“No artist though,” she heard Stella remark. “I wonder who painted it?”
Ari cleared her throat, searching for her voice. “I did,” she answered finally, her words small. “It was me.”
Next to her, she felt Brandon and Stella glance at each other.
“I don’t understand,” Ari said. “It was . . . it was a gift. He would never sell . . . he would never . . .”
“Brandon,” Stella’s voice was clear, cutting through Ari’s anguished babbling. “Clear our schedule for the day and find me a camera.”
“Are you sure? It’s a packed calendar.”
“I’m very sure,” Stella replied. “I have this wonderful feeling that things here are about to getveryinteresting.”
Chapter 8: Gold Flecks
There’s no night in Tromsø. This close to the Arctic, there’s just pure, unrelenting sunshine, from midnight to noon and back again, with light seeping in from every corner. And yet, despite the midnight sun, Tom sleeps. He sleeps and he sleeps and he sleeps, Ari held tight in his arms, her body a pleasant warm weight against his own. He can’t remember the last time he slept so well, or for so long. He can’t remember the last time he felt so light or free. He can’t remember ever being happier, or more content.
Because he is happy, he realises with a feeling akin to shock. He is happy. He is content. He,Tom Somerset, has found happiness at last. That restless hunger and almost violent need for something, anything, away from the stifling home of his youth and the family name that weighed him down has finally gone. At last — at long, long last — he is free.
He transfers all his money from the bank accounts his trust fund set up for him into an old one from his teenage years, which he suspects Marnie has probably forgotten about. He closes the others quickly and sits back with a sigh. It’s the first easy breath he’s taken in years.
He and Ari go hiking in the nearby hills. They drink coffee in the town cafes. They go whale watching and paragliding. They spend hours in their hotel room, learning the secrets of each other’s bodies. Tom loves every minute of these endless days and nights. He engraves them into his heart, brands them onto his soul and vows to remember them forever.
He sits for hours while Ari paints, and every canvas she discards, with a frown or a sigh, he secretly saves and posts to his New York home. What to Ari’s eyes seems imperfect, with colours or a texture unlike how she envisioned in her head, to him seems wonderful. He knows little about art, knows littleabout the creative process or artistic temperament, but he recognises beauty. After all, he’s with Ari, isn’t he? She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and to his mind her work is an extension of her. In the curves of her brushstrokes, he finds hints of her smile. She captures the colours of the ocean, but he sees only the blue of her eyes. In the rolling landscapes he recognises her soul. He can’t bear to see any of her work discarded, and so he saves them all.
They travel from Norway into Sweden before rolling into Finland. From there, they debate their next move. He wants to go west, towards Denmark, while Ari wants to go south, towards the Baltic states.
“It’s the Baltic,” he says, by way of an explanation for his reluctance. “Isn’t it cold there?”
“Says the man who just spent time in the Arctic.” She laughs. “I’d like to go to Riga, actually. There’s a special exhibition on there. About the eggs.”
“Eggs?” Tom raises his eyebrow.
“The Fabergé ones,” Ari explains, and then, at his continuing silence, looks aghast. “Oh, Tom... tell me you’ve heard of them?”
“The only eggs I know are the ones I have sunny-side-up in the morning,” he answers wryly, and Ari stares at him.
“How can you not know about the Fabergé eggs? That’s impossible.”
“I told you... art was never my thing. You want to talk about cars and planes? Great. But art?” Tom sighs. “Well, I’m just not your man.”
Ari rests her head on her hands, looking at him with those wide blue eyes that turn his insides to butter. “Tom,” she says firmly, “you’re my man regardless of whether or not you like art. You know that, right?”
He stares at her, his mouth suddenly dry. “Really?”
“Yes, of course,” she replies earnestly. “Besides, I kind of like that you don’t know about art. It means I get to teach you. Show you.”
He smiles at her. “And you want to start with eggs?”
“Not just any eggs,” Ari insists. “Fabergé ones.”
He grins at her, reaching for his coffee and taking a long sip. “Okay, so what’s so special about these Fabricate... Farber—”
“Fabergé,” Ari corrects him with a grin. “They’re surprise eggs. An outer layer with a surprise hidden within. They were made by Fabergé for the Tsars of Russia, who gifted them to their wives and mothers for Easter. They’re beautiful. Works of art, all of them. Made with diamonds and rubies and gold and silver. Each one tells a story. Each one is an adventure.”
Tom has to stop momentarily to take a breath, because when Ari talks about art, she glows with a happiness and passion that’s so vibrant it’s almost infectious. He reaches forward to brush his fingers down the pink blush to her cheek, and sighs.
“What is it?” Ari asks, looking at Tom with worry. “I’m talking too much, aren’t I? People are always telling me I talk too much, especially about art, and...”
