"I don't want a handout or a man to just buy things for me. I want to do this on my own and be successful," I said, biting into the gooey goat cheese fritter.
"I have some good news that will cheer you up!" Olivia said. "A client of one of my friends from architecture school has an art gallery in New York City. She said you could come by tomorrow to show her your paintings."
I squealed and thanked the universe. "You're the best, Olivia. Maybe this was my big break!"
"We need to figure out what paintings you should take," Olivia said as we walked up to the third floor, where my studio was. "Oh my God, what is this? Is that Archer Svensson?" my friend exclaimed, grabbing my arm when she saw the painting of my café I'd been working on yesterday. I tried to hide it.
"This is borderline creepy," Olivia said, laughing. "Does he know you've been painting him?"
I shuddered and pulled the canvas away from her. "I would die if he found out."
Olivia flipped through my stack of canvases. "You should bring these idyllic town scene paintings," she said. "Instead of the weird abstract ones."
"No one wants those. They're just paintings I made for me."
"You could sell them to a hotel."
"A motel maybe."
"Actually the one you did with Archer is probably the best of the bunch. I really think you should try and sell it. People like images of other people they know."
"I cannot bring that painting," I said, shoving the painting behind the couch.
Olivia helped me select ten paintings and carefully stacked them in my large portfolio.
"All done," she said, zipping it up. "Too bad Archer isn't here. He could kiss it for good luck!"
12
Archer
Despite teasing Hazel, I couldn't help but mope after that horrible development meeting with the city.
"I can't believe they didn't like the renderings. Seriously, who refuses to sell based on a rendering?" I complained to Mace that evening in the clubroom. It had a built-in bar and was completely clad in wood. There were priceless antiques that made Mace's eye twitch whenever I touched them.
"What does that even mean, the renderings look too 'futuristic'? What am I going to do?"
"You think you have problems? What am I going to do about the kids? Josie is going to revolt," my twin replied, settling into one of the large leather chairs, drink in hand. We kept the liquor in the clubroom so the teenagers couldn't get to it. As such, it was where all my adult-aged brothers tended to congregate after a long day.
"I thought Josie liked cooking for large crowds," I said, quoting her.
Mace grimaced. "The novelty is wearing off. Plus all the college kids eat so much food. I forgot how much they eat. I thought Josie was going to kill Eli when he sat there and ate an entire loaf of banana bread she had just made."
"We can go eat at restaurants," I said. I had been in Harrogate for weeks, yet I still didn't have my conference center. All my effort, down the drain—and the kids were driving me crazy. I missed the nightlife in Manhattan. There was no nightlife in Harrogate. Instead I was stuck at home with the kids. I was used to breezing in, stirring the pot, then leaving since I didn't actually live at the estate house. Now, though, I stirred the pot and had to clean it up when it spilled over.
"Just because that's what you do, doesn't mean the kids should be eating out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner," Mace said with a frown.
"If Hunter hadn't screwed things up with Meg," I said casually, "she and Josie would make a great team."
"I don't want to hear another word about it," Hunter snapped from the corner of the room, not looking up from the documents he was marking up. "I'm sick of you thinking you can slide in here and hang around like you're on vacation. It's incredibly inconvenient."
"Really? Is it an inconvenience? Like the cell phone law?" Garrett sneered. "I got another ticket, by the way."
"I'm really questioning the decision to have Hunter at the meeting today," I said.
"The only reason Meghan didn't completely throw you all out was because Mayor Barry likes me," Hunter snapped, setting down his papers.
"This small town is an incestuous cesspool," I complained, leaning back in the leather chair.
