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I smirk and unbutton my jacket to whoops and hollers. Someone wolf-whistles as it slides off, and I drape it over one shoulder. I walk to the end of the stage, the glare of the lights, combined with the attention, creating a sheen of sweat across my brow. I finally find Emerson in the crowd. She’s standing off to the side with Madison by her side. I tip my chin at her and wink. She throws her head back and laughs. The bids keep mounting.
Someone yells for me to, “Take it off.”
“It’s not that kind of show, ladies,” the emcee shouts.
In the end, I go to the highest bidder of the night with the cancer charity racking up twenty-five grand on me alone. Shantel stopped at 10K, so I no longer need to worry about her. I was purchased by an equally beautiful young woman, but she doesn’t look like she wants to strip me naked and tie me to her bed, so that’s good.
I can’t find Emerson again when I’m finished with the theatrics, so I drift over to the silent auction area to kill some time. I’m scanning the lavish trips and jewelry that people are bidding on when I round a corner and freeze. There, displayed on a wall across the way, are two stunning paintings. Even without seeing her name at the bottom, I know they’re Emerson’s. One of them is the stormy sky scene she started in my living room that first day that Milo showed up. I haven’t seen it since. It’s finished now, and it’s stunning. She captured the building of the clouds over the water perfectly. The dark blues and grays are contrasted with the sunrays that are still peeking through, reflecting off the water. Her use of light and dark is spectacular. But the other painting is what really leaves me speechless. It’s a portrait of me, skating across the ice with my stick in hand and the puck in front of me. I’m dressed in my uniform and gloves with the helmet on my head. My face is colored with intensity. She captured my expression, revealing the exact way I feel when I’m playing, as if she were able to see inside my head. It instantly makes me feel understood. I feel seen.
I walk closer, shouldering my way through the crowd of people collected who are admiring her work. Ollie is one of them.
“This is Emerson’s?” he asks, pointing his half-filled glass toward the paintings.
I nod, staying silent as I study her work. I didn’t know she’d donated anything for tonight. And I sure as hell didn’t know she’d painted a picture of me.
“I knew she painted, but I didn’t realize she could do this,” Ollie adds.
“It’s pretty amazing,” I agree, mesmerized with the shapes and colors and the composition—I think that’s what you call it. All I know is, I can’t pull my eyes away from her work.
“Why has she been slinging coffee all this time?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” I admit. “But she’s too talented to not be showing her work somewhere.”
The truth is, I know nothing about the art world. I have no idea how Emerson took a blank canvas and created something this beautiful with only a set of basic oil paints and different-sized brushes. Her work is a cross between realism and impressionism—something I heard her say once. And it’s breathtaking—a word I would also use to describe the woman behind the work lately too.
But I know very little about Emerson’s attempt to break into the art world. I don’t know if she’s tried and failed. Or if she’s never really tried at all. Somehow, I think it might be the latter. Emerson doesn’t seem to recognize the power she contains. She’s oblivious to her beauty and sex appeal. And I bet that denial extends into her talent as an artist as well.
I stare at her work for a while, but it only takes me a second to decide. I write a number on a loose piece of paper that far exceeds the suggested starting bid and place it in the box in front of her piece. I do the same thing for the other one. I want those paintings hanging on the walls in my apartment. She started them in my place, and that’s where they belong.
I’m starting to wonder if it’s where she belongs too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
EMERSON
I take a sip of the fresh gin and tonic in my hand. It’s only my second of the night, but I’ve barely eaten, so I feel the drink loosening me up. It’s soothing my anxiety, something I never wanted to rely on alcohol to do.
I’m not a jealous woman by nature—or at least I’ve never been before. But I let my insecurities get the best of me tonight when I saw the spotlight on Sam and the way all the women were watching him. When I first arrived, I immediately spotted him from across the room in the middle of his teammates. The guys were laughing and talking together, oblivious to the attention on them—or maybe just used to it. But I was drawn to the tall center above everyone else. I barely noticed his teammates. Sam in athletic gear or his hockey uniform is off-the-charts hot. Sam in a custom tuxedo that fits him like a second skin … he’s easily the handsomest guy in the room. He belongs on billboards or in pages of magazines. Or in the deepest, darkest fantasies, where he has lived inside my head since the night we kissed.
Sam steals attention from a crowded room like people are powerless to look away from him. I can glance to my left and right and see it happening all around me right now. I’m not immune. His appeal has captured me as well these days. He isn’t just gorgeous, but he’s alluring too. Magnetic.
And when I arrived and looked around at all the beautiful, flawless smiles and unblemished skin encased in thousand-dollar gowns. The toned bodies and big breasts pushing through the tops of the dresses. All the perfect tens noticing the hockey stud from all corners of the room. I suddenly felt inferior and outmatched.
Maybe I was never the jealous type before because I didn’t care enough to fear the loss. I was comfortable and complacent for so long. Now, I’m stimulated. My self-control is shedding. And it feels reckless and exhilarating, all at once.
I shiver right before I take another sip of my drink.
Butterflies and fireworks.
But there’s a price to pay for those.
Even the extra time I spent on my appearance tonight in anticipation of this date couldn’t fortify me against my own defiling thoughts. I wanted to be on Sam’s arm more than I’d like to admit, even though I’d once vowed never to be that girl. I’d been looking forward to it since the moment he asked me to go with him. Maybe I built it up too much in my mind because when I got here, I suddenly couldn’t breathe. And it wasn’t because I was swept away by the glittering lights and the glamour of it all. It was because I was scared. Afraid of how much I wanted to be at this event with him. Frightened of the space he’d been occupying inside my mind. Petrified of how much I was starting to crave him, especially after everything I’d heard and witnessed over the years.
Sam is dangerous. He could wreck me.
But only if I let him.
I’ve never been in love before. I thought I once was with Eliott. But now, I’m certain I wasn’t. Eliott was emotionally unavailable, and so was I by default. His first and only love was medicine. That left me feeling untouchable. Bulletproof. Then, Sam removed my vest right before target practice began.
