by Metsy Hingle
She cut another glance to Peter’s face. The mouth that had given and taken so greedily only moments before was drawn into a frown. The line of his jaw was rigid, and his eyes were cool.
Recalling the fire in his eyes when he had attempted to punch Jacques over the other man’s innocent, though misconstrued, comment, Aimee could have sworn some deeper emotion had been at work. Maybe not love—at least not yet—but surely something close to it.
What else would explain that so un-Peter-like response? A smile tugged at her lips. Even Liza had been taken aback by Peter’s reaction to Jacques. The knot in Aimee’s stomach unfurled. Some of the tension eased from her body as her spirits and hopes lifted.
Peter looked at her then, his eyes narrowing. “Something funny?” he asked, his gravelly voice breaking the silence. His brow furrowed. It was a gesture Aimee had come to recognize as something he did when he was annoyed.
She smiled more widely, foolishly pleased that she had not been the only one disappointed by the interruption. “Oh, I was just wondering what Liza would have done if she had showed up five minutes later and the door had been unlocked, the way it usually is.”
“She’d probably have grabbed the first sharp object she could lay her hands on, preferably a sword, and run me through with it.”
Aimee laughed. “Don’t be absurd. Liza would never do such a thing.”
“Don’t bet on it. The woman’s never made a secret of the fact that she doesn’t like me. I guess I should take some consolation in the fact that she doesn’t seem to like your friend Jacques, either.”
Aimee couldn’t argue with that. It was true. Liza didn’t like Peter and, evidently, she didn’t care for Jacques. In truth, Liza didn’t like most men, nor did she trust any of them. And with reason. “She just doesn’t want to see me get hurt,” Aimee said defensively.
“What makes her think I’d hurt you?”
Aimee shrugged. “She knows how I feel about you. She also knows those feelings aren’t reciprocated.”
A tortured expression crossed his face. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wish I were capable of more, Aimee. But I’m not. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman in my life, but I’m not capable of love. I’ve never pretended that I am. My ex-wife used to say it wasn’t a part of my genetic makeup. I guess she was right.” His voice grew gentle. “If it were possible, if I was capable of loving anyone, I would love you.”
His words cut through her like a beam of light piercing a midnight sky. Don’t give up, she whispered silently to herself. Peter had so much love inside him to give. She just had to keep trying to find a way to unlock the prison that held him an emotional captive.
“Please believe me. I’d never do anything to hurt you. At least not intentionally.”
“I know,” Aimee said, smiling. “That’s what I told Liza. But for some reason, she’s got this strange notion that you’re after something. I mean, that you want something from me. Something besides…” Aimee hesitated. She dropped her gaze, searching for the right word to describe their lovemaking.
“Something besides sex.”
Aimee wanted to cringe at the word, but instead she forced her gaze upward to meet his. “I mean something besides just a physical relationship.”
“Like what?”
“Who knows? Certainly not my paintings,” she said good-naturedly. “Other than my art, I don’t have much else.”
An odd expression crossed Peter’s face, but before she could define it, he turned away. He walked over to the French doors and stared out at the street below.
“Peter?”
“You’d better go on downstairs. I could do without another verbal thrashing from your friend.”
“But—”
“Go on, Aimee. You’ve been looking for a dealer to hook up with. Now’s your chance. You’ve got one waiting for you downstairs.” His voice was hard, almost cruel, with no trace of the gentleness of only moments before.
Aimee could almost feel the tension emanating from him. “I don’t need to go,” she offered.
“Of course you do.” He whipped around to face her. He looked tormented, haunted, as he did when he first awoke from one of his nightmares. “Liza might be right. This could be the big break you’ve been waiting for.”
“Then my big break can wait. If he’s a legitimate dealer and really interested in my work, he’ll wait for me or he’ll come back. I’d rather stay with you.”
“Not very smart, Aimee.” He ran his finger along the line of her jaw. “We both know you’ll never get that big break from me. And I certainly wouldn’t expect you to pass up the chance of being discovered just for a quick tumble on the sheets with me.”
Aimee gasped.
Peter knew at once that he had gone too far.
Her already pale skin had drained of color. Her ghostblue eyes shimmered with unshed tears, then sparked with a fury that turned them an eerie silver. Her fingers curled into tight fists at her sides, and for a moment, Peter thought she was going to slap him.
For a moment, a part of him wished she would.
Feeling lower than the belly of a snake, he started to touch her. “Aimee, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
She slapped his hand away. “Save your apologies. I don’t need them and I don’t want them.” She glared at him, her pale eyes glittering with anger. And pain.
Peter dropped his hand.
Shoving past him, she headed for the bedroom.
He had felt rotten deceiving her. He had seen the empathy in her eyes when he told her of his inability to offer her love. He had almost confessed the truth to her then. Hell, she’d made him wish he was capable of love. And that had made him angry.
Peter could hear the sounds from the other room. The water running in a basin, drawers opening and closing, a closet door sliding shut.
Stuffing his hands into his pants pockets, he paced the room and silently called himself all the names Aimee would never call him, simply because she was a southern woman and too much of a lady.
He deserved every one of them, and a whole lot more, for hurting her.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He had lashed out at her because he was angry with himself—not just because he was a lying rat, but also because he was a lying rat and she trusted him. The mention of her paintings as her only asset of interest to him had been like kerosene poured on an open flame, and had brought as volatile a reaction.
The world had suddenly turned red for him. An ugly red. Reminding him of Leslie. Her ambition. Her lies. Her ultimate betrayal. The two worlds had converged for a moment, and Aimee had been the artist desperate to be discovered. It had been Aimee seducing him, persuading him to promote her career. It had been Aimee’s lips whispering lies of love while she betrayed him with another man.
He’d hated her in that moment—for being an artist and hoping to be discovered—and he’d hated himself because he didn’t want her to be either. What he had hated most was the fear and panic that tore through him at the realization that her discovery would probably mean the end of their relationship.
He hadn’t wanted things to be over between them. Not yet. He had told himself it was because of the building. He was no closer to getting Aimee to sell it to him now than he had been six months ago. For one insane moment, he had been tempted to offer to launch Aimee, to make her into the star she longed to be. To do for her what he had done for Leslie.
It was the memory of his ex-wife that had sobered him. Realizing how close he had come to making such a mistake only fueled his anger. He had learned all too well just how cold and manipulative a woman could be—especially when the woman was an artist, an artist desperate to see her work mounted on a gallery’s walls.
Aimee would be no different.
“I thought you’d be gone by now.”
Peter glanced up at the doorway where she now stood. She’d washed her face, leaving the creamy skin free of makeup, her lips bare and still slightly swollen from his kisses. H
er cutoffs and T-shirt had been exchanged for a sarong-style skirt and matching top in several shades of rose. The sneakers had been replaced by a pair of metallic sandals that revealed toenails painted a soft shade of red.
His gazed traveled slowly upward, taking in the shapely legs, the curve of her hips, the swell of her breasts. Desire, hot and primitive, began to stir inside him again. Clenching his jaw, Peter fought back the urge to go to her, to take her in his arms, to strip away her clothes and bury himself inside her…to reaffirm that she was still his.
“I have to go. Liza and Jacques are waiting for me.” She started to walk past him.
“Aimee, wait.” Peter caught her arm.
She looked at his hand encircling her wrist and then up at him. “What? And miss my big break?”
Peter flinched inwardly. He deserved that.
Aimee drew in a deep breath and then released it. Her spine was as stiff and straight as a rod of steel. He searched her face. Her pale eyes looked huge and sad. For the first time since he had known her, Aimee’s eyes were devoid of laughter.
And it was his fault.
The realization made something twist painfully inside him, and he released her.
“You were right, Peter. I have been a fool. And I’d be an even bigger one if I passed up this chance. Do me a favor?”
“Anything,” he said, and meant it. He would have done anything for Aimee in that moment—marry her, put every one of her paintings on display in his gallery, launch a fullscale campaign to make her a star. It would have all been worth it if he could put the laughter back in her eyes, the smile back on her lips.
“Close the door on your way out. But don’t lock it. I don’t have any idea what I did with my key.”
And then she was gone.
And he was alone.
He listened to the sound of her sandals tapping softly on the narrow steps as she made her way down the stairway to meet the other art dealer…leaving him alone. Without her. Without the building.
He wanted to race after her.
He remained riveted to the floor instead.
It would be selfish of him to go after her. Aimee wanted love and marriage. He could offer only the latter, and then he would be doing so only because he wanted something else she possessed…something she did not consider an asset. The building.
Of course, he would compensate her fairly for the property when the time to divorce came. His sense of justice would demand it, even if Aimee wouldn’t.
Aimee deserved someone who would really love her, not a man incapable of the most basic of emotions. He remembered seeing her with Jacques, watching the way the big Frenchman looked at her.
The memory had him gritting his teeth. Peter clenched his fists, despising the thought of Aimee—his Aimee—with any man but him.
Yes, it would be selfish of him to go after her.
But then, he reminded himself as he started toward the stairs, he had always been a selfish bastard.
Four
“Here she is now,” Liza announced as Aimee entered the shop. “It’s about time you got here,” her friend said in a whisper when she reached her side. From the tone of Liza’s voice, Aimee knew the other woman was none too happy that she had not responded to her summons sooner. “I thought we should open the shop and he wandered in….”
Still smiling, Liza hooked her arm through Aimee’s and ushered her toward the center of the room, where another man stood with Jacques before a series of her paintings.
The art dealer, Aimee surmised, trying to muster some enthusiasm for the man studying several of her pieces that had been displayed in the shop. Six months ago she could have done so without effort. She would have been thrilled at the prospect of a dealer showing interest in her work. Now, still stinging from Peter’s words, she had to struggle for a modicum of excitement at the prospect. While she would have liked to place the blame for her lack of interest at Peter’s feet, she knew the fault lay with her—for falling in love with Peter in the first place.
“For heaven’s sakes, Aimee, smile,” Liza commanded in a hushed whisper, nudging her gently just before they came to a stop in front of Jacques and the other gentleman.
“Miss Lawrence, I’m Stephen Edmond of Edmond’s Gallery,” the man said, extending his hand. “Your friend Miss O’Malley—”
“Now, Stephen. I thought we agreed on Liza.”
Aimee arched her brow, surprised by her friend’s behavior. In the eight months she had known Liza, never once had the other woman given the least bit of encouragement to any of the men who had come her way. Not even the most ardent or handsome of her admirers had received so much as a grin of reciprocal interest. And yet here she was, dazzling this man with her toothpaste-perfect smile.
And dazzled he was, Aimee decided. Stephen Edmond positively preened. He smoothed back a nonexistent errant strand of golden hair along his temple, with a hand that Aimee would have bet was manicured weekly. Although she wasn’t a subscriber to GQ and wouldn’t know a Versace from a K-Mart special, she would have bet her favorite paintbrush that Stephen Edmond’s suit had cost him a mint.
“Liza,” he continued, “has been kind enough to show me some of your work, Miss Lawrence.”
“And he thinks it’s wonderful. Don’t you, Stephen?”
“Of course it is wonderful,” Jacques proclaimed, his deep voice and accent ringing with authority. Jacques marched over to the painting she had titled Starburst, an explosion of gold, silver and red streaks and splatters across a canvas of black. “Any fool with eyes in his head can see Aimee’s work has much passion,” the Frenchman declared. “One day she will be a great artist.”
Aimee’s already flushed cheeks burned even hotter. What she wouldn’t give for Liza’s long, thick hair right now, instead of her own self-styled pixie cut, Aimee thought, embarrassed by her friends’ tactics. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Stephen Edmond’s face.
“How perceptive of you, Jacques,” Liza quipped, her voice laced with a healthy dose of sarcasm. “Given your ego regarding your own work, I didn’t think you’d be able to admit Aimee’s work was better than yours.”
“Ah, but I did not say it was better, ma chére. And now that I am to give Aimee art lessons, I will teach her how to transfer the passion inside of her to the canvas. No doubt one day she will surpass her master.”
He shrugged, and the smile he gave Liza made him look like a rogue, Aimee thought, not sure whether she wanted to hug him or slug him, but grateful that he had at least stopped singing her praises to Stephen Edmond.
“But then, my true genius is not with the canvas and brush,” Jacques continued. “It is with the clay. I prefer to mold my creations with my hands,” Jacques said, gesturing with his fingers as he spoke. “Perhaps one day you will sit for me, Liza, and I will immortalize your beauty and fire in clay.”
Liza glared at him. Tipping up her chin, she turned to Stephen Edmond. “Of course, these are only a few of Aimee’s paintings. Some of her best work is still in her studio. Would you like to see them?”
“Liza…” Aimee chided her friend, embarrassed all over again. God, was her stuff that bad? That her friends had to practically force-feed this stranger with their praise? She cut a glance to Stephen Edmond, who was eyeing her paintings once again. If the man’s somber expression was anything to go by, it was worse than she had feared.
What she wouldn’t give for a rock to crawl under, Aimee thought. Maybe there had been more behind Peter’s re. fusal to consider her work than his stubborn stance about not wanting to mix business with pleasure. Could it be that her work simply didn’t measure up?
Recalling several pieces by Peter’s former wife that she had seen at an exhibit in New York years ago, Aimee had to admit that it probably didn’t.
The realization made her feel ill. Had she been fooling herself all these years, telling herself she had talent, dreaming that she could make it as an artist?
Another look at Stephen Edmond’s grim expr
ession as he continued to study each painting, and she couldn’t help but think that perhaps she had.
So how could she have even hoped that Peter would take on the work of an untalented nobody, when he had once represented a star like his ex-wife?
He not only hadn’t, he probably never would, Aimee admitted. Her chest ached at the admission.
And it was just as unlikely that Peter was going to fall in love with her, a voice inside her whispered. Because not only didn’t she measure up as an artist in Peter’s eyes, she probably didn’t measure up as a woman, either.
Had she been fooling herself about Peter and his feelings for her, the same way she had been fooling herself about her art? She had told herself that it was scars from his failed marriage that had made him so wary of love. She had told herself it was his cynicism about marriage in general that had made him so insistent she sign a prenuptial agreement. Was the real reason he was so sure their marriage wouldn’t last simply that he didn’t love her and never would?
The ache in her chest grew even more painful. Perhaps that was why he had been able to equate their lovemaking with sex, Aimee decided. For him, that was all it had been. While for her…
Aimee swallowed past the lump that had lodged in her throat. She blinked hard, refusing to give in to the tears that threatened. She wasn’t sure which was more painful—the realization that Peter didn’t love her and probably never would, or letting go of her dreams of making it as an artist.
“Personally, I like Aimee’s portraits best,” Liza said.
The other woman’s voice pulled Aimee from the bruising fog of self-discovery.
“I think one of the best things she’s ever done is a piece that she gave to me,” Liza continued, smiling. “It’s a portrait of a young boy. If you’d like, I’d be happy to show it to you,” Liza offered.
She deserved a good cry, Aimee told herself. And she intended to have one, just as soon as she ended this farce. Offering the man a smile that she was far from feeling and in no way matched the one her friend was wearing, Aimee decided to let the guy off the hook. “I’m sure Mr. Edmond’s not interested in seeing any more of my work, Liza.”
