by Ciara Knight
Josh smiled. “We can negotiate, but I have initial approval from my client to pay around twenty thousand dollars for all rights to the artwork.”
Connie’s eyes sparkled as she glanced down at her, and Lily suppressed a groan. It seemed the goddess of ocean romance had a poor sense of humor. Bringing a handsome businessman to her front door with a painful reminder of her failures was in bad taste in Lily’s opinion. Great, she was living one of her paintings. Perhaps she should have been kinder to her subjects.
Connie looked back at Josh and offered her hand. “Not a penny under twenty-five thousand.”
No one was going to pay that much for a washed-up artist’s work.
Josh slid his hands into his pocket and rocked onto his heels. “I’m not sure I can go that high.”
“Then I’m not sure she can sketch what you need. Good day, Mr. Raymond.”
“Fine.” Josh removed his hands from his pocket and held them in front of him.
Lily shook her head. “What?”
Connie shot her an evil glare to shut her mouth. “She’ll do it.”
Chapter Two
Josh shook Connie’s hand, thankful this excursion was over and he could get out of this nowhere beach town and tiny cottage that smelled of paint and stale coffee. All he had to do now was give Ms. Holt the client’s list of revisions and wait for the end result. “Great. I’ll have my firm draw up the papers and have them sent to you.”
“Wait,” Connie said. “You traveled all the way here just to ask if you could use that old picture? Couldn’t you have sent an email or something?”
“My client was concerned about the image getting spread around if we sent a copy digitally. In advertising, you always have to be a step ahead of your competition.”
“You must really need this drawing, then.”
The twinkle in Connie’s eye gave Josh the feeling she was well-versed in negotiating. “Actually, I need a variation of this drawing. This one is faded and a little distorted, but we need something with the same passion, same emotion.”
“I can’t.” Ms. Holt stood, grabbed a mug from the table and disappeared outside, taking his hope of saving his company with her. Between the agent’s negotiating skills and the artist’s obvious reluctance, this wasn’t turning out to be the cakewalk he had hoped it would be. He needed to seal this deal. It had to be that image. He’d already shown it to the client who loved it and was ready to sign on the dotted line for a multimillion-dollar contract if he could get the artist to do the requested changes. This one contract would finally get him out from under his father’s thumb. His old man never let him forget that he’d loaned Josh the money to start his company. Not to mention his father had only agreed to the loan if Josh promised to return to the family business if he failed. Vacuum cleaners, he thought with disgust. There wasn’t anything wrong with making vacuum cleaners, something his family had been doing successfully for generations, but it just wasn’t for him. He’d only ever felt suffocated under the weight of monotony in that job. He needed something with more creativity.
“Hey.” Connie snapped her fingers in front of his face and he blinked. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll talk to my sister.”
He saw his opportunity slipping away as she headed toward the back door. He couldn’t let that happen. Snagging Connie’s arm, he said, “Let me talk to her.”
Connie eyed him then the door. “You don’t know my sister. She can be…stubborn.” When he still didn’t release her arm, she sighed. “Fine. I think you’re digging your own grave, but at least she can’t bury you too deep in all that sand.”
Chalking the woman’s warning up to sarcasm, Josh made his way around the easel to the back door, spying a horrific painting of a grotesque house as he passed. It was lifeless and flat, nothing like the image in his hand. He couldn’t paint a stroke, yet he knew that wasn’t any good. Was this even the same artist? His enthusiasm at hiring the woman who had created such a magical image was fading quickly.
He yanked the back sliding door open and stepped out onto a rickety wooden porch. The sand-laced breeze lashed at his skin and the sun shone bright in a clear sky, blinding him for a moment. He snagged his sunglasses from his coat pocket and covered his eyes.
Lily stood at the railing, looking out over the ocean. Her long, wavy blonde hair tied with a hair band, hung halfway down her thin back. It was beautiful, natural. Nothing like the other artists he’d met in the city. They always seemed to dye their hair every color of the rainbow and cut in the newest style, whether it suited them or not.
“I don’t mean to pry, but is there a reason you don’t want to sell this piece of art? Is it the money?” Josh eyed the peeling paint and dented metal downspout. Certainly twenty-five thousand would be enough to fix up this place. He clenched his fist. He was sick of money-hungry women. “I can talk to my client about offering more…”
“No. That’s more Connie’s thing. I’m happy if I can just paint or sketch what I want. Living in a small cottage on the beach, it’s perfect for me.” Lily didn’t look at him, her words only carrying softly on the wind. Nothing about her seemed forced or fake, yet there had to be some reason she was so reluctant.
If there was anything he knew how to do, it was to win a woman’s affection with a little charm. He scooted closer and eyed her half-empty mug. “Perhaps I can buy you a cup of coffee and we can discuss the terms, maybe come to some arrangement that will suit both of us.”
For a moment, he thought he’d lost her as her gaze traveled over the vast ocean. Her expression looked as though she would rather be anywhere but standing on that porch talking to him.
Then she turned and smiled, mischievous and beautiful. “Okay.”
Before he ended up stammering and embarrassing himself, he cleared his throat then said, “I’ll drive.”
“We don’t drive around here.” She batted her long, dark lashes at him.
“We don’t?” he asked, not liking where this was leading.
She shook her head. “Nope. Follow me.” She sashayed through the back door with an inspired look and her head held high. “We’ll be back.”
Connie stood in the center of the room with her mouth hanging open. “Where are you going?”
Lily set her mug down on the counter. “For coffee.”
Connie narrowed her gaze on Lily. “You wouldn’t.”
Josh hesitated. “Should I be concerned?”
Connie smacked her forehead and sighed. “You have no idea. This girl will do anything for a good cup of coffee.” Dropping her hands to her sides, she said, “Listen, I’ll go get it. You two can stay here and talk.”
“No coffee, no conversation.” Lily winked at her sister, and he knew there must be some joke between them. Whatever Lily thought she could do to get rid of him, it wouldn’t work. If he could hold his own against his father, he could in any area of life.
“I’ll be fine. Let’s go,” he said, his chin high.
“Great!” Lily spun around and headed for the door. “Follow me.”
Connie groaned from behind them. “There goes the commission money.”
They exited into a carport lined with several shelves. Instead of a car, two bikes occupied the wall and a golf cart filled the center of the space, and he realized he was about to be taken on one heck of a ride if he was going to earn this image.
“What’s wrong? You can stay here if you want.” Lily climbed onto her bike. “Perhaps that’s for the best anyway. We wouldn’t want you to mess up that fancy suit of yours. You probably have big important things to be doing as well, so I’m sure you don’t have time for a bike ride to a coffee shop.”
Knowing a brush-off when he heard one, he said, “I’ll be fine.” If he didn’t do this, he had a feeling he’d never get another meeting with her. Besides, he’d already promised his client he’d get her to revise the image. She could play all the games she wanted, but he was here to save his company.
After tucking his right pant leg into his s
ock to keep it from getting torn on the bike chain, he climbed onto the other bike. They rode out of the garage and down the driveway, then turned and headed to the beach.
“I thought we were going for coffee?” Josh asked.
Lily glanced over her shoulder with the most innocent smile and brazen bad- girl eyes. “We are…if you’re up for it.”
It was then that he realized Lily Holt was going to make him jump over sand dunes on an old-fashioned bicycle just to get a signed contract. The question was, why? Something told him this wasn’t a power trip. She really didn’t want to recreate this artwork for some other reason and was likely hoping to give him the slip to avoid facing it. Well, neither sand, wind, nor rain would stop him, not when his company was on the line.
Chapter Three
Afternoon rain showers rolled in from the ocean and she felt bad for making the big city businessman ride a salt-water rusted bike around sand dunes in his suit, especially during the heat of the day. By the time he stopped behind her, his hair gel had melted and his jacket was hanging from his waist. She slid her bike into the rack in front of the coffee shop and faced him. “Why on God’s sandy Earth do you want my image so bad that you’d ride through all that while wearing a suit?”
“Because it’s that good,” he said, huffing for breath.
Stunned, she took a step back.
“That being said,” he continued after a moment, “I’m not interested in an artist who paints pictures of ugly houses. If you’ve lost your edge, tell me now before I spend another minute chasing what I thought was a unicorn.”
“Unicorn?” She’d never been described as a unicorn before. “And if the unicorn exists, what exactly are you expecting? Fairy dust?” she asked.
Josh untied his coat from his waist and hung it over the handles of his bike. “I thought artistic girls like you believed in fairy tales.”
She toed the sand beneath her feet. She had, once, but then life showed her the truth. Magic and unicorns didn’t exist, just like true love. “Coffee?”
“In this heat?”
“I never said it had to be hot coffee. There’s this wonderful invention called ice. Maybe you’ve heard of it.” She winked.
He removed his tie completely, unbuttoned his top button, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. While his attire looked more befitting the beach in summer, his hair still looked like the leaning tower of bad hair gel. She reached up and ruffled his hair, messing with it until it looked more casual. “There, much better. Do you live in suits and perfect hair?”
“When I work, yes. I don’t usually ride bikes through sandy beaches in the heat of the summer for work,” Josh said with an edge to his voice.
Lily felt a little guilty, but she knew Connie wasn’t about to let a twenty thousand dollar commission go. She was just going to have to make sure Josh gave up first. “Yes, well, that’s how it’s done here.” She led the way up to the counter and ordered her coffee, then found a seat in the shade. Her sunscreen had probably sweated off, and who knew if he wore any.
He ordered a bottle of water and paid for both drinks before sitting at the table across from her. He was probably one of those men who only drank bottled water, worked out three hours a day, and had his brows waxed. “Tell me why you don’t want to sell the rights to your picture,” he said, twisting off the cap of his water. “It’s an opportunity to earn a lot of money, probably more than you’re making painting hideous portraits of gaudy mansions. I’m willing to go as high as thirty thousand.”
She swallowed at the lure of money. That sum could end her career of commissioned paintings, something she hated, allowing her to set up her own exhibit in New York, in a rental space anyway. But it was a matter of what she hated more, commissioned paintings or reliving the heartbreak of two years ago. Instead of answering, she said, “Tell me why you’re working so hard for that image.”
He pulled the piece of paper from his pocket and laid it gingerly on the table, like it was something precious. “Don’t tell me you don’t see it? You drew it so you must. It screams of an emotional connection. An image like this makes people believe in romance and true love, of tomorrow with promise of happily-ever-after.”
“Josh,” the barista called out. He retrieved Lily’s coffee from the counter and set it in front of her. She swirled the liquid in the cup to allow her a second to get the lump out of her throat before she spoke again. “That’s crazy. It’s just an image.”
“You know it’s not. It’s obvious to anyone who looks at this that you put your soul into this drawing. But then you threw it out into the ocean. Why?”
“What does it matter?” Lily asked, her chest tightening at the memory of all her friends with their hopeful smiles. Dreaming of a hero who would carry them off into the sunset had seemed so futile to her. While her friends had happily thrown bottles into the sea like little girls wishing on dandelions, she stood there at the other end of the rainbow with nowhere to go. Her wish hadn’t been for the hero to appear, but the hope that the man she thought was her hero felt the same as she did.
“It doesn’t, I guess.” Josh picked up his water and gulped it down. “Tell me about your art, then,” he said after draining half the bottle. “How can the same girl who drew this paint that picture I saw back at your home?”
She shrugged, her usual answer.
“Are you going to answer anything I ask?”
She shrugged again and he sighed.
“What will it take to buy this artwork from you?” He leaned over the table and placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “No more shrugging. You have a voice. Use it.”
She didn’t like the way her arms tingled at his touch, or how her mind clouded and her breath hitched. She told herself that his movement had surprised her, that was all.
“Are you washed up? A has-been?” he asked.
“What?” she shrieked.
He let go of her and sat back with a smile, the right side of his mouth curving a little higher than the left. She didn’t like the loss of touch even more than she didn’t like him touching her, a conundrum that only confused her. After two years of not even holding hands, her body craved physical touch. That had to be all it was.
“So, have you lost your muse or whatever it is artists need to create masterpieces?” He clasped his hands together, resting them on the table.
Her gaze followed them, assessing their form, color, texture. The way she subconsciously assessed everything she saw, her eyes seeking the beauty in the world around her. Pulling her gaze away, she glanced up at him. She didn’t like his question, maybe because she worried it was true. Stephon had been her muse, her inspiration that launched her art career, until he had betrayed her two years ago. Since then, everything she’d created seemed devoid of life. That was why she only accepted commissions of landscapes, pets, or even gaudy mansions, and rejected any requests for portraits or portrayals of romance. “No…”
“Okay, how long will it take for you to complete the artwork?”
She started to shrug, but stopped herself and glanced at him sheepishly.
He chuckled, dispelling the serious mood that hung over them. “You’re a fast learner.”
She shrugged, intentionally this time, and they both laughed. Customers with lobster-colored skin and bright Hawaiian-print shirts at the surrounding tables stared at them before turning their attention back to their iced coffees.
“Beautiful.” He unbuttoned the second button of his shirt then grabbed the stack of napkins from the table and dabbed at his forehead and back of his neck. Even in the shade, the heat was sweltering.
“What’s beautiful?”
“Your smile.”
Whoa. Was that a compliment? She traced the rim of her coffee lid, unsure of how to respond. When was the last time a man had complimented her on anything? She couldn’t remember Stephon ever doing so during their two and a half-year courtship. All he ever did was criticize her work. He was always more interested in the business side of he
r work than the beauty of it. Or should she say the financial side? Thieving jerk.
“This is where you say thank you.”
“What?”
Josh gave her that slightly crooked grin again. “You didn’t seem to know what to do with a compliment, so I was telling you.”
Momentarily stunned, she recovered quickly. “I don’t need a man to tell me what to do.” Then she stood, downed the rest of her coffee and march over to her bike. Pulling it from the rack, she hopped on and pedaled hard, desperate to get away from Josh and his boyish charm, away from the thought of recreating the piece of art that marked the demise of her relationship, her career, her life.
Chapter Four
Josh pushed the hotel room door open to find his partner waiting with dinner and a stack of paperwork.
“What happened to you?” Allen asked. “Were you in an accident with a runaway beach mobile?”
Josh collapsed onto the bed. “Is there such a thing? If so, I think it was a hit and run.”
“Seriously, man. What happened? Did you get her to agree? Did she sign the contract?” Allen hovered at the edge of the bed, where Josh knew he would stay until he got an answer.
Josh started to shrug but it only reminded him of the day’s failure. “No.”
“What? Is she playing hard-to-get in the hope for more money?” Allen paced. He always paced, and while his pacing irritated Josh as much as his hovering did, the guy had a right to express his concern. Allen was invested in the company almost as much as Josh was. A not-so-silent partner. “No, it’s not about money.”
“What then? Is she some old lady who’s just being difficult? Remember that woman we worked with last year? God, that was tough.”
“No, she’s not old or difficult. She’s young and…” Josh shook his head and sat up. “Okay, maybe a little difficult. I don’t think she means to be, though. She doesn’t want to do this.”
“Why?”
