Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(155)

The last small create held an entire apothecary's worth of tiny mysterious bottles, each papered with a neatly penned label. Venetian Oil. Lavender Oil. Maroger. I held them in my palm like baby birds, wanting to unstopper each one individually.

Shaking my head, I nestled the bottles back in their crate, loving the clink of the thick glass as they tumbled against each other. When had these been ordered? And how did he know? Did he have an inventory of my favorite brands or what?

Despite feeling like I’d been led up the garden path, this was a remarkably intimate gesture. Maybe his feelings for me ran deeper than he was admitting. Maybe even deeper than he knew.

The power of wishful thinking is strong in you, imaginary Bridget intoned.

Whatever. If he was a pro, then I was a pro. If it was a business arrangement he wanted, I wasn’t going to follow him around like a puppy begging for a cuddle, nor waiting for his hand to drop to his side so I could lick it.

I didn’t come here to fall at his feet. I came here to network. Getting to actually paint is quite a bonus.

I stood up and looked around. The studio was fantastic. I couldn’t have made it better, myself. How could I ask for more? Time to do what I did best. Make things.

After digging through my luggage which I found in a closet, I retrieved a pair of tennis shoes and a patterned cotton wrap dress that I hoped would pass for respectable outerwear. I twisted my hair in a knot and clipped it in place, then found the driver in the kitchen, seated across the counter from Declan, leaning over a cup of steaming coffee.

“I’d love to go to the shops,” I announced as boldly as I was able. They both looked up at me with identical expressions of surprise. I pasted a polite smile on my face and ignored Declan’s amused, gloating stare.

“Yes, miss,” the driver said, who I hoped Declan had been referring to when he said “Anders.” I wasn’t accustomed to just handing out orders for service to whoever was in my eye-line.

He set down his coffee and stood, flashing me a polite grin. “Meet me in the front in five minutes.”

“Thank you,” I said as he walked past me. Then I turned and followed him up the stairs, leaving Declan sitting in the kitchen alone.



***



Though we passed a half dozen sumptuous-looking boutiques, I asked Anders to stop the car at the first floral market I saw. It had to already be noon, and I wanted to get what I needed and get back to the studio before I lost the passion or the daylight.

“How will I find you?” I asked him before I got out.

“I will circle, miss,” he explained. “Parking is not possible. I will be here.”

Thanking him, I hustled across the sidewalk and through the door, my heart racing slightly as though on a hunt. I knew what I would look for at my local markets, but I had no idea what to expect here.

Spurred on by the art hunger, I trotted up and down aisles, muttering to myself. I needn’t have worried: this was the birthplace of tulips. There were bushels upon bushels of cut flowers wrapped in string, next to towers of forced flowers in clay pots. I stuffed my arms with a lush assortment in reds and cream that made me dizzy to think about and raced back to the red-cheeked older woman who sat on a tall stool behind a digital cash register.

She smiled as I grabbed a couple foil-wrapped chocolate bars and a bag of oranges and blessed her silently for the bright green translation-not-required LED readout of my total. Hoping that their currency worked like ours, I handed her what I presumed was an appropriate amount of Declan’s colorful folding money and she nodded her approval.

As I walked to the street, Anders was already pulling up. He leapt from the driver’s side and opened my door for me so I could fall into the back seat, bundles clutched to my chest.

“Anywhere else, miss?” he asked politely.

“No, no. Just, uh... home please,” I said quickly, trying to remember not to be too brusque. Bridget had told me several times that I was a selfish asshole when getting my paint fix. Well, I was on a mission. What could I say?

“You were very quick!”

“What? Oh yes… so many beautiful things here, Anders,” I added, trying to be as thoughtful as I knew normal people were supposed to be. “You must be very fond of this place.”

“Most beautiful in the world,” he agreed.

I was grateful for his silence, already wrapped up in the imaginary slideshow of what paintings I could create from these flowers. I could almost see them, barely, the images slipping in and out of focus like slips of paper that bobbed to the surface of a bowl of milk then sank again.

Humming to myself, I tried to concentrate and form a plan around the amorphous urge that bubbled inside me. Was there a sensation I could pin down? A common idea among the images that I could form into a word?