulps of air, looked at Aiden, Emmett, and Logan who’d all gathered around her. “I hate that man with every fiber of my being.”
“Instead of picking a fight with us, he goes after you. A real fucking bastard.” Now that Ivy had stopped yelling, Aiden itched to move, to do something about it. “I’m so intensely sorry, Ivy.”
“Townsend is a coward,” Emmett put in. “And he’s pissed he lost. He’s looking for some vindication to feel superior toward—”
“Let’s kick his ass,” Logan interrupted his brother’s verbal rant.
“I want the first kick,” Ivy put in.
The three men looked at her, befuddled and amused by the fight punching from the pint-sized woman.
“As much as I’d really love to see that,” Aiden started, his temper having cooled slightly at the entertaining idea of watching Ivy punch Townsend in the face. “We can’t kick his ass because that’s what he wants. He’s probably huddled in a corner somewhere waiting for us to show up so he can send us to jail for going after him. We can’t kick his ass, at least not physically, but we can find a way to castrate him. Did the gallery say anything else? I can’t believe they let that asshole strong-arm them.”
“I don’t know much else.” The balloon of anger deflated in her frazzled, exhausted mind. “All I know is that the show didn’t happen and now I need to send a courier to pick up my paintings and take them somewhere. I don’t know where—”
“I’ll take care of it,” Emmett said to her. “What’s the name of the gallery?”
“Lemieux Gallery, but you don’t need to—”
“It’s done,” Aiden told her, then nodded to Emmett.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life. I just—”
“We’ll take care of it. All of us together.”
“Well, I was thinking,” Ivy started, simmering enough to focus on what came next. “Before I knew all of this was because of Townsend, I was having kind of a pity party then that became boring so I started thinking of ideas on the drive down from San Francisco. And I was wondering if maybe, well, I was thinking…” She stopped, took a deep breath and reminded herself to ask for what she wanted without hesitation, without pandering. She had nothing left to lose. “No, that’s wrong. I have an idea that I’m going to propose.”
“Shoot,” Aiden told her.
“What if we sent some of my paintings on tour to the hotels your father’s company owns? Send them on an exhibition to market Parpadeo and everything you guys are doing here, maybe draw in some visitors, and at the same time, guests could purchase my pieces if they desired. I know your dealings with your father are a bit difficult right now, but the idea came to me so I figured I’d ask. What do you think?” she finished, proud for getting it all out and only having wavered a little bit.
She was finally asking for what she wanted.
“An exhibition promoting Parpadeo Island. I like it. I like it a lot.” Aiden turned to his brothers, knowing that later he’d get them to find a way to cut Townsend off at the knees, but for now he needed to focus on Ivy. After all, it’d been his damn fault she’d become a target. “We can use it as a cross-promotional platform. What do you guys think?”
“I’ll call Victoria, head of the interior design team.” Logan jumped in. “She’ll bite at it immediately.”
“You bit back the last time she did that,” Emmett reminded him.
“She still speaking to you?” Aiden asked.
“She will.” Logan’s cocked smile declared the idea as a challenge.
“So you guys like it? You think it’ll work?” Ivy asked, her heart bracing.
“Smart. Really smart, actually. Cross-promotional platforms work really well especially in the test markets where—”
“It’s fantastic,” Aiden responded, cutting Emmett off.
&
nbsp; Ivy frowned at the men around her who’d jumped in with their heads and hearts—the way she saw it—and helped. She’d never experienced anything like it. “I really appreciate the opportunity. More than you know. I have a lot of ideas for the exhibit and I can see it all perfectly in my mind.” She grinned like a fool and she knew it. “I was also thinking about teaching some watercolor and wine classes at the gallery in town. Klem’s idea, but I’m coming around to it. And another idea I had is to host weekend art trips—you know, people come and stay at Villa Blue and we do painting instruction and excursions to paint en plein air. A package deal. You think that would be interesting to people?”
He took the time to look her over, almost as if he’d never seen her before, she thought.
“Your mind has been a busy place. And I think it’s brilliant.”
“You do?” She beamed, simply beamed. “I do too. Okay, enough about me. How was the trip?”
“Before I answer that,” Aiden started then pulled her in for a hug, wrapping her inside the cocoon of his strength, just as she’d dreamed of the night prior.
Logan punched Emmett and they took the cue, hoisted their bags, including Aiden’s, and left Ivy and Aiden alone.
“I missed you.” Aiden pulled her in closer. “I hate that this happened to your show because of what we’re doing.”
“Me too.” Ivy’s breath rippled out. “I hate that this happened too.”
“But you didn’t miss me?” He leaned back far enough to look at her, to study the face he’d missed every inch of.
“I missed you,” she told him, her voice quiet. “Tried not to, but I did.”
This time when he leaned in, his lips met hers. Held there together by breath, by familiar feelings, lips lingered and tongues touched. Life circled around them, as did the fast-moving clouds, keeping Ivy and Aiden tucked close to one another.
“Get your asses in here!” Logan’s voice echoed out to them. “Donatella’s agreed to the offer. We’re buying a villa!”
Aiden ignored Logan, took Ivy’s hand and walked toward her favorite perch where she painted.
“So your trip was a success?” She glanced at him when he didn’t answer. “You’re buying Villa Blue?”
When they reached where the weeds were trampled down by her daily visits, he stopped. “Yes. And once escrow closes and it’s ours, I want you to move in with me.”
He watched her eyes, the brilliant blue of them, open wide with questions.
“I’m going to move here,” he told her. “I’ve committed to being here for the first year of things. We sold the investors on one of us being here on the island throughout that initial period to get things going.”
“You want me to move in with you for a year?”
“I want you to move in with me. I want us to live together at Villa Blue.”
“What happens when the year is over?” she asked, conflicting emotions taking flight.
“I don’t know yet. All I know is that I want to be with you.” He readjusted the hold of her hand, feeling it warm in his. “We can figure the rest out as we go. I don’t know what the future holds, and I don’t think I want to know. I just know I want to be with you. You’re always a surprise to me, Ivy. Every time I think I have you figured out, you surprise me. And I love that. I love you.”
She wondered if he could hear the unsteady beats that pounded wildly in her chest. “I’m glad to hear that because I love you too, Aiden. More than I think I was aware of before this weekend.”
“Move in with me,” he said again. “Be with me. And I’ll be with you. Let’s be together.”
“Why does everything you say sound like it’s the prospect of an adventure?”
“Because it always is an adventure. Let’s have adventures together.”
“Adventures together,” she said, raising onto her toes to kiss the man she adored, the man she wanted next to her, the man she couldn’t wait to paint again.
In light, she thought, just like this.
Chapter Twenty
August brought thick golden rays of sunshine to Parpadeo Island. It also brought rowdy contractors, adorning tarps, and noisy power tools to the estate of Villa Blue.
With renovations underway, Aiden had moved into the greenhouse with Ivy rather than both of them moving into the currently messy villa. Their windswept summer nights were spent making love beneath the sparkling stars, with the calling chorus of crickets around them, and their mornings were spent tangled in each other, surrounded by lush greenhouse plants and bold, bright paintings.
By day, Aiden managed the new business he’d started with his brothers, and oversaw the renovations at Villa Blue and on select properties in town, while Ivy did exactly what she loved—paint.
And in keeping with her plan, she’d begun teaching art classes on the island. The fact that she enjoyed it so thoroughly had come as quite a surprise.
On this particular Saturday, she had a full class of eager, thoughtful students in her second floor space at Villa Blue. She’d turned the room into a makeshift studio, which was perfect given that the floors were already covered in milky white tarps.
Plus, she thought with a glance around at the faces of her students who were each absorbed in their paintings, she’d talked Klem into joining the class, as well as Donatella who’d moved into a small bungalow in town.
For once, she was sharing her art, her love, her creative process with people who had become her family. And she shared because she trusted them, she thought with pride shining just as vibrantly as the afternoon sun.
“As you’re using your pallet, don’t be afraid of colors running together. That’s the beauty of watercolor, especially at this stage. Let go of preconceived notions, let go of your mind’s expectations, and allow yourself to see deeper. Let your heart and your paints surprise you. It’s the adventure we’re looking for, here.”
“Easy for you to say, hun,” Klem sang out from behind his front-row easel. “Who wouldn’t feel friskily—is that a word? Anyway, who wouldn’t feel friskily adventurous with a boyfriend like yours around?”
Ivy tried to give him a warning look—too much personal information for a class setting—but it came out as a smile she just couldn’t seem to hold down.
Aiden James had been as much of a surprise as the intense happiness that thrummed through her. She’d been content in her life, striving to live on her own terms, but Aiden had brought new colors with him, and she’d let them mix with hers. And what they created together was a messy mix of love and life.
“Ivy?” one of the student’s asked. “Will you show me, again, how you did that water in the vase of flowers? I don’t remember the technique.”
Ivy made her way over to the student’s easel and leaned in, making choppy strokes with a semi-dry brush on a stray piece of paper, talking her way through the approach.
“Ivy!” Aiden’s voice carried up to the open window.
Frowning—and never very good with distractions—she ignored the breezy holler and tilted her head, studied the example she’d provided, then began showing the student another technique. “Remember,” she said, her voice lifting, “when learning new techniques, play with them, make them your own. Sometimes it’ll work out, sometimes it won’t. But the journey of it is the fun part.”
“Ivy!” Aiden’s voice called up again, as if delivered by the afternoon breeze.
Klem, seeing Ivy’s faint look of annoyance, eagerly hopped over to the window to answer the call. “I’ll see what he wants. Maybe it’s me!”
“Tell him I’ll be down after class,” Ivy told Klem then moved to the back of the room to view the rows of art her students were creating.
“Hun, you’re going to want to see this.”
“Not now, Klem.” She sided up next to Donatella. “Oh, I love this flow here. That’s great. And your use of negative space is—”
“Ivy!” Klem yelled then clapped his hands in one sharp thwack that had everyone looking up. “Seriously. You ne
ed to get over here. Now.”
Concern mixing with annoyance, she trekked over the tarps to the window, joining Klem.
She sucked in a quick gasp then held still as she took in the scene.
There was Aiden, grinning, gorgeous, standing beside a giant message written in chalk.
Marry me?
Her heart lifted like a field of a thousand butterflies flying free from their perches among the flowers.
“This is the part of the movie where you run down and tell him yes,” Klem offered.
In shock, she only barely heard the words as her focus was on the man standing below, looking up at her, offering his heart.
He was there for her. He loved her. And more, he loved her for who she was—not who he wanted her to be, or who he thought she could become. He simply loved her for her.
And the man wanted to marry her.
Donatella approached, touching Ivy’s shoulder as she glanced out. “Oh, my heart. Go get your man, bella. He’s waiting for you.”
Ivy looked to Donatella then to Klem. Words slipped from her brain so all she could do was smile at them with filled eyes.
“Seriously, I’m going to marry him if you don’t,” Klem added.
She laughed a little nervously, held her hand to her heart, then zipped off for the stairs.
“God, that’s one sexy man,” Klem said to Donatella, each of them keeping watch out the window.
“Si. A sexy man who loves our girl.”
“Lucky bitch.”
Ivy’s legs felt like hot jelly as she sped down the pathway toward where Aiden waited. As she got closer, she hopped into a hurried, giddy run then leaped into his arms.
“It’s not an Ivy Van Noten, but do you like my chalk drawing?” he asked, setting her down, needing to see her face.
“I love your chalk drawing.”
“I love you, Ivy. I’m head over heels in love with you. I used to think I was the adventurous one, but it’s you. You’ve taken me places I’ve never been. You’ve shown me what it means to be in love. Marry me, Ivy. Let’s have adventures together for the rest of our lives.”
