I blink, forcing myself to drag my focus away from my paintings.
"Uh, yeah. I'm looking for Lawson Heywood."
"Mr Heywood is in a meeting, would you like to leave it at the desk?"
"No," I twist myself to put my body between her and my painting, "I have to give it to him myself."
"Sure, no problem. You're welcome to take a seat anywhere while you wait." She turns and hurries back to her position behind the desk.
For all I know, his meeting is all day. Do I wait? I could sit in the car and wait. Maybe that's better. I turn to face the doors.
"Skye," Lawson's voice comes from behind me.
I spin to look at him. He's dressed in a dark suit, and my breath hitches at the sight of him. I vaguely register a shorter man standing beside him.
"Lawson." I'd planned to lecture him. To throw my painting in his face and make him feel my pain. But now that I'm looking at my paintings on the walls, I don't know what to do.
"Rick, this is Skye Simmons. The artist who created all these paintings." He points to the walls.
"You don't need to tell me who Skye Simmons is, we have people asking about the artist of these paintings all the time."
My heart stops. Did I hear him right?
"Excuse me? They do?"
"Oh yes, we've had multiple people offering to buy them. I've had to get a stack of business cards from the Piek Gallery to give out."
A light goes on. That must be why people from all over the country are phoning Gordon.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Refusing to Let Go (Lawson)
Skye hasn't blinked since Rick first spoke. She looks like she's in shock. I move to her side and put my arm around her.
"Thanks for bringing your painting down. Come with me." I turn to Rick, "Rick, you don't mind if we use your office, do you?"
I don't wait for Rick's response and guide Skye away.
When I walked into the lobby and saw Skye standing there, my chest tightened. She sought me out. She fucking tracked me down and that thought alone lessens the weight that's been pressing down on my shoulders.
I hope she doesn't see me here in a suit and on business and think I've pushed her behind me. I needed a distraction, is all. A distraction from the way she slammed the door on my face.
The door to Rick's office is propped open. We enter the room and I push the door shut behind us.
We've only been open a couple of weeks, and his office glistens with brand spanking newness. It even smells new. A desk is along one wall, and a small, circular meeting table and chairs is in the corner.
Skye still hasn't spoken. I take the painting from her and set it on the table.
It's different from her other stuff, there's no picture, just abstract blotches of paint. But it's intriguing.
I stare down at it, turning it in a clockwise motion, trying to figure out which way is up. The colors are subdued - there's nothing bright or cheery about it.
Her eyes are wide and her lips slightly parted. She's examining me as I examine the painting. I don't know what to make of it, other than that the longer I stare at it, the more my mood sinks.
I shift my gaze to her. When our eyes catch, a lump instantly forms in my throat. I swallow to try to clear it. Her eyes betray a hundred emotions brewing inside her.
Neither of us speaks. I lift my hand, hoping to find her cheek but instead settling on grasping her hand. My insides wrench, it feels like this is my chance, my one shot, at getting her back. There's so much at stake, I can't fuck this up.
"This is great, thanks for bringing it. It's different from your other stuff, but it's just as powerful. Maybe even more so."
"I wanted you to see how you made me feel." Skye's voice is sharp, with much more confidence than I'd anticipated given how vulnerable she's seemed since I found her in the lobby.
"Yeah, I'm kinda feeling that way myself."
"Angry?"
"Frustrated. Anger at myself."
"At least I'm not the only one who's angry at you."
"Anger at myself for not being able to explain things better. For upsetting you. Believe me when I say the last thing I would ever want is for you to be hurt."
"Then why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you make me lose my job and not even care? Twice!" The volume of her voice increases.
"It wasn't intentional." I squeeze her hand tighter, trying to hold onto her.
"Why are my paintings hanging in the lobby?"
"Because I like them, they're perfect for our needs."
Skye squeezes her eyes shut. "But why didn't you tell me you bought them and were using them for your hotel?"
"Because it would've pissed you off. And trust me, I never wanted to piss you off, even though I managed to anyway."
"You really like them?"
"Do you think I'd hang them in my hotel if I didn't? This is a new, boutique luxury range of hotels I'm rolling out. We charge a fortune for the rooms, and we can't do that if the first things clients see when they come in is shit hanging on the walls."
She swallows, her eyes tracing my face. I release her hand, and run mine up her arm. Skye doesn't resist when I hook it around her shoulder and pull her into me.
My arms rise and fall with the heaviness of her breath. I nuzzle my face into her hair, inhaling her flowery shampoo. Whatever else, there's no way I'm letting go of her now.
I bring my mouth close to her ear, lower my voice, and say "I didn't help you because I like making your body purr, I did it because you're an amazing artist. It helped me more than you anyway. Your work has been a huge hit with clients. We get so many offers to buy them it's difficult to say no." I pause to clear my throat. "With any other artist, I would've sold them off. But because it's you, I refuse to let go of them."
We fall into silence again. I hold her tighter, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other cupping her head.
"But the other people who want to buy more from Gordon, are they all you? Do you just get different people to pose and buy them?"
"Why would I do that? They're competition for me." Her breath stops at my words so I carry on. "The only other thing I've done, because it's you, is to take myself out of the bidding war for your next painting. I did that for you, so other people would get to have your paintings all over the country, and so you wouldn't think I was helping you. You've made it pretty clear you don't want my help."
She shifts her head, and our eyes lock.
"Those people are real?"
"Why is it so hard for you to see how talented you are?"
"People really want my work," she states to herself.
"Yes, they do."
"But I've been here so long, and only sold one painting that wasn't to you."
"And that pisses me off. It stripped you of your confidence. You didn't deserve what they did to you." It makes my blood boil to think about how the people that were supposed to be helping launch her career stuck her in some obscure little low-end gallery.
"What who did? What are you talking about?"
"That gallery you're in. It's too low-end for your stuff. His customers aren't looking to spend the kind of money your stuff should be going for. If you'd been in a high-end gallery with a bigger presence, your stuff would've sold like crazy. Whoever convinced you to sell through his small gallery didn't do you any favors. Using him gave you a steeper hill to climb." I wonder if she'd ever had the same thought as me about it.
"But," she sighs, "I went through Gordon because Ava recommended him. She had such glowing things to say about him. Gordon always had such glowing things to say about me. I intentionally priced lower than what I thought I should be, considering the amount of time I spend on each piece, because I wanted to keep my art accessible."
"You have a decision to make. Do you want an art career, or do you want to spend all that time and money on supplies for nothing but the feeling of rejection?"
"I don't like feeling rejected."
"That's why you don't need Kelso. You're too good to have your stuff locked away in his house. You'd never get discovered while creating stuff that'll only be seen by that asshole."
"But you had no right to make that decision."
"I didn't," I say, my eyebrows arched.
"You used me to get at him."
"No. I know the slimeball, I was trying to protect you from him."
"You were so, that's why you came and did that to me in his bedroom."
"Skye, angel, I didn't go there intending for that to happen. I couldn't help myself, you're too irresistible."
"No."
"Yes, don't you think I would've brought a condom if that's why I was there?"
"Maybe. Yes. Unless … "
"Unless nothing, why don't you want to believe me? Because you believe him when he says I used you to get to him? I thought we got through that."
Skye looks at me, at the floor, around the room. I don't think she knows what to believe, but I need her to believe me. I'm ready to tilt her head to mine and kiss her until she believes, but as I tighten my grip on her hair, she pulls away and drops into a chair.