“I know what your contract states. What I haven’t figured out yet is what you really want to get in the end.”
“I want what I’m due, Ms. Laurent.”
“You’re not just talking about money. Are you?” In his cold silence, I scoff again, more sharply this time. “If that’s all this was about, you wouldn’t have offered double what Daniel owes.”
“I offered double because that’s what it took to get you here. I would’ve paid a great deal more.”
A dark look smolders on his profanely handsome face. He holds me in that unnerving stare of his, the one that makes me feel like I’m already naked. It sends a shiver of heat through my veins, a look that should send me bolting for the door and the nearest escape out of here, away from him.
Instead, it does the opposite. It makes me determined to unlock whatever it is Jared Rush keeps walled up behind the cold indifference of his eyes. He’s got secrets hidden behind the mask of his cool control, the kinds that carry deep pain and scars.
I want to uncover them all. Against every shred of logic and self-preservation I possess, I want to understand who Jared Rush really is on the inside.
“Come,” he says. “My studio is on the other side of the house. I only have you for a few hours, so we should get started.”
I swallow, then fall in beside him as he leads me away from the expansive living area and down an airy atrium hallway. Windows overhead frame blue sky and frothy clouds, inviting an abundance of natural light into every corner of the welcoming house. It’s an artist’s house, no question, each tastefully furnished room presenting an interesting and ever-changing backdrop of form and light and shadows.
Still, as polished and beautiful as it is on the surface, there’s an emptiness to this place. A vacancy beneath the outward charm.
It’s the same kind of aching hollowness I see when I look into its owner’s eyes.
“Do you spend a lot of time here?”
“Not as much as I used to. And not lately.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs. “I have other things in the city that keep me busy.”
“Too busy to paint?”
“Busy enough.”
“I thought artists lived for their work.”
“Some do.”
“But not you?” I walk alongside him for a moment, waiting for his answer. When it doesn’t come, I can’t help thinking about the question that’s been plaguing me since that first night at his mansion. “You’re one of the most talented, acclaimed painters of the last decade, but you act as though you could just throw it all away.”
“Painting is everything to me,” he replies with about as much emotion as he might announce the sun is shining outside. “It’s the only reason I’m alive.”
“Then why has it been so long since you produced anything new?”
He barks out a sharp laugh. “Have I been on a time table? Forgive me, I wasn’t aware.”
He doesn’t pause. If anything, his long-legged stride takes on a stiffer pace as he leads me through the bright passageway to whatever awaits me at the end of it.
“Do you want to know what I think?”
He grunts. “Not especially.”
“I thought you appreciated the truth, Mr. Rush. Just a minute ago, you said you expected it.”
When he doesn’t stop, I do. I watch him stalk away from me, impatience and coiled aggravation in every muscled line of his big body. I should let him go. I shouldn’t care what he’s running from or what’s made one of the most singularly gifted artists of his time trade his talent for a bunch of flashy night spots, private clubs, and high-rise hotel projects.
It shouldn’t matter how Daniel and I have gotten tangled up in Jared Rush’s world. But I’m here now, and I’m getting more and more entangled every minute. I can’t look away. I can’t ignore the pain I see in this man, no matter how much every warning bell in my brain is trying to convince me otherwise.
“I think you’re hurting, Jared. I think behind all your confidence and swagger, behind your scathing talent for stripping everyone else down to their soul with your paintbrush, all this time you’ve been the one who’s bleeding.”
He turns slowly, his face an unreadable mask. He walks toward me, the distance between us in the corridor closed with just a few measured strides.
He fills my vision, crowding out everything else that surrounds us.
“That’s why you drink, isn’t it? To dull whatever pain lives inside you.”
“What’s inside me, Ms. Laurent?” There is an airless quality to his deep voice now. The growl of sound holds both a threat and a darker challenge. “Trust me, that’s one place you don’t want to look.”
“I think you’re afraid I’ll try. I think you’re afraid to have someone expose you the way you enjoy doing to everyone else.”
“You think you know a lot, don’t you?”
“Am I wrong?”
I stare up at him for what feels like minutes, hours. I can almost see the shutters sealing closed behind his deep-brown eyes. I can feel how determined he is to bar me from getting inside. In the heat rolling off him as he looms over me in threatening silence, I can all but taste the electric current of his anger . . . and his arousal.
I take a step back in retreat. His answering chuckle is as cold as his smile.
“If you want to analyze me, Ms. Laurent, you’ll have to work a hell of a lot harder than that. In case you’ve forgotten, you’re not here for conversation. You’re here to pose for me and do as I
