But that wasbecause of him, not me. He pulled that strong personality out of me with hisboorish, overbearing behavior.
It was his fault Iwas like this.
Except I found thatI didn’t want to give him all of the credit. I didn’t mind this side of me. MaybeI was even proud of it. I wanted to keep some of the credit for myself. Iwanted to believe that I was capable of this all on my own.
“Thanks for theride, Ezra. You can email me the details of your mural whenever you get achance.” My hand found the door handle and I forced myself to leave the warmthand strange intimacy of his car.
“I’ll walk youinside,” he offered.
“No, that’s—” Buthe’d already jumped out of his side and was headed around to mine. I scrambledout of the passenger’s side door before he could do something drastic thatruined every other man for me for the rest of my life—like open my door again.
We walked insilence the short distance to the door of my lobby. He’d left his car idlingunmanned and I was irrationally nervous that someone was going to run up to it,jump inside, and drive off.
“If someone stealsyour car because of me, I’m going to have to sell a kidney to pay you back.”
The corner of hismouth lifted, amused. “It’s just a thing, Molly. Not worth a kidney.”
“Don’t tell Killianthat,” I warned. “Pretty sure he thinks it’s a bigger deal than most internalorgans.”
He leaned in,bringing our faces close together, our bodies following suit. My gaze droppedto his lips for just a second. Okay, maybe five seconds. Possibly a good tenseconds.
“We’ll keep thatjust between you and me.” His head dipped down and he pressed a slow-burning,heart-stopping, over-too-quick kiss on my lips. “Goodnight, Molly theMaverick.”
Then he steppedback and jogged the distance to his car while I was left internally flailing asI fell and fell and fell down an endless well of uncharted territory.
I stepped inside mybuilding and went straight up to my studio. If ever there had been a reason topaint, a gentle kiss by a man like Ezra Baptiste was it.
So, paint I did.Until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Until my fingers were stiff and my backached. Until, without any of the details or specs, I had the perfect idea forEzra’s mural.
Chapter Fifteen
Sunday did not goanything like I wanted it to. I hadn’t realized how much work I had agreed tountil I started to plan out all of my different projects for the week.
As promised, Ezrahad emailed the details of his mural along with dimensions and pictures of thespace. I could see what he meant about the wall being awkward in his otherwisetrendy restaurant. The artwork he’d picked nagged at my creative eye, demandingmore of something. But that something was hard to put my finger on. Despite thesizes of the various pieces, they looked small in the big space.
He’d includedanother picture of a design he’d tried in the past that had featured moreartwork in an effort to fill the space, but that had only made it lookcluttered and overly decorated.
To his credit, amural would be perfect. It would fill the wall without making it feel chaoticor overused. He wanted something attention grabbing and eye catching withouttrying too hard to be those things. I had the perfect idea. Well… if I couldget it just right.
I spent themajority of the afternoon sketching ideas, still disbelieving that I’d actuallyagreed to do it. Especially considering the time I would have to spend atBianca before and after hours.
Ezra wanted theproject done as quickly as possible, understanding my limitations both with myreal job and his dining hours. We would set up screens until it was finished,but they weren’t ideal.
We’d planned a timeto meet this week so I could scout out the space in person. But knowing itwould take weeks to finish, he wanted me to start next weekend.
When I’d told Verawhat Ezra asked of me, she hadn’t been fazed at all. “Obviously, he hired you,”she’d said. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“It’s weird though,right?” I’d pressed. “He’s stalking my professions.”
“You’re the best,Molls. He recognizes that. He wants it for his businesses. You should feelflattered.”
She was right. AndI did feel flattered. But I also felt too hot and breathless with nerves andmaybe like I was going to puke at any given moment.
Working for EzraBaptiste was this strange dichotomy of receiving major opportunities, but alsogetting gigantic chances to screw everything up in the biggest way possible onthe biggest stage possible in front of the biggest audience possible.
I still couldn’tbelieve I’d demanded he butt out of his EFB account. What had I been thinking? WasI really planning on handling that entire account all on my own?
My computer made asound, alerting me that I had a new email. I jumped at the sound, afraid it wasEzra firing me already. He’d come to his senses.
