by Penny Ward
In front of me the first draft of the story glows on the computer screen, the battle now over between the journalist and her conscience, with the underdog coming out on top:
The Silent Painter
I would be the last person to say that the billionaire recluse Jackson Windsor is a good guy.
I have always said just the opposite.
Up until recently I didn’t know anything else about him except for his sordid past.
A past that is laden with alleged involvements in illegal diamond mining, forced labor and torture camps. Jackson Windsor might be one of the richest and most mysterious men in the world, but the high flying and handsome tycoon also has a secret...a deep, dark secret that I was determined to uncover as soon as I stepped through the grand doorway of his lavish cedar mansion on an isolated coastline of Vancouver Island…
I’ll never forget the moment when I first saw those magnificent walls, the beautiful array of canvases adorning them that had instantly taken my breath away.
There’s an unusual scope of genius in his artwork that many artists only aspire to achieve.
A genius that I also hope Windsor will one day choose to share and entrust to the world.
Thus, instead of a young, greedy and guilty tyrant, I found a lonely billionaire.
His dark secret…merely an ability to paint…
And so the article goes on, everything there in full detail except for what I went to the mansion to find out in the first place.
My conscience is what ultimately swayed me.
I just couldn’t do it to Jackson.
I just couldn’t write the whole story without his permission.
So I published it void of the mine collapse and the deaths of the three hundred miners, focusing instead on a forlorn billionaire who prefers to live out his days as a brilliant artist in seclusion.
A billionaire whom I also hope will one day share his mastery with the rest of us, entrusting the meaning of his canvases to the world.
In the end it is Jackson’s story to tell.
Not mine.
When I’d given Hank the final draft of the story along with a half forged interview transcript, I was prepared for the fallout.
I’d already decided that if he were going to demote me back to being a ‘How To’ girl, then my time at Leading Edge Press would be over.
I’d simply walk out and never look back.
But when it came down to the crunch, Hank didn’t have the balls to do it.
In fact, he barely said a word for the entire time I was sitting in his office.
He just took the story from me, made a few grammatical corrections and an extra paragraph break, and then handed it back.
Not one comment on its content.
It was very un-Hank like and rather unsettling, to be honest.
“Maybe Hank’s wife left him?” Sophia suggests, handing me the mug of steaming hot coffee.
We’re taking some time out on one of the lime green sofas to find our “inner inspiration.” Well, that’s what we’re masking our gossip session as anyway.
“No. I don’t think it’s that,” I say, blowing on the coffee before taking a sip. “I got the impression it was something work-related. He didn’t seem sad, just indifferent. It was weird.”
“Yeah, it sounds it. I haven’t seen him this morning yet, but he cancelled the staff meeting for today.”
“What? Why?”
“No idea. He just sent an email saying there were changes happening and it was TBC.”
Changes happened?
To be confirmed?
Hank didn’t mention any of that earlier.
What the hell is going on?
I’m about to question Sophia further about it when I notice him like a shadow out of the corner of my eye.
No, it can’t be.
Not here.
13
“Whoa. Is that who I think it is?” I hear Sophia ask, but I’m already standing, the tall and navy blue pinstripe suit gaiting towards me.
He stops just a few steps away, his warm hazel eyes beaming at mine.
“Hello, Claire,” he states indubitably, a classic smirk carved on his lips.
It takes me a few moments to process that he’s really here, that he’s really towering in front of me in all his handsome grandeur.
“Hello, Jackson,” I say softly, unable to break away from his cavernous gaze. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to stop by and ah—” he pauses when he notices Sophia eavesdropping on the couch behind me, along with about ten other people who are dotted around the communal workspace.
“I wanted to see if you were free for lunch,” he continues in a lower octave.
Lunch?
Something tells me he hasn’t flown all the way over from Canada just for that.
“Lunch? Um…sure. Wait. No, I can’t,” I sigh. “Hank won’t let me. He’s a real stickler for breaks outside allocated hours.”
“Oh that’s not a problem,” Jackson says with a toss of his head. “Hank’s been fired.”
“What? Hank’s been fired? How do you know that?”
“Because I’m the one who fired him.”
“But, how could you possibly have been able to do that?”
“Because I bought the paper.”
“You bought the paper? As in this paper, Leading Edge Press?”
“Yes, Claire,” he says, the grin on his face making me feel a little stupid, although, on the other hand, I had absolutely no idea that any of this was even going on.
I throw him a look of open confusion. “Sorry, I’m not sure I’m processing all this right. I thought Hank was an old family friend of yours?”
“He is.”
“So why would you fire him?”
“It wasn’t a personal decision, Claire. It was business. He wasn’t the right fit for here. You said back at the mansion that you didn’t like the direction he was taking the paper in. It turns out a few other managerial staff members didn’t either. So I negotiated with the owner and here we are. I thought you’d be happy about the change?”
“I am. But, I mean…it’s just that…Hank was a good editor. I don’t think he deserved to be fired.”
“Don’t you worry about Hank. I gave him a job at another magazine I own – he’ll be fine. And it’s better than anyone else would have offered him.”
“Right,” I nod, still letting it all sink in.
No more Hank.
No more sexism.
No more old-school ways of thinking affecting the news stories.
Wow, things will certainly be different around here.
“So who’s running the paper now. You?” I ask Jackson hesitantly.
“Me? Run a paper? I don’t know the first thing about journalism let alone how to be an editor. I was going to offer you the job actually,” he pronounces, his eyes dancing on mine.
“Me?” I practically squeak. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly,” he says with a wink.
“And so I’ll just be corresponding with you via video link from Canada?”
“From Canada? Oh, I won’t be in Canada.”
I feel my heart drop into my stomach.
He won’t be in Canada?
Why?
Where’s he going?
“I’ll be here in New York,” he carries on. “I’m moving back here, Claire.”
I feel the relief surge through me instantly, a wide smile carving onto my face.
“You’re moving to New York?” I reiterate, making sure I’ve heard him right so I don’t get my hopes up.
“Yes.”
“Why? I mean, what made you change your mind?”
“You,” he states clearly, like he suddenly doesn’t care who can hear us. “You were right about me being too cooped up in that mansion. It wasn’t good for me. I was long overdue for a breather.”
“It makes me really happy to hear you say that,” I tell him, still beaming from ear to ear
.
“I’m going to hold an art exhibition too in a couple of months. I’m going to ‘entrust my genius to the world’.”
“You ready my article?” I laugh at him, my jaw starting to get sore from all the smiling.
“Of course I read your article. What do you think got me on the plane over here in the first place?”
He takes a step forward to fill the space between us, tenderly cupping my face in his hands and gazing deeply into my eyes like he’s finally found what he’s been searching for in them.
“So how about that lunch date, Miss Hudson?”
14
Two months later…
There’s a painting hanging in the gallery that I haven’t seen before.
A languid and ethereal blue hued image of a woman with long golden hair and only a bed sheet draped over her.
Her head is turned away so that you can only see a side profile of her face, whilst a four-poster antique bed sits in the background.
“It’s you,” Jackson whispers in my ear, enfolding his arms around my waist.
I smile and tilt my face up to his.
“I guessed that,” I reply silkily before softly kissing him. “It’s beautiful. When did you paint it?”
“I started it the day you left the mansion. I figured if I couldn’t get you out of my head, then the next best thing was to take all those thoughts and just…draw them.”
I look around at the multitude of Jackson’s paintings, the light and dark images that have captivated almost everyone in here.
From New York’s highest elite to New York’s hippest youth, all different levels of society have come to the gallery to see the emotions bleeding from his canvases.
Last week he’d held a press conference and come clean about the mine collapse.
He’d told it to the American public much the same way as he’d told me that morning back at the mansion – in his own words.
He didn’t hold back on the waver in his voice, or the water in his eyes, or his deep regret over the three hundred miners who had died on his watch.
And just like I thought they would, the majority of the world seemed to forgive him, calling for justice to be brought to those executive staff and engineers who were negligent.
But Jackson’s answer to them was that all wrongs had already been rectified.
The families involved were rightly compensated for their loss, the guilty employees’ contracts terminated and profiles blacklisted, and the mines shut down in the necessary and standard protocol.
Jackson had also revealed at the conference the meaning behind his paintings and the comfort they had given him over the dark period in his life.
In them hid his pain over the miners’ deaths that had cost him some of his humanity.
People had come in droves to the gallery after that conference, hundreds upon hundreds of people interested in what this billionaire recluse had to offer in terms of not just his artistry but his empathy, remorse and ultimate salvation through painting.
“None of this would be here if it wasn’t for you,” Jackson says, his hands tightening on my waist.
There’s a profound sincerity in his eyes that I haven’t witnessed before.
We’ve been dating for just over two months now, and in that time I’ve come to know him even more intimately.
There aren’t a lot of faces of his that I don’t recognize.
“I owe you everything, Claire,” he then utters quietly. “You’re my only inspiration now. And I’m so completely in love with you because of that.”
I give his hands a loving squeeze and feel the tears welling up.
I can’t remember the last time I ever felt this happy.
Every now and then I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not still lost up there in the clouds.
“I’m so in love with you too, Jackson,” I say, trying not to choke up.
As we hug each other close I think back to the days when Jackson Windsor was just a jerk in one of my articles, a villain who I would spend hours upon hours trying to dig up dirt on.
And all the while he’d been nothing of the sort, hiding away in his glorious mansion by the sea, painting his sorrow in beautiful sketches and crying into the night as the nightmares of his time in Zimbabwe gripped him.
I said once that the two of us together was completely out of the realms of possibility.
But as he kisses me again, I realize that we were meant to be…
15
After the highs of the gallery opening, we end up back at his inner-city penthouse apartment. Both of us are buzzing at the success of his paintings…
When we inevitably reach the bedroom, he reaches out and strokes my face, “This feels right.”
I close my eyes and lean into his hand.
I can’t believe all this has happened to me.
It is unbelievable.
The man I attacked for so long has become the man of my dreams.
“Why me?”
The question just comes out of my mouth without thought.
He blinks a few times, “Pardon?”
“Why me?” I repeat myself.
“I don’t understand,” he shakes his head confused.
“You can have any woman you want, why me? Why choose me above everyone else?”
He shakes his head, “That’s a strange question after the night we’ve had.”
“I just feel like this is it… this is our future now,” I try to explain myself.
“I wanted you because… because there was something real about you. Something that said that you weren’t blinded by the money. You didn’t care about my reputation or my money. You attacked me right from the start. I wanted to meet you because I knew that your reaction to the truth would be real. It wouldn’t be blinded by anything else. And then after we met…”
“Yes?”
“After we met, I was blown away. Not only are you beautiful and have the greatest smile I have ever seen, but you were… genuine. I felt like there was something between us right away. I don’t know what it was but I know that it made my heart beat faster than it does after a session in the gym. And that was just the start.”
“Go on,” I smile.
“These last two months have been the best two months of my life. With you, I feel like I can be the real me. I don’t have to put on a disguise and pretend to be someone I’m not. I don’t have to live up to someone’s expectation about what I should be.”
“That’s beautiful,” I whisper.
“With you, I can be me.”
Those words make my heart melt.
It is the most perfect sentence I have ever heard.
“With you, I can be me,” he repeats himself and I almost collapse on the spot.
He grabs my neck and pulls me in for a kiss. It’s the sweetest kiss that I’ve ever known. It sends me to another place.
His lips are filled promises of a future that will blow me away.
The kiss intensifies and I become lost in the passion.
Our hands race over each other as the passionate kiss becomes hotter and hotter. Our embrace becomes a wrestle as we tear the clothes off each other. Quickly, we are in a naked embrace.
Yes.
Time for talk is over.
It is now time for action.
He lies on his back and I marvel at his stunning body again. Abs, chiseled chest, strong arms… delicious.
And then there’s his member…
It’s so big and beautiful and he’s already standing upright.
My body comes over the top of his and I play with his nipples as I stare at him.
I can’t help but grin as I enjoy this body.
There are so many places I want to touch and play with and right now he’s all mine.
His length rests against my stomach and I stroke it with one of my hands. He groans deeply with a massive smile stretched across on his face.
“Sensitive today?” I ask playfully.
“I need you,” h
e moans.
My hand gently brushes up and down his piece and he continues to groan. I love that I can do this to him. I love it that I make him this hard.
“I have been wanting your beautiful body from the moment I saw you tonight. I wanted to pull you into the bathroom in the gallery and fuck you senseless.”
“You should have stayed.” I grin.
I lower myself down his rock-hard body and wrap my warm lips around his cock. The blood practically surges to the tip.
“Ooooh… Your mouth… that mouth,” he groans as he grabs my hair.
I take more of him inside of my mouth, not wanting to tease him mercilessly this time around.
It feels so good to have his hardness in my mouth.
I take as much of him as I can inside and move my tongue across his shaft.
His grip tightens on my hair and he pulls me up, “Yes. Fuck yes. Yes Claire. That’s it.”
My tongue dances around his tip and he almost jumps off the bed. I love that I can do this to him. I love that I have the ability to make him uncontrollable with desire.
“I need you,” he moans.
“Say please,” I tease him.
“I need you… please.”
“That’s better,” I smile and I move up his body, slowly drifting my breasts over his skin. With each touch, he seems to be getting harder.
I straddle his body and gently rub my wetness over the tip of his cock.
“Please,” he begs me.
“As you wish,” I exhale as I slowly slide down his pole.
My body immediately reacts as it’s stretched.
Yes…
I settle on his hardness for a few moments and let my pussy adapt to his hugeness.
Then, it begins.
Oh yes, it begins.
It doesn’t take us long to get into the rhythm. We lose ourselves in one another.
There is a sensitivity between, it’s the same sensitivity that he showed me the first night we were together, but it’s amplified.
He flips me over on the bed, and withdraws from me. Standing at the end of the bed while I lie waiting, his eyes adore my body.
