“You’re better off to let your customers be experts in everything else, while you ask questions, and feed their egos. You stick with art and you’ll be golden.”
“A brilliant plan if I ever heard one.”
His lips quirk. “Brilliant? I like your choice of words.”
I purse my lips. “Like you don’t hear brilliant about your art all the time.”
“I don’t listen to my own hype. Besides, for every ‘brilliant’ there’s a critic.”
I study him a moment, his strong jaw, his intelligent green eyes and I realize I’ve stopped being all nerves and fear. I’m remarkably at ease right now considering Chris has managed to wake every hormone I own and some I didn’t know I had. “I sold two more of your paintings today.”
His eyes soften and warm at the same time. “And you did it without any knowledge of wine and opera. How is that possible?”
I find myself laughing easily and it feels good. Until this moment, I didn’t realize just how tense I am, how on edge, and it amazes me that this man I barely know has disarmed me. Our laughter dissolves into crackling current that steals my breath away. Our eyes lock and heat pools low in my belly. I want this man but I am so out of my league. I know this but my body doesn’t seem to care. I am but a ship passing by, a teacher headed back to class, and he is talented beyond belief, a man who’s worth millions, who has seen things I have only read about.
“Are you one of those wine snobs?” I ask, hungry for details about what makes a talent such as his tick.
His mood shift is instant, the shutters over his eyes dropping, the tension in the air almost palpable. I regret the question though I don’t know what was wrong with it.
“I know wines very well,” he says, his tone flat as he glances at the thick leather watch he’s wearing that is far more biker than the millionaire he is, and then back at me. “I’m booked for a meeting with your boss I need to get to.” He studies me for an intent moment and his eyes warm again, and I can almost see the ice melting before me. “Don’t play his games, Sara, and he can’t beat you at them.” He pushes to his feet. “Until next time.”
“Next time,” I repeat softly, wondering if there will be a next time. He saunters to his table and grabs a leather backpack and leather coat. He is wearing biker boots, black leather, with silver buckles. I’ve always favored men in suits, men who were refined, and well, like Mark. Chris isn’t those things, and yet he intrigues me in every possible way.
I expect him to pass my table, and I hold my breath, waiting, trying to think of some witty, cool something to say to him, wondering what he will say to me. Instead, he disappears down a back hallway I assume must be an exit. He is gone and I am left wondering if it’s for good, if I will ever see him again.
***
An hour after my encounter with Chris, my cell rings, and Mark orders me back to the gallery. Like a good little soldier, I pack up my things, and prepare to do as told.
“Okay,” Ava declares, appearing by my side, “we have to do lunch. I’ve never seen Chris Merit talk to anyone as long as he did you. I want the scoop.”
I blink at her. The scoop? I do not have a scoop to give, but if I did, my little encounter with Chris feels private and personal. I wouldn’t want to share it. “There’s nothing to tell. I sold several of his paintings and he was thanking me.”
She wiggles a dark brow. “You made him richer than he already is. Now there’s a way to get a man’s attention. And boy did you grab his attention. He looked like he wanted to gobble you up. I’ll call you tomorrow so we can set up lunch, unless I see you here first.” She rushes away and I stare after her.
Gobble me up? Chris looked like he wanted to gobble me up? I replay my encounter with Chis in my mind, and try to think of a steamy moment she might have witnessed. There were times when I thought I‘d felt a spark between us, but didn’t dare believe it was more than my wishful thinking.
My phone buzzes with a text from Mark. Still waiting. I grimace. He is such a control freak that I have no problem seeing him as the dominating man in the journal. It is an idea I find both erotic and scary at the same time because I do not know where Rebecca is. Deep in my core, I am certain she is lost forever, damaged in an irrevocable way.
I shake off the grimness of my thoughts and head back to the gallery to find Amanda packing up her things for the day behind the counter.
“Mark’s waiting for you in his office,” she says.
“Which would be where?”
She smirks. “Door at the end of your hall. Good luck and I really do hope I see you tomorrow.”
I blanch. “Hope?”
She holds up her hands. “Oh no, you took that so wrong. I didn’t mean you were going to get fired. I meant that I hope you come back. I know you don’t care for all the testing.”
I relax a fraction. “I’ll be back.”
She smiles and slips her purse over her shoulder. “Good. Excellent. And, you know, I’m happy to quiz you if it would help any.”
“You’re versed in wines, opera, and classical music?”
“Nope,” she says, “and I don’t want to be. But that doesn’t mean I can’t help you study. I happen to think you’ll be great to have around. It’s just a feeling I have.”
A smile touches my lips. “Thank you, Amanda. I appreciate your offer and I might just take you up on it.”
“I hope you do,” she assures me. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She lowers her voice. “Good luck with the beast. That’s what we call him. It’s so very appropriate.”
With a much needed laugh at the nickname, I reluctantly head through the door to the right of the desk that leads to the offices. The sense of balancing uneasily on a tightrope about to tumble off consumes me. I knock on the corner door and hear Mark’s deep voice tell me to ‘enter’. The one word is more of a command than most can muster in a full sentence. The man really is one big ball of bossiness.
Hoisting my briefcase and purse fully onto my shoulder, I shove open the door, wishing I’d dropped my things by my office. The minute I bring Mark’s office into view, I forget the dull throb of the load I’m carrying for the spectacular sight of the oval shaped room with a massive glass desk in the center. I am overwhelmed with the magnificent art on the walls to my right and left. On some level, I am certain Mark wanted me to see this place, to see him looking powerful, more king than man, in the center of it all.
But it is the spectacular mural covering the entire half moon wall hugging ‘the king’ I find utterly spellbinding. My eyes travel the exquisitely painted design of the Eiffel Tower, and I instantly know the technique and the artist. This is Chris’s mastery. These two men were once friends. They had to have been and yet now they barely tolerate each other.
“How was your coffee, Ms. McMillan?”
I snap my attention from the painting to Mark, wondering how he manages to make a question sound like a demand. Don’t play his game and he can’t beat you at it. Chris’s words repeat in my head and they resonate within me but I feel trapped. I cannot be fired before I find out what happened to Rebecca.
“My coffee was excellent, and thank you for the second cup. It certainly helped clear the fog of too many wines and not enough time.”
“Sit and tell me what you studied and what you learned.” He motions to the brown leather chairs in front of his desk, indicating he wants me to sit in the one to his right. My urge is to claim the one to his left, all too aware this action would displease him. I am clearly conflicted over this man. I want to please him. I do not want to please him. But experience with overbearing men such as Mark prevails and I choose to do neither. How high I jump now will determine how high he expects me to jump later.
When I don’t move, he arches a brow. “Am I so intimidating, Ms. McMillan, that you do not want to sit?”
My chin lifts and I meet his steely gray eyes. “As much as you try to be, Mr. Compton, no, you are not. Your tests, however, are. I’d prefer to wait to be dril
led on my knowledge until I can adequately impress you. I do not, however, want to wait to work the sales floor until such time.”
“We do not always get what we want, Ms. McMillan.” His expression is inscrutable, but his voice is lower, velvety, and not for the first time today, I’m not sure we are talking about my job. “Everything I do is calculated and with purpose. You’ll learn that sooner than later. There’s a wine tasting here on Friday night. The attendees are not high school students. They’re wealthy, refined customers, with refined tastes. I need you ready for them. I need you focused on preparing for that event.”
Refined. There was that word again and it bites with insult; be it real or imagined, it has the same effect on me. A sense of inadequacy fills me, a long lost enemy, threatening to bring me to my knees. Anger flares its ugly, unexpected head, and it’s far easier to embrace. “Then I guess I’d better get home and study.” Somehow, my voice is steady.
His eyes narrow and darken, and I’m pretty sure he knows he’s hit a hot spot with me. I’ve got to learn to control my reactions, and put on a game face.
“Are you aware that Riptide hosts a variety of wine tasting events in conjunction with some of the top wine producers in the world?”
I blink. ”No. I am not.”
“Are you aware that we hold an annual charity event in conjunction with the Siberian Orchestra?”
My stomach falls to my feet. Why didn’t I do my research? “No. No, I am not.”
“Then I’m sure you’ve now realized that I am only trying to help you, Sara,” he says. “I see something bigger than a few weeks on my local showroom floor for you. If that’s not what you want, then by all means, I’ll set you free in the gallery tomorrow to sell to your heart’s content.”
My anger transforms into near panic. “No. I don’t want that. I want to do more. I can do more.”
“Then trust me.”
I swallow hard, taken aback by his words. “Yes. I...okay. I’ll learn what you need me to.”
His eyes light with approval. “Good. I’ll give you a reprieve tonight. Go home and study. First thing tomorrow morning I’ll test you to see just how far we are from where we need to be.”
It is a dismissal confirmed by his reaching for his phone.
“Thank you,” I murmur, and head for the hallway in a blur of confusion. It baffles me how I’ve let a summer job become a plea for a new life but it has, and there is no looking back. To work for Riptide, even through this gallery, would be a dream come true. I want this as I have not wanted ever in my life.
I pass my door and scent the roses from the hallway. Back stepping, I realize I’ve left the candle burning for all these hours. I’m eager to escape this place, to get home and try to analyze what has happened to me today, what has happened to me since the day I began reading Rebecca’s journal.
Quickly, I blow out the flame and note a letter sized envelope on my chair with my name scribbled on it. I recognize the handwriting. I’ve studied his signature, his script. Rounding the desk I snatch the envelope and rush for the door. I do not want to stay here and open it. I want to be alone before I dare a peek.
Finally, when I am locked inside my car with the engine running, I stare at my name on the yellow paper, not sure what I am waiting for. In a frenzied rush of movement, I unseal the flap and pull out a piece of drafting paper and gape.
Inside is a drawing of me sitting at the coffee shop table in deep concentration, and signed by the artist. I have become a Chris Merit original.
Chapter Ten
You can’t keep thinking of everything as being Rebecca’s or you will make yourself crazy, I tell myself as I settle into my office chair, on day two at the gallery. It’s a hard earned conclusion I’d come to while lying in bed the night before, staring into the darkness. Thus why I am exhausted today, but at least I’ve resolved to claim this place as mine. I have to, otherwise how will I rise to the challenge my new boss has put before me? How will I truly reach for the dream of a successful career in art, after all of these years of convincing myself I could not?
With a vow to form my own identity at the gallery, I sink deeper into my leather chair, behind my desk. Before me sits my impulsive purchase of a new, beautifully jeweled, red leather journal that I’d picked up at Ava’s coffee shop a few minutes earlier. My hope is that writing down my own thoughts will help me stop thinking obsessively about her thoughts, or at a minimum help me to understand why confusion rules my every waking moment.
I pick up the red ink pen I’d also purchased and open to the first blank page, where I write ‘August 21, day two at the Gallery’. Guilt twists in my chest, and I set the pen down again. You are not forgetting about Rebecca. You’re simply clearing a path to finding her.
Inhaling, I pick up the pen again and stare down at the journal, seeing only a mental image of the drawing of me that Chris had left me the night before. Or rather, of a woman who looks like me, but different. I am not the girl that a famous artist is inspired by, but yet, I am, or I was yesterday.
A buzz from the phone on my desk jolts me from my thoughts and I answer automatically. “This is Sara McMillan.”
“Good morning, Ms. McMillan.” There is an unexpected smile in my new boss’s tone and I relax, if only marginally.
“Good morning, Mr. Compton.”
“I’ve been called away to New York on Riptide business until Thursday.”
The tension in my gut uncurls and my spine relaxes. Breathing room. Yes. Yes. Yes.
“That doesn’t mean you can sneak onto the sales floor,” he chides, as if he’s plucked the idea from my brain before I ever had it. Which I hadn’t, but, well, I would have. “Friday, Ms. McMillan. Your goal is to be as ready to impress me then as you possibly can be. I trust you studied well last night?”
“I certainly did.” I want this opportunity. I will not allow a knowledge barrier to defeat me.
“Excellent. Then you can log into your email and click on the link I’ve sent you to begin testing. I won’t grade the test, at least not for now. It’s simply a tool for you to use to see how you’re progressing.”
The good news keeps coming and I know my smile can be heard in my voice. “That sounds perfect.”
“Ms. McMillan,” he says sharply, prompting a reply that I dutifully offer.
“Yes, Mr. Compton?”
“Have a good day.”
The line clicks and goes dead.
***
Two hours later it’s nearly noon, and I’m making myself crazy. The names and regions of wines, and wine manufacturers, are running together and I decide to turn to my old faithful solution to all that is wrong in life. Coffee. It is my one real vice, so I figure why not indulge with an Olympic-style commitment? Besides, Ava mentioned having lunch together. She hadn’t been at the coffee shop when I’d bought the journal and I haven’t heard from her either. I figure it can’t hurt to try and catch up with her now. My curiosity over what she might share about this strange new world I inhabit is killing me. And despite my grand declaration of owning my new office and job, on some level I know I will never fully feel that I do, not until I uncover the mysteries of Rebecca’s whereabouts.
After heading to the front desk and making idle chitchat with Amanda and a few of the other staff members, I barely contain the urge to help a customer. Amanda warns me off the action with a promise of Mark’s wrath, and I quickly head to the coffee shop again. I scan the empty tables and there is no denying my disappointment to find Chris nowhere in sight.
Choosing the same table I’d worked at yesterday is an easy decision. Habits, things that feel normal—these are things I crave, just as I do the coffee I am about to order.
By two o’clock, neither Ava nor Chris have appeared in the shop. I’ve thirstily downed two White Mochas and switched to black coffee. There is no denying I am shaky and need food. Waiting to eat in hopes of sharing lunch with Ava has not paid off. The good news, though, in the hazy tunnel that is my caffeinated high
, is that my knowledge of the featured wines for the tasting Friday night is rapidly expanding.
The kid from behind the counter approaches my table and refills my coffee without me asking and grins. “Mr. Compton says to keep your cup full.”
Right. Mr. Compton says. I manage a tight-lipped smile and a “thank you”, but I am uneasy with my new boss having my drinks monitored. It is as if he is trying to…hmm what? The answer comes to me immediately. Control me. A variety of emotions flash inside me and slowly expand. There is something very sexy about a man like Mark Compton in control, but sexy or not, it’s also quite uncomfortable for all kinds of reasons I’ve found better left under the rug.
Comfortable is overrated, a voice in the back of my head screams and I know that inner voice is my subconscious mind demanding to finally be heard. The truth of the matter is, I’ve spent every day since college graduation wallowing in boring predictability. Except when you were with Michael. I grind my teeth. Predictable is far better than what I was with him.
I remind myself there are ways out of predictable ruts that do not include men like Michael…or Mark. Right. Other ways. It had taken me reading someone else’s words, stepping into their life, to find excitement. How sad am I? I squeeze my eyes shut and reprimand myself. This is not her life. It’s yours.
Resolve forms. I am determined to get to work, to make today count toward a new career. I force my eyes open and reach for my book, effectively knocking the coffee from the table. Fabulous. Just fabulous. Coffee is on my table, the floor, and yes, my only pair of good black heels that match my staple black skirt. My cheeks are no doubt, as rosy as my silk blouse.
I snatch up the few napkins I have beside me and wipe the table to salvage my computer before it becomes a victim of my shaky hands. Task complete, I squat to attend my dripping wet shoe and the floor.
“Looks like you need these.”