“I get it,” he said hoarsely. “I do, baby. I’ll give you tonight. But I don’t have to fucking like it. And I’m not giving up on us, so prepare yourself for that. No way in hell I’m giving you up.”
She swallowed, her face still pale, her eyes still wounded. Then she turned and walked away, taking his heart and soul with her, leaving him standing there holding the collar she’d taken from around her neck.
chapter thirty
Josie spent a miserable night tossing and turning before she finally gave up and immersed herself in her painting. For the first time, the vibrant colors didn’t come. There was nothing vivid about the scene she painted. It was dark, gray. There was a sadness to it that seeped onto the canvas without her realizing it was there.
At dawn, her shoulders sagged, stiff and sore from the hours she’d spent on the painting. When she took it in, she winced. It was a clear image of her mood. Miserable.
She nearly splattered paint on it to ruin it but held back, her hands trembling before she finally affixed her trademark J in the lower right-hand corner.
It was honest. It was also very good. It was just different from any of her other work. Perhaps this would be something more along the lines of what others wanted. Maybe people didn’t want bright, cheerful, sexy fun.
As she stared at the painting, the title came to her. Rain in Manhattan. Not particularly original, but it suited her mood, even if it was a perfect spring morning outside. The buildings in her painting were tall and gloomy, outlined by rain and overcast skies. She also realized that the building on the canvas was Ash’s.
She sighed and rose, stretching her stiff muscles. She stumbled into the kitchen to make herself coffee, thankful that she still had an old canister in the cabinet. She would have to restock her apartment. All of the perishables had been thrown out when she’d moved and only a few items remained. One of them being the coffee. She needed to bypass a mug and go straight for an IV infusion of caffeine.
Holding the steaming cup in her hand, she went back into the living room and opened her blinds to let the early morning light in. Outside, the streets were quiet, only just now starting to come alive with the traffic of the day.
She’d always loved her apartment. The rent for the brownstone was costing her a mint, though, and the realization hit her that she would have to move somewhere cheaper. There had been no unexpected windfall. No customer who loved her work and would buy whatever she brought in.
She needed to make a trip to the art gallery and speak to Mr. Downing. Make it clear that if she were to continue displaying her work there that he couldn’t sell it to Ash. He probably wouldn’t allow her to bring in anything else since she was refusing what had to be his best customer. How could she trust that Ash wouldn’t simply buy it under a different name, one she’d never be able to trace back to him?
Yes, she would have to move, reorder her priorities and think about her options. She needed to create more jewelry and put it up for sale on her site. The site had languished since she’d moved in with Ash, all her focus going into her art. But she needed the money from the sale of her jewelry. When she produced regularly, she sold regularly. Her art would have to take a temporary backseat until she built up enough reserves to give her time to think about a new direction in her artwork.
Mr. Downing had said she lacked vision and focus. That she was too scattered and all over the board. Evidently he was right. But what would her new focus be? If people didn’t like the cheerful, colorful works she created then she had to rethink her vision.
It shouldn’t be too hard to come up with more of the depressing, gloomy paintings that she’d done this morning. She wouldn’t get over Ash in a day, a week or even a month. She loved him. She’d fallen hard and fast without a safety net. The old adage about playing with fire came to mind. She’d definitely played, throwing caution to the wind, and as a result she’d been burnt.