by Alexis Anne
Margaret smiled. “As long as it’s just a drink here and there.”
“I’m not having any more tonight.”
She gave my arm a squeeze. “Has Ian tried to sleep with you yet?”
“God no,” I gagged at the thought. I was perfectly fine with our loveless marriage as long as it stayed loveless.
“I was just thinking, on your wedding night you should probably have two drinks.”
“You are not a good influence.”
“You will have to produce heirs…”
“Now you’re just being mean.”
I joked but inside I was slowly freaking out. Produce heirs. It made me think of the mother I never knew and the heirs she was forced to produce. It was a strange thing to think about, but I wouldn’t exist otherwise. I never wanted to be anything like my mother, but life kept pulling me back into the same trap that caught her. Maybe there was no escape from the inevitable.
Father kept droning on and on about Theo and his company and the crowd started to shift uncomfortably. For once he got the hint and finished his speech. “Thank you all for coming. Good night.”
The crowd broke up and—shock of all shocks—Ian and Ronan were the first two men in front of Theo. I was actually glad Darcy was here now. Someone needed to save Theo and it wasn’t going to be me.
“I’m not being mean,” Margaret said.
“What?”
“A minute ago…when I said you’d have to produce heirs…? I’m not being mean. I’m being practical. Have you really thought about what your life will look like being married to him?”
More than she could possibly imagine. “It will look secure. And if I have to endure a dozen nights in bed with Ian to get that stability, then so be it.” Fortunately Ian was nothing like Father. Ian was bland but kind and he generally ignored me. Father was cruel.
She smiled. “A dozen?”
I shrugged. “I was allowing for error.”
“Error? You make getting knocked up sound like a computer program.”
“If only it were that simple. My life would be a lot easier if that were the case.”
She snorted and squeezed my arm again. “Okay, I’ve got to go talk to Malcolm. Just wave me down if you need me.”
“I’ve survived Ian and the speech, you are relieved of duty.”
“I’m never off duty, Nicki.”
“Go talk to Malcolm.”
I wandered aimlessly through the party after that, talking to the people I knew and avoiding those that I didn’t. I was just about to slip upstairs to my room for some peace and quiet when a hand reached out of the dark and pulled me into the hallway.
I was suddenly pressed up against a wall of familiar muscle. “You’re dating Ian Clayton?” Darcy hissed.
My body responded immediately to being so close to him. My pulse quickened and blood heated. “Not that’s it any of your business, but yes.”
His jaw ticked. “He’s an asshole.”
Of course he was. Everyone who worked with my father was an asshole. “What does that have to do with anything?”
He threw his hands in the air, stepping back. “You shouldn’t be around assholes!”
I was so hot, so angry, so confused that I lashed out. “Says the asshole who ruined my brother’s life.”
The blood drained from his face and I immediately regretted going so low.
“Asshole or not, I want the best for you, and Ian Clayton is not that.” He kept his voice low and even, his anger simmering just below the surface.
“My love life is none of your concern, Darcy.”
“You shouldn’t be spending your free time with a man who only cares about himself. That isn’t good for you.”
I knew intellectually it was genuine concern in his eyes. I knew he cared about me in a brotherly way and that my anger about that was my problem not his. I even understood that he was probably the last person who deserved my wrath. But knowing all of this still didn’t stop me from becoming so insanely angry I could barely see straight.
I think it was because I wanted Darcy to see me differently. I was the helpless fuck-up who was controlled and pushed around by Father and Ian, but Darcy had never treated me that way. I’d always been Nicki to him.
And now he was standing there telling me what was good for me.
“I’ll take care of me, Higgins,” I bit out. His eyes flared at the switch to his last name. “And you can take care of all the women you fuck. What are you up to this week? Two? Three? Stay out of my love life.”
And then I turned and walked away before I said anything else I would regret.
3
I painted four scenes after that fight with Darcy. I hated myself for the things I’d said and I kept reliving them over and over—painting the feelings out until I could see them in three dimensions. Maybe if I made them tangible I could study them and understand why he and I were so terrible to each other.
I hated him. I loved him. Sometimes I thought he felt exactly the same way, but he’d made it perfectly clear he and I would never be anything more than our connection to Theo.
And yet…he was more. He stuck his big fat nose in places it didn’t belong. He had opinions on my boyfriends and complimented my looks. If he were truly nothing more than a friend of my big brother then he wouldn’t bother with either of those things.
But he did. Constantly.
I want you, Darcy. And you want me. I blinked away the memory even as I painted it on the canvas. Me, naked in front of Darcy. Him standing there, hands in his pockets, drinking in every inch of me.
There was no mistaking the lust I’d seen in his eyes that night.
Darcy and I were more—even if he wouldn’t admit it.
Knock, knock, knock!
I jumped out of my skin as the sound echoed through my empty flat. For a solid minute I considered ignoring it, but the knocking just got louder and more insistent, which of course meant it was Margaret. And Margaret wouldn’t leave until I opened the door.
So I dragged myself over and flung the door open. “What?”
She pushed past me as if I wasn’t even there. “We’re going to lunch.” She went straight to my large leather couch and lay down, just like Theo had the other day. Was this a new scenario I didn’t know about? “Get dressed.”
“You can’t demand a luncheon.” I left the door open hoping she’d magically leave.
She didn’t.
“Yes I can. You’ve been locked up in here for two days. It’s my duty to drag you from your artistic stupor and out into the real world.”
Two days? It couldn’t possibly have been two days…I blinked at my phone as I read and reread the date on the screen. “How?”
Margaret popped up on her elbows. “The sun rises and then it sets. Then it rises again and sets all over again.”
I slammed the door. “Thank you for that very insightful explanation of how time works.”
She shook her head. “It happens. But that’s also why I’m here. Now, get dressed. And maybe take a shower first.”
Was that why my scalp itched and my clothes felt like they were part of me instead of something I was wearing? Oh, sweet Jesus, I hadn’t gone on a painting bender like this in months. “Thank you. I will. I have a meeting at three. I would have missed it if you hadn’t stopped by.”
She smiled and pointed at her forehead. “You have paint here. And here.” She moved to her neck. “Make sure you get it all.”
“Thanks. Wait, shouldn’t you be at work?” Margaret was quickly putting together one of the hottest architecture firms in the country with the help of three of her classmates. They had plans to take over the world and at the rate they were going, I wouldn’t be surprised when it happened. She lived and breathed work.
“Took the day off. I’ve been working twelve hour days for the last two weeks.”
And now that I looked closer I could see it. Her brown eyes were dimmer than usual. Her brown hair was in a loose ponytail instead of the
perfect twists she usually wore to work. And she wore trainers on her feet. I mean, she looked cute and put together as always, but casual instead of haute couture. Margaret wore designer suits and heels to the office so she could scare the piss out of the people who worked for her.
Today she just looked like a girl. Ponytail, jeans, trainers, a funny t-shirt, and a blazer to pull it all together.
She wasn’t even wearing jewelry.
Margaret was definitely tired.
“Give me fifteen minutes.”
“Take your time. I’m gonna take a nap while you’re gone.”
And sure enough, when I returned thirty minutes later, paint free and looking fairly human, Margaret was asleep. “Margie…” I cooed as I slipped into a comfortable pair of walking shoes. “Time for lunch…”
She groaned. “Why don’t I sleep more?” and rolled onto her side.
“Because you’re a megalomaniacal business badass lady boss?”
She grinned. “Yeah I am. You should have seen those little pricks scattering as I stormed into the office yesterday after my noon meeting. Fuck, it makes me feel powerful.”
And just like that she was wide-awake and we were on our way to the coffee shop down the street. “I heard you sold a few more paintings.”
“And where did you hear this?”
She giggled. “Mrs. Brighton was babbling to your father. He said you were very busy and had made several big sales recently. Something about how she should be excited to have an original Nicole Sutherland before you became huge.”
I rolled my eyes and held open the door. “That’s my father. He’s trying to create buzz around my work.”
“Are you saying you aren’t going to be huge?” She selected a table upstairs by a window, throwing her blazer over the back of the chair before she sat. Now she really looked young and carefree.
“I’m saying that, yes, I’ve sold six paintings this month but my father is a hype man. Always has been and always will be.” Truth would never be a hallmark of the eldest Sutherland. Perception was everything. If people perceived him as a good man, then that was what he was. Didn’t matter if he was a criminal. That information was kept in the dark, away from reality.
“That’s huge Nicki! We should have mimosas to celebrate!”
“Won’t that just put you back to sleep?”
She waved the waitress over to our table. “I’m going to sleep right after this anyway, might as well give myself a good send off. We’ll have two mimosas, hold the champagne in hers.”
Twenty minutes later Margaret’s mimosa was gone and she had filled me in on the expansion of her new company, HDM2, and her latest new hire that was apparently, “fucking hot as fuck” but too young and off limits.
“Speaking of which,” she looked up at me and raised her eyebrows, silently asking about Higgins. “I saw the two of you arguing at the party.”
I shrugged. “That’s what we do.”
She didn’t look away. “What were you arguing about?”
“Ian.”
She grunted. “Asshole.”
I pushed my plate away and sat back in my chair. “Asshole or not, he’s the smart choice.”
“He’s your father’s choice.”
“This is how my life works, Margaret. You know I don’t have a choice at all.” To anyone else it might look like I could say no and walk away from a man I didn’t want to marry, but she knew. Walking away came with consequences I was not prepared to manage.
“So because Donald is the shittiest wanker who ever lived, drove your mother away, and fucked with your head to the point you became desperate, he gets to pick the man you marry?”
My stomach knotted as it always did when I was forced to think of my mother. “This isn’t about me. Not really.” I glanced around the nearly empty café. “And maybe I shouldn’t make my own decisions. I’ve proven I don’t make good ones.”
“Bull. Shit.” She leaned forward and grabbed my hand. “Look, I get that you’re trying to follow all the rules right now, but letting your father control your life and fix you up with a douchebag is not the way to keep yourself sane.”
I wrenched my hand away the moment the word sane left her mouth. “I died, Margaret. I was dead.”
“And now you’re not. You can continue to think of it as proof you are a failure, or you can reframe it. It was the end of your life as Donald’s puppet and the beginning of your life. You are a gifted artist and I am willing to bet you’re close to making a living off of it.”
I was. And that was because I was also a gifted entrepreneur, not that my father would ever acknowledge that his daughter was good at business. Women were a status symbol and nothing else. They did not run companies.
“Ian is a good match. He and my father will be blissfully happy together and hopefully the pair of them will leave me alone to paint in peace.”
“As long as you allow them any power over you, Nicki, you will never have peace.”
But in order to break away I’d need truckloads of strength, and that was something I never had and didn’t think I would ever find. “No matter how successful I become or how much money I put in my bank account, Father will never allow me to walk away. Ian is the lesser of two evils. I know he’ll be decent and he’ll leave me to my painting. The next man my father chooses might not be so amenable.”
“You’ve never even tried to push your way out.”
“Michael’s been trying for years,” I pointed out. My oldest brother was miserable. He’d always been miserable.
“He’s the heir. You’re just a woman.” She flopped back in her chair, throwing down the gauntlet.
An important difference, I knew, but not enough. “I don’t know what to say right now.”
“Say you’ll consider dumping the asshole.”
I wouldn’t. “I’ll consider it.”
“Good. Now I’m drunk and exhausted so I’m going home.”
We paid the bill and I hugged her goodbye before beginning my slow wandering trek to the art gallery on Brompton for my meeting with Jenni Duval, the acquisitions manager of the gallery that would be featuring my work over the next few months. She was from Texas and had a beautiful southern drawl that was so very different to my ears.
“We’re sold out opening weekend,” she said, smiling as she ushered me into her office.
“Did my father buy all the tickets?”
She frowned, proving my pessimism had gotten the best of me yet again. “No. He’s purchased twenty of the two hundred fifty tickets. The rest are our usual patrons plus about fifty I don’t know at all.”
“That’s amazing.” I was a little flabbergasted.
“It’s you,” she shrugged. “You’ve given us a collection that is equal parts painful art and beautiful decoration. It’s speaking to people. And your bio…” she trailed off as she spun her computer monitor my direction and pulled up the website. A black and white photo of my face in profile filled half the screen with text on the other. “The photograph of you is art, and the bio is beautifully written to evoke a response. People are asking about you. They want to meet you at the opening. You’re a genius at marketing, Nicole. If you ever get sick of painting you will have a brilliant career in public relations.”
Her praise was affirming. It was everything I already knew from my years at university and then art school, but I had decades of my father reminding me I was only good for my name chanting in the back of my mind at the same time. “Thank you, I appreciate that. Have the pieces been installed?”
“They’re going up right now. I’ll take you out as soon as we’re done here.”
We reviewed the technicalities of my pieces including the asking prices, then discussed the rotation of future collections in shows over the next year. I was working on three different projects and Jenni wanted first crack at them all.
By the time we walked into the gallery I felt like a million dollars. And then I saw my work hanging in the main gallery and forgot how to breathe.
The way they’d installed the massive canvases made them look more like sculptures to walk around than art to stare up at on a wall.
“This is amazing,” I breathed, taking it all in.
“Your art is personal.”
I snapped my head around. “Excuse me?” The art I had in my flat was personal. It was everything I felt and thought, but none of that was here. This art was what I created to speak to everyone else. Sure, it had pieces of me hidden inside them, but the vast majority was my reflection on how I saw everyone else.
“To our patrons,” she explained as she stepped toward the one hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room. “They see themselves in your work. You capture moments of life we all experience, and for some of our patrons those moments are everything. Take this one.”
The way she smiled up at my representation of love. It was as if this was exactly how Jenni felt about the emotion.
“The way you have the black and pink swirling around the blue and green? It’s exactly how I picture the moment I first met my niece and fell absolutely in love with her. It was a very special moment. I’ve never felt anything like it before or since.” She shrugged. “But here it is and every time I look at this piece I remember that moment. It’s special, Nicole. You’re special and I think we’re just seeing the beginning of what you can do.”
I left the gallery floating on air.
I floated all the way through a mindless early dinner with Ian and four stores where he insisted on buying me outfits for our vacation. I barely noticed any of it because I was so deep in my own head churning over Jenni’s praise.
I could do this.
“What are you daydreaming about over there?” Ian chuckled. “I feel like I’ve been talking to myself all night.”
He handed over his credit card to purchase the third dress I didn’t need and didn’t care about.
“I spent the afternoon at the gallery. I got to see my paintings on display for the first time.”
He smiled warmly at me. “That’s amazing, darling.”
See? Ian wasn’t so bad. Margaret was making a big deal over nothing. Did I love Ian? No. But marriage wasn’t about love. It was about stability. Binding my family to Ian’s was a smart move and it would give me everything I needed to stay happy and healthy as I moved forward in my art career.
