“It wouldn’t.” Lucy sighed and dropped his paintbrush into a mason jar of murky water.
I glanced at the painting again, pivoting and stepping just a bit closer to Lucy to get a good look at the painting, as if I hadn’t been seeing it all week.
It was vibrant, yet murky, with brushstrokes like water across the canvas. There were splotches of darkness in it—water, maybe, or a boat—and sparks of lighter colors that suggested other shapes but that weren’t fully realized yet.
It was beautiful, even in its half-done form, but it felt wrong somehow.
Bubble gum pink didn’t suit Lucy. Maybe that was it. I’d seen him all week in these white loose shirts that belonged in the Renaissance, with intricate sleeves and a hem tucked in at his narrow waist. He’d worn slacks most days, despite being in his studio—well, not his studio. My bed stood in what had beenhis studio, the bedding more luxurious than I’d felt in the best three-star hotel I’d slept in. But Lucy’s shoulders were tense, his arms and wrists locked where they braced a large wooden tray where he mixed his paint. His forehead was tight, with hard lines across his pale skin.
“Care to elaborate?” I prodded, nudging his plate of veggies and dip closer to him.
Lucy frowned at it, then stepped forward and plucked up a carrot stick before lifting it to his lips and snapping it between his teeth.
“It’s just different,” is all Lucy said.
Silence settled between us. Uncomfortable. Heavy. Tense.
Lucy didn’t want to talk to me.
But why would he? I was just some common chef his dad had bought for him.
“Sure.” I felt my eyes roll at his silent dismissal as I turned on my heel and stalked out of the room.
5
LUCY
Knox was avoiding me.
Maybe it was my fault. I’d been standoffish and rude, not engaging him in any conversation. Isabel, my best friend, always teased me about going silent when other people were around, saying my longing to be alone was made obvious to everyone.
Even if it was actually really nice to have someone around sometimes. Isabel was my best friend because she knocked down my walls with a sledgehammer. She never cared about how I hid myself from other people who only wanted to befriend me because my family had money.
I mean, Isabel’s family was rich, too. She had a twin brother, Felix, who she just opened up a restaurant with. Their parents owned many businesses and invested in other, smaller ones. It had become quite the empire over the decades—something Dad never approved of. Getting close to her family was the last straw for my father, and I had to distance myself from them, leaning on Cordelia and Dad instead.
It was lonely. But at least our family was together. Since Omma left, that’s all I wanted: just to be close with my family.If that meant getting my head on straight enough to finish this classic impressionist painting, I’d do it.
But it didn’t make me miss Isabel any less, even though I still had her phone number saved under a fake name on my phone, and I still texted her and Felix on a near-daily basis. And it didn’t make it easier to watch Knox pull away from me.
It was my fault. I had all but ignored him when he spoke to me two days ago. But he’d asked about my paintings. This one, that I didn’t even want to paint. Why would I want to talk about it if I couldn’t even paint it?
“Can I help you with something?”
I blinked, and startled when I found myself at my island, Knox on the other side, stirring ingredients in a bowl.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, lifting my elbows from the marble countertop. “I didn’t mean to get in your way.”
Knox raised one thick eyebrow. They were dark, like his eyes, and his strong jaw was clenched as he glared at me.
“It is your place, right? I just work here.”
I winced. “Look, I’m really sorry that I made you feel out of place here. I know it’s probably not what you’re used to, bec–”
“Why wouldn’t it be what I’m used to?” Knox’s eyes narrowed, flashing dangerously under the lights. “Don’t think a guy like me could ever afford a place of my own?”
“No!” I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant, I swear!”
“Hey, you’re not wrong,” Knox scoffed, stirring harder, sending flour up in a small puff of white while his forearms flexed in a way that was entirely too distracting for the situation at hand. “I’m just some poor guy who needed to get himself auctioned off. That’s not exactly normal, is it?”
