Page 60 of Worth Every Penny
Tears prickle behind my eyes, but I swipe them away, furious that Mum makes me feel like this. I focus on my breathing until the wave of emotion that drove me from the dining room subsides. I stare around the study. My artwork litters the room, paintings and pencil drawings propped against the walls. In my teens, I was an avid artist. Black A3 folders that bulge with content teeter on dad’s desk.
I get up and open the first folder. Sketches of my father topple out, along with various still lifes and landscapes in oil, pastel, and watercolour.
I crouch down, flicking through them. Seeing it all spread out around me is like stepping into the past, reliving each moment of creation. A documentation of my life, captured in coloured strokes. Images created out of nothing.
“These are good.” Nico’s deep voice sets my heart racing and I freeze, hunched on the floor, surrounded by sheets of paper.
I look up to see him leaning against the door frame, one hand in the pocket of dark linen trousers. His casual elegance is breathtaking.
“What are you doing here?” The question sounds so harsh, even to my ear, that I immediately wish I could take it back.
He straightens a little. “Do you want me to leave?”
God, no.
I don’t say the words aloud, but he seems to hear them anyway, and tension seeps from him to me—or the other way around—I can’t tell.
He exhales slowly, eyes trailing the room, eventually landing on the desk where there is an array of silver-framed photos of the family. There’s one of Dad with me and Jack atDisneyland; another of Mum and Dad on their wedding day. There’s one of Nico and Jack, Dad between them with an arm around them. They’re all dressed in fishing gear and grinning as though they’re having the time of their lives, even though it’s raining and they’re bedraggled and soaking.
Nico clears his throat. “I haven’t been in here since—”
“Since Daddy was alive?”
Daddy. I want to stuff the word back in my mouth. I can’t believe I called my dead father Daddy in front of Nico. I’m a grown woman. If he didn’t still think of me as a child, I’m sure he does now.
Nico’s brows pull together, and there’s a hesitation in his eyes as if he wants to say something but isn’t sure he should. I see no judgment in his gaze, and it gives me a surge of confidence.
“Did you mean what you said in there?” I tilt my head towards the dining room.
The muscles along Nico’s jaw stand out briefly before he speaks. “Yes. I meant all of it. You are incredible. You always have been.”
My blood turns to warm syrup. He makes the admission so freely, like it’s nothing at all to compliment me that way, but it affects me as much as if he just confessed his undying love.
A smile threatens to break through my sadness. “Thank you.”
He gives me a slow, sexy smile in response, and part of me melts. “Anytime.”
He paces across the room and crouches beside me, amidst all my pictures.
“I still can’t stand you,” I tell him, but there’s a warmth to it.
He laughs, a deep sexy chuckle that caresses my skin. “You wouldn’t be worth winning over if it was that easy.”
My stomach hollows, heart fluttering over the emptiness. Is he trying to win me over? If he is, he’s already won. He won a long time ago.
Nico reaches for one of my pictures at the same moment I do. His hand grazes mine, sending a bolt of energy to the pit of my stomach, bringing to mind other moments we’ve touched: Jack’s party, the club, the penthouse, by the pool.
The same raw frisson fills the air. My breath hitches, and for an extended beat our hands remain there, touching in midair. My awareness shrinks to that one point of contact and his gaze flits to our hands too, before he moves away.
He picks up a few more sketches and flicks through them until he notices the framed charcoal of my father that’s propped against the sofa. “That one is fabulous. It reminds me of something. The style of it…”
“Stephen Condar; the artist. That was the intention, at least.” Heat rises to my cheeks. I haven’t spoken about my art to anyone for years.
“The famous recluse?”
I’m not surprised Nico knows who I mean. Some of the biggest art galleries in London have rooms where the Hawkston name is painted in gold letters over the door and Condar’s art hangs on the walls.
“Yeah,” I reply. “He was my dad’s favourite artist, so I did his portrait in the style. Dad loved it. That’s why it’s framed.” Grief pulls at my throat. The picture might be framed, but the glass is broken. No one cares enough to fix it now.