Unfortunately, apathy was the general consensus of the crowd circulating through the exhibition. Enthusiasm escalated when Harley arrived twenty minutes fashionably late, the furtive mutters hidden behind butt-kissing drivel about Drawing Breath’s new direction and destroyed artistic boundaries. But not one buyer had shown serious interest in acquiring Harley’s latest work.
Bree sipped her orange juice and watched the young woman with bright-blue hair and matching fuck-me heels who’d cornered Harley.
“I mean, like, it’s organic and so earthy with the ochre tones—and sensual, sure.” Her voice carried across the gallery as she fluttered her false eyelashes at Harley, all the while suggestively stroking the rim of her champagne glass. “But I think it’s lacking, you know, the deep spirituality and boldness of your Taonga exhibition two years ago.”
Harley, looking earthy and sensual himself in a rust-colored shirt and tan chino pants, bared his teeth in a you’re so young and adorably clueless smile.
She’d taken two steps forward to save Harley from Smurf Girl’s further analysis when someone tapped her shoulder.
“Yo, Bree?”
Ford rebalanced his hors d’oeuvres tray and gave a sideways glance to where Holly pointed a finger at her smiling face. His ferocious scowl vanished into a fake but charming grin. He gestured with his spare hand for Bree to follow him to a quiet spot under a display of her black-and-white photographs.
“Any bites?” he asked quietly. “Because if one more person says to me, ‘Oh, so you and Harley aren’t identical,’ I’m going to dump these beef and frickin’ mozzarella meatballs on their heads.”
“No bites.” Bree saw Ford’s fake smile and raised it to a lunatic grin while she checked to ensure no potential buyer was close enough to overhear. “Not even a nibble, so you and Holly can probably take off soon. I appreciate you staying so long to help, but other than a few Harley groupies, I think we’re nearly done.”
“This sucks.” The ferocious scowl returned. “You worked bloody hard to pull this off.”
“There are no guarantees in this business.” It was as diplomatic and upbeat as she could manage. Though he was right. It sucked.
She straightened her shoulders and took what she hoped was a confident, queen of all she surveyed glance around her nearly empty gallery. Two big guys blocked her line of sight to where Harley stood, but she assumed he was still talking to Smurf-Girl since Bree could hear the woman’s gratingly loud voice.
Five more minutes and then she’d make him do the final rounds of schmoozing with the last of the potential buyers and an Invercargill reporter typing away one fingered on her tablet. The country’s two biggest papers were represented earlier, but the Herald and Post reporters had left after the first hour—scenting, like the Great White sharks that circled Stewart Island, that Harley’s portrait was dead in the water.
Ford’s liquid-chocolate gaze softened. “I’m sorry just the same. I know how important this was to you.” He shook his head, mouth twisting into a grimace. “I don’t get it. It’s a bloody good painting. So they obviously wouldn’t know art if it bit them on the backside.”
“It’s different, unfamiliar. Sometimes, the unfamiliar is unappealing,” she said. “Sometimes it’s just a case of wrong time, wrong place.” Bree pressed her lips together, her heart giving a skittering lurch.
She’d likely cost Harley thousands of dollars by exploiting his generous nature and convincing him to show this piece here at the bottom of the earth, instead of in New York.
Ford gave a non-committal grunt and stuffed one of the meatballs into his mouth.
“Distract me for a moment,” she said as Ford chewed. “Have you and Harley made any plans to meet your other half-brothers? Or Craig?”
“Holly and I will head up to Christchurch for a few days after New Year’s. Visit her folks, meet the younger Taheres if they’re back in the country, and see what my old man has to say for himself—three birds, one stone.” He slid her a calculating glance. “I can borrow a mate’s car and you and Harley could come along. Like a double date.”
Bree rolled her eyes as she took a sip of orange juice. “What are we, seventeen?”
But she couldn’t deny a road trip with Harley, Ford, and Holly sounded fun—even though Harley had admitted he had no idea how long it would take to even begin to repair the estrangement with his biological father.
She laid a hand on Ford’s arm and squeezed, keeping her gaze pointed out at the diminishing crowd so he wouldn’t guess how badly she wanted the normalcy of a few days away with her man and her friends. That she wanted pot-luck dinners. And days at the beach, watching Harley and Ford play beach cricket with Carter. And alternating Christmases at their home where they’d have a real Christmas tree, and she’d have to hide Harley’s gifts like a super-secret-agent-samurai-spy because the man couldn’t be trusted not to ransack their house searching for them.
Stupid, wishful daydreams.
She cleared her throat, which was suddenly thick with suppressed emotion. “Speaking of that particular devil, I’d better get him to make one last appearance.”
“Good luck with that.” Ford angled his chin in the direction where she’d last seen Harley. “Looks like he’s about to do a runner.”
Bree drained the last of her orange juice and placed the empty glass on Ford’s tray. She turned to go, but a light touch on her arm stopped her.
“He’ll need you along if we make that trip in January—hell, he needs you, full stop.” Ford’s gaze bored into her. “The same way I need Holly.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.” Since Ford and Holly were crazy in love.
“You should. You’re his cornerstone, his rock-solid foundation.” His mouth pulled down in a speculative frown. “Though the real question is, is he yours?”
Ford’s words fired a quivery little shaft deep into her heart, and she bled from the lacerations they caused. Could she ever trust Harley completely? Enough to build her life—and her unborn child’s life—around him? Her gut lurched, and she knew she’d be making a run for the bathroom before she intercepted Harley.
Because she was terrified the answer was no.
***
Kellie, the blue-haired woman, launched into a lecture of Minimalism versus Post Impressionism, most of which Harley tuned out. His heart ached at Bree’s strained smile as she chatted with people while pretending everything was hunky-dory—as his dad would say.
He didn’t give a shit that buyers and critics hadn’t wanted Drawing Breath, but he hated to see taut lines bracketing Bree’s mouth, the disappointment in her eyes as she watched Jean take the details of another painting sold that wasn’t Harley’s. What he hated more was being unable to reassure her that everything would be okay—at least, not until the gallery emptied out completely and they could be alone.
His butt vibrated with an incoming text. Since Kellie blocked his exit and had warmed to her subject matter by gesticulating at other displayed paintings, Harley slid the phone out of his back pocket and sneaked a peek at the screen.
Monica Brown: Call me, ASAP. Don’t BS me with time difference, I know it’s only 4:00 p.m. there.
In a choice between a conversation with his ball-busting art dealer and Kellie, who’d gotten a little grabby misinterpreting Harley’s bored smile for an invitation to cop a feel of his biceps with an, “Oooh, you’re really buff for an artist,” Harley opted for his dealer.
At least she couldn’t literally grab him by the junk to get his attention.
“Excuse me.” He eased past the woman, narrowly missing her bluebell-tattooed left breast—she’d over-shared that little nugget of information, but at least she hadn’t yanked down her already low-cut dress to show him. “I’ve got an urgent call to make. Nice meeting you.”
He didn’t wait to gauge her reaction, just slipped into Bree’s studio, praying the “Staff Only” sign would keep Kellie from following. He opened the back door, needing the smell of damp vegetat
ion and brine after two hours of suffocating on every perfume type known to womankind. Except Bree—while other women apparently bathed in the stuff, she’d smelled like spicy flowers…and of him. Yeah, he was caveman enough to be smug that his woman smelled faintly of his cologne. He’d given her one hell of a good-luck kiss thirty minutes before the exhibition started, pinning her to the wall until she’d made those cute little do-me-now moans into his mouth.
Leaning against the door frame, he tapped his art dealer’s number.
“Harley, that was fast, how the hell are ya?” Monica’s slightly nasal voice blasted down the phone, as always speaking as if she had a very important meeting to be at ten minutes ago.
“I’m good. How are your boys?” Meaning her two apricot-colored pugs that had the temperaments of tiny dictators since Monica spoiled them rotten.
Monica gave a rapid-fire description of Vincent and Pablo’s latest adventure, which involved a first date with a banker she’d met in Starbucks, a pair of lace underwear, and a visit to an after-hours veterinarian.
“Speaking of underwear.” The gooey fur-mommy evaporated out of her voice, replaced with the savvy Manhattanite once again. “Down to business. Pink panties girl is a bust. I can’t sell it; I doubt anyone can sell it. It’s just too damn different from your normal style.”
“So I’ve been hearing all afternoon.”
A snort down the line, coated with disdain. “Right. I read the e-mail about your little exhibition. What a headline—hometown boy exhibits at a backwater gallery no one in the art world has ever heard of. Rewind, too long. How about ‘From NYC to NZ: One Man’s Journey to Artistic Suicide’?”
“I like what I’m doing now,” he said.
“Nobody else does, so wake up and smell the cadmium red drying before you ruin everything you’ve worked for. When are you coming back—next week? I hope it’s next week, because we’ll examine your catalogue, plan a fresh take, but not too fresh, if you know what I mean, for next year. I’ll put a spin on it with my contacts, tell them you’ve been fucked up over family issues—sympathies about your mom, of course, did you get my flowers?—and that you’re back in the game for summer.”
“I’m not coming back.”
A shocked silence, during which Harley could almost hear a fuse crackling as it burned down towards dynamite.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? I wasn’t kidding about the artistic suicide, Harley. Your career’s dead in the water if you leave New York, especially if you continue to produce this paint-by-numbers portrait shit. The community will forgive you for one, maybe two indulgences, but no more. Get back to what you do best, what you love.”
Harley shook his head, even though Monica couldn’t see him. “What I do best, what I love, is the process. Not when my work becomes a product for you to barter for the greatest dollar amount. I’m not the same young, angry artist who transferred his personal shit to canvas anymore, nor the same man I was a year ago.”
Nope. And what this Version 2.0 of himself did best—both man and artist—was focus on the one thing he loved most. Bree. Even if he chose to only paint rainbows and unicorns and different variations of Bree’s face, he’d be happy. Even if he never sold another goddamn canvas.
“If you’re determined to stay in your little provincial paradise”—the temper in Monica’s voice melted into treacly tones—“where will you sell your work? Surely not at that tiny little souvenir shop that has grand aspirations of being a real gallery? Or maybe that’s been the pretty owner’s plan all along. A Harley Komeke original, no matter how banal and bourgeois, would earn her more commission than she’d make in a year of hawking trinkets and talentless watercolors.”
It shouldn’t surprise Harley she’d done her homework scoping out the competition, although Bree’s gallery had never been a threat to Monica’s New York contacts. Now he remembered why, back when he’d been hungry for success, he’d wanted her as his dealer. She always went for the jugular.
“Bree’s not like that.” While not a threat to Bree’s livelihood—the gallery was small potatoes compared to even the most niche New York counterpart—he didn’t want Bree in Monica’s crosshairs.
“What is she like then—oh shit, are you kidding me? Tell me you’re just banging this woman and not imagining you’re in love with her?”
The thud of blood slamming into his eardrums made Monica’s voice sound as if it came from a distance farther than New York City.
“I’m not imagining anything.”
Another snort, this one laced with venom. “You’ll come crawling back to me, begging to paint your personal-shit canvases because what happens when your bland-as-oatmeal crap doesn’t make her any money? What happens when you grow bored with blondie and jump into the next hottie’s bed? You’ll be forced to display your canvases on the roadside because she won’t let you hang them in her gallery.”
“My canvases won’t be displayed on any roadside,” he ground into the phone, “because I own this building now. I own Bree’s gallery—”
The tiniest whimper behind him severed the last part of his sentence. He turned to a wide-eyed Bree, standing frozen behind him, face milk-pudding pale, her throat muscles working convulsively, as if she were about to—
With another groan, Bree ran up the stairs.
“I have to go, Monica. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He hit the end button.
Yet again he’d officially screwed things up with epic proportions.
Chapter 19
Bree hadn’t meant to eavesdrop—honestly. But Harley was facing away from her in the doorway, phone to his ear. He hadn’t heard her hurry across the studio or notice when she’d come to a comical stumbling halt at the sound of her name.
Bree’s not like what?
She’d hesitated, her stomach slow rolling, but not at the point of upending over her hot-pink killer heels worn especially for today. She vacillated between the embarrassment of being caught, and the urge to find out why he was discussing her with someone on the other end of the line. So she’d hesitated. A few moments too long.
I own this building now. I own Bree’s gallery.
Bree reached the last stair and grabbed the handrail, hooking off one pink heel and then the other. The bathroom had never looked so far away. Heat pulsed in her face, her mouth filling with bitter saliva.
Harley had bought her gallery? The thought spun in her head like a dervish as she slapped the door open and fell to her knees in front of the toilet. She gripped the porcelain, tears squeezing from her eyes. Another wave of nausea rolled through her, and she arched like a hissing cat, heaving into the bowl.
“Baby.” Harley’s voice from right behind her as he drew the curtain of her hair away from her face and gathered it into one hand. “I’m sorry.”
His other hand stroked her shoulders, both soothing and a reminder that, God, she was puking her guts out. Harley didn’t want anything to do with all the glamorous stuff that came with a woman being pregnant—the morning sickness, swollen ankles, murderous mood swings and weird food cravings. She flinched away from his touch, managing to gasp, “Go away,” before her stomach revolted again.
Harley remained crouched at her side and passed a small towel to her when she finally flushed the toilet and rocked back to rest on her heels.
Bree wiped her mouth with shaky hands, unable to bear looking at him. “I’m okay now; please go back downstairs and continue to mingle. I’ll be there soon.”
“Fuck mingling. I’m not leaving you like this.”
He stood with the kind of easy male grace that almost made her forget she wasn’t only weak-limbed from vomiting, but shocked and mad as hell. He extended a hand down to her. Bree ignored it, and injecting as much touch me and you’ll die a slow and painful death into a glare as possible, used the towel rail to help her stand instead. Since her breath probably smelled like a baby dragon breaking wind, she crossed to the sink and loaded up her toothbrush.
Scrubbing her teeth with a vigour
that came close to removing enamel, Bree kept her gaze from meeting Harley’s in the mirror mounted above the sink. He’d moved back to give her a little space in the tiny room. A smart man, considering she’d plenty of ammunition in the form of lotion bottles and moisturizer jars. He leaned a safe distance away against the shut bathroom door.
“You overheard me talking to Monica.”
His question that wasn’t a question sent another flush of heat surging into her cheeks.
She spat a mouthful of minty foam into the sink then finally met his gaze in the mirror. Communicated, “That’s right, asshole,” by squinting her eyes half shut at him while she continued brushing.
“That’s not the way I’d intended you to find out. I was going to talk to you tonight.”
Bree eyed the large bottle of body lotion on the sink counter as she spat one last time and rinsed her toothbrush. She’d never been much of a thrower, unlike her mother, who’d once smashed every plate in their kitchen when she’d discovered Bree’s father had opened a secret bank account under his own name. Right now, the image of exploding bottles and white goo splattering all over Harley’s faux-contrite face was very appealing.
She turned, resting her butt against the sink counter, gripping the edge as if letting go would mean plummeting a hundred meters to a gruesome death.
“You planned to tell me tonight that my mother sold you this building?” Her voice was so calm and level she could’ve considered a career move into television disaster reporting.
His shoulders shifted a fraction downward. “She did. I signed the papers—”
Bree held up a palm. “Back up a little for me. When did you contact my mother?”
Harley’s mouth opened, and she switched the stop palm to a pointing finger.
“One sentence answers. Please.”
That earned a look both frustrated and hot, which said he was moments away from risking her bad aim and lunging for her. “In Christchurch at the hotel.”
Bree recoiled a little; she couldn’t help it. He’d made love to her over and over in that beautiful hotel room and then gone behind her back? “And she sold it to you for the same amount she wanted me to pay?”
Drawing Me In: A New Zealand Secret Baby Second Chance Romance (Due South Series Book 7) Page 27
