“The artist was a young woman who supplied our gallery with beautiful countryscapes. They always included that little girl.” Mary pointed to the two paintings. “Then one day, we stopped receiving her paintings. We figured she’d either moved, got married, or something worse we didn’t want to think about. Pity. Her paintings were popular with tourists. They said there was an authenticity to her paintings as though she was painting from either life experiences or she knew the little girl.”
“That’s so sad,” Ashrika sighed.
“Was she a local artist?” I asked, noting the DC initials on the artwork.
Mary shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know. Never met her. A guy would bring the paintings once a month and collect the payment.”
“Why are these paintings not for sale,” Ashrika asked.
“I’m not sure.” Mary glanced at the painting. “I might be wrong, but I think my daughter may have met the artist and kept these as mementos.”
“Would your daughter be interested in selling one of them?” I offered her a charming smile.
Mary laughed. “Leave me your card, I can ask her to give you a call.”
“Sure. I’ll grab one from the car before we leave,” I replied. Mary nodded and walked away.
“Do you love this painting?” I asked Ashrika.
She studied the artwork then smiled. “Reminds me of me.” At my raised brow, she added, “I’m sitting on the fence at the moment.”
My heart rate sped up. “With Trent and I?”
She looked at me, hesitated then sighed. “No. With my past and present. A part of me wants to know my past and the other part says, ‘let it go.’” Although I nodded, I didn’t believe her.
Three hours later I sat up against the headboard and watched as she walked out the bathroom. She placed a foot on the edge of the bed and applied cream to her leg.
“See something you like,” she asked without looking up.
“Always.” Grinning, I set aside the book I’d been trying to read for the last hour. I could no longer concentrate on anything, worrying more about her heart than mine. Exhaustion wore down my belief she’d be mine forever. I had to give in. “Come here, baby.”
She closed the lid on the bottle and crawled across the bed. When she reached me, she straddled my thighs and ran her hands up my chest. I wanted nothing more than to fuck her but I needed to address the emotions she was trying to hide from me.
“I need to ask you something.” I slid my hands up and down her arms, squeezing lightly.
“Sure.”
“Do you love Trent?”
I felt her tense in my arms before her expression shuttered and she tried to shield her eyes from me by looking at my hands.
“Where’s this coming from,” she asked then squirmed to move off me.
“Don’t, angel.” I tightened my grip on her arms, keeping her in place. “I need you to be honest with me.”
Her body sagged before her gaze met mine. “He walked away.” Her bottom lip trembled before she sucked it in between her teeth.
I drew in a deep breath. “He didn’t.”
Glazed eyes stared back at me, filled with confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“He loves you.” Even though pain battered my heart like a sledgehammer’s wicked blow, I pushed on. “He didn’t walk away.”
“You lied,” she cried and tried to wiggle off me. Flipping us, I used my elbows and knees to pin her under me. “Get off me, Zayne.” I shook my head. “Why would you lie?” she was breathing hard from the exertion of fighting me.
“I didn’t, baby,” I consoled, keeping my voice low so she would hear me. “He asked me to lie.”
“I don’t understand. You said, he didn’t want anything to do with us, with me and that whatever we had was over.”
