I Think I Love You!

by Kathryn Shay

  “I guess those are acceptable reasons. Go ahead and put them where you want.”

  Once he did, she had changes. After another hour of arranging, he pushed back his perfectly coiffed blond hair. “Let’s leave this room as it is.” He checked his watch. “I have a business lunch. You take a break, too, and we’ll continue this at around three.”

  “You take a two-hour lunch?”

  “Not that it’s your business, but no, I don’t usually. I have to drive twenty minutes to meet him.”

  “Fine. My sister’s off today. Maybe I’ll go over there for lunch.”

  “Without an invitation?”

  “I’ll call her, of course. But, for the record, we drop in on each other whenever we want.” She cocked her head. “Do you have siblings, Blake?”

  He shook his head.

  “That explains a lot.”

  He seemed confused by that. Boy, they couldn’t be any more different.

  * * *

  Yawning, Evvie opened the door to the house she still lived in, though she was moving in with her fiancé soon. “Hey, Raven, come in.”

  “Were you sleeping, sweetie?”

  “I just got up, honestly.” She hugged Raven. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Since the girls told each other the truth, Raven believed she hadn’t awakened her sister. She walked into Evvie’s living room. Calmness, peace and serenity descended on her. “What do you do to this place? Cast a spell on it?”

  Evvie’s pretty forehead furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s always so peaceful here. I’d paint the feeling in blues and greens and whites.”

  Evvie laughed.

  “What?”

  She gestured to the furniture.

  “Oh, yeah, I see. That’s how you decorated.”

  “Sit.” When Raven put her canvas bag on the table and sat, Evvie sniffed. “Do I smell food?”

  “Uh-huh. Do any smells make you sick?”

  “No, with the end of the first trimester, the nausea vanished. Actually, I’m famished.”

  “Eat here or the porch?”

  “The porch. The windows are open, and it’s perfect out there.”

  When Evvie stopped to get silverware and plates, Raven went out to the beautiful glassed-in area and set the food on the table. Each container held a portion of her sister’s preferred foods.

  When Evvie returned, the smile that bloomed on her face was worth the effort. “Raven, I love you. You’re my favorite sister.”

  She and Evvie had played that game when they were little, though they both knew they loved each sibling equally, if in different ways. She took out bottles of water, too, and they sat.

  “I checked with the preparers. No additives or MSG in the shrimp and broccoli. There’s soy sauce. Want some cashew chicken? It’s not as healthy, but you could have a bit.”

  They chowed down. The shrimp was plump and juicy, and the cashew chicken was spicy with soy sauce.

  When Evvie finished, she sat back and pushed her curls from her face. “That was delicious. How long do you have for a break?”

  “Dr. Parker said he’d be back at three.”

  Evvie sipped from her bottle. “Dr. Parker.”

  “Yeah, I found out his pedigree. It’s impressive.”

  “Does he know about your pedigree?”

  “No. I hope it stays that way until after opening night when Mamá and Papá attend. Like Lexy, I want to succeed artistically on my own merit.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The critics have their pre-opening reception the day before, so the jury will be in before I’m revealed as a princess.”

  “Whatever makes you happy, honey. So tell me about Dr. Parker.”

  “He can be maddening.” She highlighted for Evvie all the things the man had done since they’d been working together.

  “How’s his fiancée’s father?”

  “Still in the hospital.”

  “It’s nice that he could be there for her, even though he had to leave you.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And his ideas? Were they good?” Evvie asked.

  “Not better than mine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Mine were better.”

  “It’s his gallery.”

  “It’s my art.”

  “Did he bolt out on you for lunch again today?”

  “No. He had a business meeting for something to do with the gallery—wait a second, are you making excuses for him?”

  “No. I’m only pointing out what you can’t see.”

  “I can’t?”

  “Raven, your work is your life. Everything revolves around it. But his life isn’t your show, so he won’t be as dedicated to it as you are.”

  She frowned.

  “Tell me, is he impressed by your art?”

  “Very much so. Every time he sees another piece, he seems startled by it.”

  “Is he intent on getting the paintings staged and having a stellar opening?”

  Raven nodded.

  “Then that’s not the problem.”

  “What is, do you think?”

  “He’s very much like Papá. From what you told me, I thought so from the first. I didn’t want to point that out, but I’m sure it’s true.”

  She studied her sister, so serene and happy, like Macy Marino. And for one brief second, Raven wanted to be like them, to live in a kinder, gentler world.

  How pathetic.

  Chapter 3

  “Why are we in your office today?” Raven asked as she walked inside Blake Parker’s domain and sat down in front of the desk. A faint hint of something—lotion maybe—preceded her.

  Today, she wore black jeans but with a pretty sage green top. He refrained from telling her how sexy both were. God knew what would set off this woman. Besides, flattery wasn’t his style. Nor was harassing females. “The brochure has to go to the printer by next week.”

  “I have it all together.” She’d asked to create the main piece of promo for the show and had done it well. She gestured to the mock-up on his desk.

  “I like it very much. But the bio is missing.”

  “That I’m still working on.”

  “We’re going to finish it together today.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes.”

  She bit her lip, the gesture usually one of vulnerability. But that wasn’t a word he’d use to describe her today. “No offense, Blake, but your autocracy is showing again.”

  He leaned back in the chair and hooked his ankle over his knee.

  She blurted out, “I love those shoes.”

  He wondered if she knew what the crocodile Dami loafers cost. “You like Italian shoes?”

  “I am Italian.”

  “We can start with that for your bio. Where in Italy are your ancestors come from?”

  A slight, telling hesitation. “The Southern coast.”

  “Does the city have a name?”

  “I, um, look, Blake, I don’t want my bio to be about me personally.”

  “That’s what bios are, Ravenna.”

  “No, it can be about my career. I was trained at the Sorbonne.”

  He jotted that down. She also gave him the names of a few of her famous teachers.

  “How old were you when you went there?” He frowned. “Actually, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven. How old are you?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  “That’s ancient.”

  A chuckle this time, then he rapped knuckles on paper. “We need more than this.”

  “I live on a lake in Maryland. I love the ocean. We can’t give my location, though.”

  Where the hell did she get that kind of money? “A lake in Maryland.”

  “We could also put down the shows I’ve already had.”

  He wrote while she dictated.

  “Still pretty sparse on personal details.”

  Thoughtful, she tapped her fingers
on the arm of the chair. No nail polish for her. “Ms. Marcello comes from a family of seven sisters, all as talented and successful as she.”

  “You don’t lack for confidence, do you?”

  “You’d know it when you saw it, I guess.”

  “Seven sisters? Wow.” He pictured them in a cramped house, scrambling for bathroom time. “Let’s leave the bio at that. Shall we go over the rest of the brochure?”

  “Fine by me.”

  They finished at noon. She asked, “So, do you have to run off to another lunch meeting?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Uh-uh. Want to go to the wing and work some more?”

  “I’m hungry. I need to eat. How about we dine at the gallery restaurant?”

  “All right.” She stood. “My treat.”

  “We don’t have to pay there, Ravenna,” he said with a smirk. “We own this whole place.”

  “Yeah, I forgot.”

  “You seem to do that a lot.”

  “Wow, we’re prickly today.”

  That was the word he used for her. She could certainly go toe-to-toe with him.

  He was afraid he liked it.

  * * *

  In Rodin’s Garden, the restaurant at the end of the building, Raven and Blake took a table under a print of The Thinker. She opened the menu, chose, then realized he didn’t even check his. When the waiter came, she smiled at him. “I’ll have the Cobb salad.”

  Blake sat back. The light-blue shirt he wore pulled across his chest beneath the navy sports coat he’d put on. “That’s what I was going to order.”

  “I think two people can have it at the same time.”

  “Funny.” When the waiter left, his eyes got mischievous, something she’d never seen before. “Overall favorite food?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What’s your favorite food?”

  “Ice cream,” she told him. “Yours?”

  “Lobster. Favorite artist?”

  “Pollock, of course. And Cezanne. Yours?”

  His gaze narrowed on her. “The same. Cezanne built on the kind of traditional work we house here. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to add a modern wing.”

  “He did do that. I’ve read a lot about him.”

  “I did my doctoral thesis on his work. Favorite book?”

  “Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House.”

  “Hmm. Mine’s Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle.”

  “Movie?”

  Blake seemed thoughtful. Lines formed on his otherwise unmarred brow. “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  She waited. “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  He cocked his head. “Why, Ravenna?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you like that movie?”

  “Because I want my life to matter. I want to help people through my art.”

  “I think art does matter. It offers respite to the weary. Stimulation to the bored. Calm to the anxious. Artists use their craft to help troubled kids.”

  She frowned. Deeply. “What did you do, have me followed?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “This week. That’s where I went.”

  “Where?”

  “To a private school to do art therapy with a troubled girl.”

  Without censoring his words, he said, “I’m impressed.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I didn’t.”

  He seemed to be telling the truth. “Huh.”

  “Yeah, huh!”

  Reluctantly, she added, “We have a hell of a lot more in common than I would ever have guessed.”

  * * *

  When they left the restaurant, Blake put his hand on the small of her back. She didn’t move away. For some reason, he felt compelled to touch her. Maybe the camaraderie of their lunch. And the knowledge that they weren’t so different. They reached the new wing. He moved away to unlock the door, as her art would be secured here until the show. She preceded him in, then they walked to section two.

  At the entrance, Blake turned to her and put his hands on her shoulders. He knew the gesture invaded her space, but he felt the need to do it.

  She didn’t step back.

  “How can we keep up the camaraderie from the restaurant, Ravenna?”

  Her face softened. And became absolutely lovely. She had classic features, and her eyes dominated her face. She wore no makeup, didn’t need any. “We can start with you calling me Raven. No one calls me Ravenna except my parents.”

  “Raven it is.”

  “The rest we play by ear.”

  He nodded.

  “So, we have to work on the last three sections. Let’s line them up against each of the main walls and try to agree on order.” Her expression brightened. “How about if we alternate choices?”

  When the paintings were next to Sadness, he stood in front of the vista. “This group is so gloomy.”

  She studied her work. “I hadn’t realized at the time that’s what I was painting. And a couple are newer.” She shrugged a shoulder which seemed more delicate in the blouse she wore. “I only express what I feel. Or see.”

  “I’m sorry you had so much to be sad about.”

  “Not anymore.” She turned to him. “Do you have sadness in your life?”

  “Very little. I’ve had it easy with a loving family, no financial worries...overall, a blessed existence.”

  “Well, that’s okay.” She turned back to the paintings. She crossed to one and before she picked it up, she sighed.

  “Bad memories?”

  “Very.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I painted Out when I left home at eighteen. Horror when I discovered my oldest sister had been abused by her husband.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Yes, she’s married now to a man who adores her. It took a lot to get her out of the situation, though.”

  “We have laws against those things.”

  She stared at him.

  “Ah, the coast of Italy doesn’t?”

  “Where I came from they didn’t. Now they do.” She turned away from him and to the works. “Your turn to pick.”

  He fell back into her work. “You know, I like this one. It’s sad, but it’s got something underlying it that isn’t.”

  She smiled. “I painted it when I got my first art show. I was so happy. But my parents...couldn’t come.”

  “Why?”

  “Long story. Let’s put it at the entrance to this section since you like it so much.”

  From there, they easily cooperated. They were in the middle of positioning the paintings in the third section when a woman rushed inside.

  Blake tried to conceal his irritation. By tacit agreement, Audrey knew not to interrupt his work. “Audrey, what are you doing here?”

  She walked to him gracefully in all her delicate blond beauty, so different from Raven’s classic dark appeal. She moved in close, which was unusual. From the corner of his eye, he saw Raven step a discreet distance away.

  Audrey gazed up at him. “I have some wonderful news. You’ll have to forgive me for interrupting, but I couldn’t wait to tell you. I had lunch with your mother, and she told me your father is in the process of writing his new will. He’s officially leaving you the gallery and giving permission for you and me! We can marry next year. I need to start planning.”

  He tried hard to be suitably excited. Finally, he managed, “That’s great.”

  Subtly, he led her to the exit of the room, then to the door as they talked. When she finally left, he hurried back to the wing. But the space was empty.

  * * *

  For the life of her, Raven couldn’t understand why she was upset. She’d practically run out of the museum and driven home preoccupied, which was never safe. Now, staring out the sliding glass doors of her studio, which she opened to the lake, she watched the waves lap calmly on the shore and a yellow finch light on the tree to the left. The whoosh of the waves usually soothed her.

  From wha
t she could piece together, Blake Parker had allowed his father to control his life. To hold his fortune over his head. To pick who he married. How ironic. How many people in the world, or at least her world, here, in the U.S., had these strictures placed on them. And why did she care?

  Staring out the window was only letting her obsess over someone who wasn’t important to her. He was a vehicle to success. She was using him to have a blockbuster opening which would catapult her into the upper echelons of the art world. But...

  He had a sense of humor and an unapologetic sense of himself that she found appealing.

  While you constantly express regret or even shame for where you came from.

  He enjoyed traditional values. He encouraged them in others. He loved the life he lived.

  While in your heart, you’re still in conflict.

  So, what? She didn’t even like... She stopped before she lied to herself, which she tried never to do. Over the last several days, she’d started to like him. And she was shocked as hell about that fact.

  Turning, she crossed to her easel and sat in front of it. The show pieces were done, but she needed to paint. She picked up her sketch book. Flipped through the pages.

  And found one of him. Huh. She’d forgotten she’d done it, in color, to capture his unusual green eyes, which she still hadn’t gotten right. She started to rip out the page when the doorbell rang.

  The caller would probably be Mari, who was meeting her here to have dinner with Nick and Isabelle Marino. The couple was staying at their residence on this lake. Mari was early, but Raven was glad for the distraction. She headed out to the foyer. Pulled open the door. Recoiled in shock.

  Her heart began to pound in her chest. “How did you get here?” she asked.

  “I drove.” Blake pointed to the country road. “In that car right there.”

  “No, I mean how did you know where I live?”

  “You had to give your legal address on your contract.” It was her only residence after she’d given up her condo.

  She folded her arms over her chest. “What do you want?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Right now, I want to come in.”

  Embarrassed, she stepped back and he walked into the foyer. A threshold was being crossed, she knew, and it wasn’t the physical entrance to her house.