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“I miss you, Blaire,” he said. “I wish you were here, but I couldn’t spend any time with you and … I can’t afford the distraction.” He chuckled ruefully. “When you’re near, all I want is to bury myself deep insideyou.”
I shivered at hiswords.
“Look,” he continued. “I was still mad at you this morning. I also didn’t want to wake you because I enjoyed those few moments of peace watching you sleep when we were not at odds with eachother.”
“You can’t just freeze me out when you’re pissed atme.”
“That’s how I deal with …stuff.”
A female voice spoke in the background and Itensed.
“Hold on,” Grant said as he talked to the person in the background. There was a hearty laughter and then he returned to the phone. “I need to go, baby. A couple of us are heading out to dinner and then we’re getting back to work for a late night. I’ll call you again tonight if Ican.”
I berated myself for feeling suspicious of my man. Of course he was an equal opportunity employer and he had female employees working for him, but the woman who spoke did not sound like his PA, Heather. Isolation was making me suspicious, and what was that they said about an idlemind?
Now would be a good time to pick up the paintbrushagain.
* * *
Three hours after dinner,I stopped painting and put down my brush. My memory of Cape Cod held no inspiration to put on canvas. I stared at the varying shades of pigment on my palette. My colors were prosaic, the blue of the ocean,flat.
The summerwhen I was twelve, a man named Sergei stayed in our house. He was an artist who used the impressionist technique. School was out and I was his shadow as he mentored me on the pros and cons of using different mediums, but his specialty was oil. We became good friends. I imagined him as the master and I was his protégé. He returned the same time every year and would stay for three months at a time. When Sergei returned the year I turned sixteen, he’d become gaunt and seemed to have aged ten years. We still painted together, but he seemed pre-occupied with something else. One night, I couldn’t sleep and saw light under the door to his room. I heard him working furiously. I knocked. The brush strokes stopped, then he opened the door and sighed inresignation.
“Come in, Paulina, we have a newlesson.”
I stared at the familiar artwork propped against the wall of his room and on his easel. “Is that a Picasso?” I asked incredulously. He was painting over it! There was also what looked like a Jackson Pollock drippainting.
For the rest of that summer, he taught me how to camouflage paintings with different mediums, particularly with watercolor, given that they were easy to wash off. I wasn’t naive. I knew those paintings were from a heist and they planned to smuggle it somewhere. My Papa wasn’t pleased that Sergei had taught me that craft. That was the last summer that I sawSergei.
Imulledover whether I had committed a crime when he taught me to how mask a painting over a painting. After agonizing it over for twenty minutes, I decided it was no different than if I googled it and learned it on YouTube. He didn’t actually give me the brush to paint over the artwork, but I’d practiced the technique over my own paintings, fascinated by the process. Did that mean I had the blood of a criminal in my veins? Troubled, I walked over to the garage to make better use of my uninspired time. Before I even made it to the stairwell leading to the security team’s quarters, Tyler was hastening down thesteps.
“Anything wrong, Ms. Callahan?” he asked, worry creasing hisforehead.
“I need a sparringpartner.”
“Comeagain?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I need to work off this excessenergy.”
“It’sten.”
“So?”
“You spent two hours in the gym thismorning.”
“If you’re afraid to spar with a gal like me, maybe some of the other guys will,” I taunted. In my assessment, Tyler was six feet and two-hundred pounds of solid muscle compared to my five-seven, one-hundred and thirty-pound frame, but Liam had taught me moves to even the odds. For me to defend myself successfully, it was about speed and using my opponent’s momentum againsthim.
A ghost of a smile stole over Tyler’s mouth. “Wait for me at thegym.”
I wore shorts and an exercise bra. Barefoot, I started warming up by doing kinetic stretches. Afterward, I tested my speed by doing a series of fast kicks. Tyler walked in with a smile on hisface.
“You sure about this?” heasked.
I hopped from foot to foot and held out both hands and signaled him to come and get me. His smile turned into a smirk and I couldn’t wait to wipe it off his face. We put on some headprotection.
Tyler’s first mistake was hesitating. He chased me around the mat, and threw out a punch, but I ducked and moved closer and hit him with my elbow, then I sprang out of his reach. Tyler shook his head and came at me again. For the second time, he hesitated and when he threw a left jab, I turned so my back was against his front and his left arm was over my right shoulder. I grabbed that arm, and using his forward momentum, I bent and flipped us over with me landing on top ofhim.
“Fuck!” Tyler choked out. I leapt up and away from him and bounced on the balls of myfeet.
