by Ani Keating
Thirty nights. Two hearts. One fate.
American Beauty, Book 1
After her parents’ tragic deaths, Elisa Snow wanted nothing more than to escape her past. Eighteen and alone, she fled her quaint English village and moved to the United States. A starving science student by day and an artist’s muse by night, Elisa has slowly built a new life. She never dreamed she would lose everything again.
She’s one week from graduation when her visa is unexpectedly denied. Given thirty days to leave the country, she must face the one thing she cannot survive again—saying goodbye and leaving her home. Yet within minutes of her world shattering, she meets a man with the power to piece it back together.
After finishing his tour of duty in Iraq, Aiden Hale traded battlefields for boardrooms, becoming one of the most successful venture capitalists in the nation. But all his wealth can’t buy him reprieve from the horrific memories of war. The only thing that gives him peace is a painting of Elisa.
Drawn together by their invisible wounds, they begin a passionate affair as they race against the clock to defy their pasts—and fight for their future.
Earlier versions of this book were posted on the author’s blog under the titles of The Master’s Muse and 30 Nights of Snow, using the pen name Ani Surnois, and has since been extensively edited.
Warning: Contains a blistering exploration of desire, sacrifice and redemption…and love’s power to equalize us in ways laws cannot.
Thirty Nights
Ani Keating
Dedication
To my family… Always.
Acknowledgements
So many thank you-s to say, so few words adequate enough:
To the entire Samhain team, especially my editor, Tera Cuskaden, for taking a chance on this story (on my birthday of all days), helping it reach its full potential, supporting my vision and putting up with all my cover “ideas.”
To my agent, Stacy Lorts, for her tenacity, faith and ability to curb the highest highs and lowest lows of writing.
To my original editor, Selina McLemore, for her vision of my characters, mentorship and good-tough love.
To A.E. Norman for her advice on all things immigration and sisterhood over the years.
To my friends, Emily, Kerry and Arilee, for enduring my endless talks about “the book” and for loving me at my best and at my worst.
To my parents Peter and Stella, and my brother Andrew, for supporting every single one of my dreams, no matter how crazy, and for thinking I am the world’s best writer. I wouldn’t be where I am without you.
To my husband, Rob, for believing in me like no other, for doing the dishes for the last two years and for occasionally playing Aiden. I love you.
And last but not least, thank you to all the original readers and followers of this story when it was just a little dream posted online. Without your enthusiasm and encouragement, Thirty Nights may have never been finished.
Author’s Note
Thirty Nights is a fictional love story that was partially inspired by aspects of immigration law as they may have existed at the time the story was conceived and written. Each immigrant’s journey in the United States is different. It is shaped by law, practice, individual pasts, future goals and, above all, the kind-hearted Americans who welcome immigrants to this amazing land. Thirty Nights is not any specific immigrant’s journey or legal advice. It is an imaginary rendition of what could happen if we applied aspects of the law so stringently that it would sacrifice the very thing that bonds us: love.
Chapter One
The End
I walk into the cold federal office, gasping for breath. The air here has a slight tang to it that burns on the way down. The weight of the United States government permeates my skin, like pressure before a storm. The American flag hangs proudly over an immaculate desk where there is only a stack of Post-it Notes, a ballpoint pen and a stamp with red ink. I lay my binders on the desk and spread out the stacks of papers in neat, organized piles—my life, in pages and numbers. I sit on the stiff, wooden chair and rub the strap of my father’s Seiko watch to calm my shaking hands. Only three minutes left. I rehearse my talking points in my head one last time.
My name is Elisa Snow. I am twenty-two years old. I was born and raised in Burford, England. I am here on a student visa. My parents passed away when I was eighteen. That is why I moved here. This is my home. I go to Reed College. I graduate in one week. I majored in chemistry. I have developed a nutrient component that in small doses can deliver the equivalent nutritional sustenance of a serving of wild salmon. It can fight malnutrition with very little cost. Please let me stay. I do not plan to harm the United States. I have nowhere else to go.
The immigration officer walks in abruptly. He is wearing an efficient-looking brown suit and is carrying a single sheet of paper. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
“Miss Snow.” He nods curtly, sitting in the chair behind his desk. His chair is comfortable, padded, ergonomic. I open my mouth to begin, but he stops me.
“Miss Snow, I am sorry to inform you that we will not be approving your request for a work visa. Your qualifications are impressive, as is your invention. However, I am not convinced that it serves our national interest. This decision is final. Your J-1 student visa ends on the day you graduate, a week from today. I will grant you thirty days from graduation so that you can pack, say your goodbyes and return to Burford. Thank you for your contribution to our country.”
He stands up, seemingly unaware that he just ended the life I have painstakingly built here for almost four years. He stamps the single sheet of paper with red ink—DENIED—and hands it to me. But I cannot move my hands so he simply lets it drop on the stacks of paper that contain my entire life, from my birth certificate to my measly bank account statements.
“Take some time to collect yourself here,” he says as if he is giving me a gift, as if time to collect myself will make this right. He nods curtly one more time and leaves the office. The door closes behind him with a firm thud.
I have no thoughts. No words. My only goal at this moment is to draw in a breath. But that effort alone makes my nerves creak like rusty cables. The tangy air stings my lungs as the officer’s words did my brain. Suddenly, the image of my parents’ white caskets pops in my mind. I wasn’t there when they died. The only goodbye I wish I had. Instead, I get to say these other goodbyes to people who are still alive.
I leap to my feet, desperate for motion, for anything that will delay reality just a little longer. I stuff my papers into the binders, feeling an irresistible compulsion to burn them. Hot tears spring in my eyes, but it feels like giving this office the privilege of tears is too generous. I open the door and run down the hall in my roommate Reagan’s sensible pumps, making my way through the security line, past the men in uniforms and into the May morning with its signature Portland, Oregon, sprinkle.
Once I am outside, my knees give out and the tears start. I lean against the cold wall of the building, not giving a damn about curious passersby who are writing me off as hysterical. Because that’s what I am. There is nothing waiting for me in England. Nothing but my parents’ graves.
I take a deep breath and start reciting the periodic table to silence the sobs. Hydrogen, atomic weight 1.008. Helium, 4.003. Lithium, 6.94… For the first time in four years, the table does not calm me. It merely brings the rest of the world into focus. The smell of wet bark, the bluebirds, the phone beeping in my pocket… Oh, bloody hell, I have to be at work in thirty minutes. Not at the Reed chemistry lab where I have been developing my nutritional suppl
ement. My student visa only allows me to work twenty hours per week there. If I want to eat more than the protein I concoct in a vial, I need something else. I push away from the cold wall and wrap my mum’s scarf over my head. I start wobbling to Reagan’s MINI Cooper, trying to ignore the sidewalk rosebuds that this year, I will not see bloom.
Chapter Two
Cold Fire
I park the MINI in the parking lot of Feign Art—one of Portland’s finest galleries—snorting at the double entendre of its name. It tells the truth behind one of Portland’s best lies. Every painting in this gallery is sold under the name of the owner, Brett Feign. But in reality, he is not the artist. My best friend, Javier Solis, is. Like me, he is part of the immigrant community. Except he’s undocumented. He cannot work here under the law. So he ghost-paints instead, and I model for him sometimes, completely under the table. If the truth behind Feign’s fraud ever came out, Feign would be ruined and Javier could get deported. So we all keep our silence—for different reasons.
I get out of the car and leave the binders in the backseat. Who gives a damn about them anymore? At least I have managed to get my tears under control, although my eyes feel dry, as though I have not blinked for hours. There is no need to upset Javier. He will flip enough when he finds out. The thought of saying goodbye to Javier threatens my tenuous grip on breathing so I scurry as fast as I can across the parking lot to the gallery.
Kasia, the immaculate blonde receptionist, greets me with a glistening smile that looks nothing like the forced one she usually reserves for me. I think my subpar hand-me-down clothes offend her sensibilities. Bugger off, lady. I don’t have any money, and some of these are my mum’s and I’ll wear them until the day I die. But Kasia seems really happy about something today. One look to her right and the reason is obvious.
A tall man, dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, white shirt and cobalt-blue tie, is standing a few feet from her desk, scrutinizing a painting. His dark brown hair is swept back in casual waves. His eyes burn an intense sapphire blue. On the corner of his right eye is an inch-long scar, bleached by time. Beautiful in its savagery. Like something sharp could not resist his beauty but ricocheted at the last minute, desperate to mark him as its own, yet unable to defile him.
Attractive. Much, much too attractive. In fact, only someone so bewildering could reach me in this final hour. For a wild second, I wonder whether my brain has snapped and has created him, like a hallucination, to get me through the next thirty-seven days alive.
Despite his magnetic pull, something about his posture creates a force field around him. Untouchable. Distant. He stands straight, away from everything, his back angled toward the wall. His broad shoulders are tense, as though he senses an invisible, uninvited presence behind him. I scan the gallery, expecting to see something or someone other than Kasia. But it’s utterly empty, except a tall man, the size of Shaquille O’Neal, standing in the far corner like a security guard.
“Would you like something to drink, Mr. Hale?” Kasia simpers, her voice higher than usual. She sounds like she is faking a British accent. I snort.
“No, thank you,” he answers coldly, continuing to stare at the painting in front of him.
I follow his gaze and stop. I feel a twinge of satisfaction to see that he is looking at a painting of me. Not that he would know that. I never model my face, just random parts of my body. This painting portrays only the curve of my throat and jawline, my hair slightly swept back, exposing the skin. The rest of the canvas recedes into darkness. That’s Javier’s style—he never paints blatantly erotic things like breasts, arse, pubic hair. That’s not the point, he says. The point is to force the viewer to imagine the rest of the beauty. Good thing too. I couldn’t have posed naked for anyone, especially Javier. Today, we are painting my waist and left hipbone, but I have a long white sheet to cover the rest of me.
“We could probably have that painting done in color as well.” Kasia is melting. “But the artist feels that the black, white and gray colors allow the real beauty to shine through.”
He does not respond to her. I feel a tiny bit of sympathy for Kasia now. Really, anyone would be a mess. I need to leave, but suddenly I want to hear his voice again. It’s cold and cutting, as if every word is intended to crack a canyon between him and the world. But it’s also hypnotic. Like you would do anything it bid you to do.
My short-lived sympathy evaporates like smoke when Kasia turns to me with a raised eyebrow.
“Isa! Why are you standing there? You know Brett’s instructions. Cleaning ladies in the back.” She cocks her head to the side, pointing to the back door that leads to Javier’s secret studio.
Fuck off, Kasia. I start to walk away but Mr. Hale turns to see what has offended Kasia. He moves with paradoxical military grace. Fluid, yet erect. As if he expects to defend himself at any point but is confident about the outcome. He regards me intently, his eyes narrowing slightly at the corners. There is something endless about his eyes—like you enter through them and perhaps never come out. For a moment, I panic that he can see a similarity between me and the woman in the painting. That he knows it’s me.
But I recover quickly. There is nothing in the painting that can link its subject to me. That’s Javier’s point. That the woman on the canvas can be any woman, any fantasy, any emotion because only a small, unidentifiable part of her is exposed. Mr. Hale’s impassive face confirms Javier’s genius. He turns to Kasia and his voice is, impossibly, colder.
“I will purchase the painting. Is it part of a series?”
Kasia fumbles as she takes his credit card and hands him the purchase agreement. She blushes and stammers and finally manages, “Umm, no—I mean, yes. Yes, it is. The one you’re purchasing is the first. The artist is working on the final, and there are three others in the back. Would you like to see them?”
I know the other paintings. One is of my right shoulder and collarbone. The other one is just my belly. The last one is my left leg, knee down, standing on tiptoe.
“With the same model?” Mr. Hale asks.
“Yes—er, I mean, technically no. The artist says the model is not real, Mr. Hale. He imagined her.”
He does not speak. For an instant, I feel like I’m fading. Like I truly don’t exist here anymore. Adrenaline spikes in my blood and I have a compulsive urge to throw myself between them and say, It’s me! I’m the girl you want!
His voice whips through the air again. “I will buy them.”
Instantly, I feel the first warmth of the day. He kept me. I may be gone in a month but at least some parts of me are ending up on the wall of an earthly Adonis.
“I’ll call you when the final painting is finished, Mr. Hale,” Kasia gushes. She would have an easier time lifting the Portland Memorial Coliseum with her pinky than getting a reaction from him.
He starts reading the purchase agreement, and I get the feeling he is simply avoiding looking at her. “Double the price if it is finished by the weekend.”
Kasia’s mouth pops open. So does mine. Feign sells those paintings for $10,000 apiece. Of course, Javier gets only $400 and gives me $50. Who buys art without looking at it? At regular price, let alone double? Mr. Hale is now poring over the care guarantee agreement. Frustrated with his indifference, Kasia takes it out on me.
“Isa? Now.”
From my peripheral vision, I see his head whip up but I scuttle away to where Javier is waiting, not daring to look at the cold stranger.
Chapter Three
Home
I take the long, dark corridor to Javier’s studio, holding out my flashlight. Feign built this bloody hole as far from customers as possible. God forbid they see the true da Vinci! Javier is standing by an easel, mixing oil colors. They’re turning into a beautiful silvery gray that shimmers under the light pouring from the high window. A streak of paint has varnished one of the dark curls at his temple. The feeling of hom
e that I usually have around Javier settles over me like a childhood blanket.
He looks up and smiles. But at the sight of my face, his eyes turn a guarded, stormy black.
“How did it go?” He sounds like he is choking.
I don’t have to answer. A gust of breath leaves his lungs like he was hit by a wrecking ball. He marches to me in three long strides and pulls me tightly to his chest.
Javier smells like peppermint, soap and paint. I break down, my tears soaking his thin, worn T-shirt. He does not speak. He knows there are no words for it. His family sneaked across the Mexican border for a better life when Javier was just a teenager. This is the only safe home he knows.
“How long do you have?” he whispers.
“Thirty days after graduation.”
“So soon.”
It sounds like a lament. His heartbeat has slowed. Almost quiet. In sync with mine—like everything else between us.
It has always been like this with Javier, since we met on my first Christmas Eve without my parents and I couldn’t even look in the mirror because of my mother’s face staring back at me, waning from grief. We are both outsiders looking in on this land with wonder. We both want nothing more than to belong. He wants to come out of the shadows and I want a new start after my parents’ death. I hope he still gets his happy ending, even if I don’t have mine.
“There must be another way.” His voice takes on a sharp edge of rebellion.
“There is not, Javier. You know it as well as I do. I’ve used up all the practical training time under my visa. I tried every other work visa I could. The lab retracted the job offer after the H-1B visa didn’t go through. I don’t have enough money for grad school and almost all scholarships are for U.S. citizens. I’m too old to be adopted, and I haven’t won the green card lottery.”
