Being Me (13 page)

She doesn’t have to explain what she means. My father has a thing for women in exotic places not much older than I am. “I’m meeting with him tonight to try to talk him into some private showings. Anything I should be concerned about?”

Her big, dark brown eyes, a shade darker than mine, go wide. “You talked him into seeing you?”

“Yes, I—”

My phone rings and I forget everything else but checking the number and confirming Chris is calling. “I need to get this.”

Her brows furrow and she seems a little put off. “Sure. We’ll chat later.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry. It’s important.” I push the button to accept the call but I glance at Ava, who is still a little too close. “Hold on one second, Chris.” A quick look around and I’m excruciatingly aware of nearby customers, the small environment, and I wonder why I thought this was a good place to do this.
“Actually, I need to go somewhere I can talk freely. That is, if you have a few minutes?”

“Yes. Of course, I do.” The deep, rich tone of his voice radiates through me, and despite my anxiety over the call, I shiver with awareness. This is the power this man has over me, and the prospect of losing him if this talk goes poorly is piercing.

I glance toward the door and quickly nix the idea of focusing in the chill outside, instead making a beeline for the single-stall bathroom, where I lock the door behind me. “Okay. Can you hear me?”

“I can,” he says, “and why do you sound about as flustered as the night I called you and you’d just left the storage unit?”

“Because in a different way, I am,” I surprise myself by confessing. “Are you somewhere you can talk?”

“Yes. What’s wrong, Sara?”

“Nothing.” I’m pacing the small space. “Not really. I just don’t want there to be anything wrong, Chris. And I better warn you that I’m going to ramble. That’s what I do when I’m nervous.”

“You don’t have to be nervous with me. Not ever. Just say what’s on your mind, and sooner than later, before you’re making me insane trying to guess what’s going on.”

“I will. I am. I—well, I’ve had pink paddles and butterflies on my mind and—”

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I know and that’s the point. Or not really the point.” Here comes the rambling. “The real point is that you’d take me to pink paddle and butterfly land, but you aren’t pink paddles and butterflies. You’re leather and pain and darkness.”

“That’s how you see me, Sara?”

“That’s who you are, Chris, and I like who you are and that means I need to be those things, too.”

“Sara—”

“Please let me finish before I can’t.” My knees wobble and I lean against the wall. “I’ve let fear of failure hold me back for all kinds of reasons that are too complicated to explain at this moment, and I’m not sure I really understand fully myself, but I’m trying. I don’t want to let it hold me back now, so I’m just going to say what’s on my mind without even taking a breath here. I know I said I’m not about white picket fences, and I’m not, and never will be, but I can’t imagine being without you, either. What that means to me is that I need to go where you need me to go. And don’t tell me you don’t need anything but me. I wish that were true and it means a lot when you say it, but you have a way you deal with life, a place you go to escape. Everything from the painting, the club, the way you are in general, tells me that. I don’t want someone else to be there when you need those things. I want it to be me. I want you to trust me not to run.” I stop talking and the dead space afterward is unbearable and I can barely contain an urge to fill it with more words. “Chris, damn it, say something. I’m dying here.”

“And what if you can’t handle it?” No denial of what I’ve said.

There is a sudden, crushing pressure in my chest. This is what he is scared of, what he fears. That I can’t handle all that he is. “We both need to know if I can. I don’t want us to unravel and have to wonder if it’s because I didn’t try.”

“You can’t.”

“Okay,” I say hoarsely, and the pressure intensifies painfully. “Then I guess that’s that.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you already know I’m not what you need. I know I’m not what you need. Let’s not drag this out any longer than we have to. I’m going to pack, and—”

“No. You are not going to pack. You are not going to leave. Not after the storage unit incident.”

My insecurity sends my hand to my throat. Had he meant to break it off with me but the storage incident stopped him? “You don’t owe me a safe place to stay. I don’t need charity protection, Chris.”

“That’s not what I meant. Damn it, Sara, I don’t want you to leave.”

I hurt. He is all about pain and now I am, too. “Want, need. Right, wrong. They all just make me one big mess and I am tired of being one big mess, Chris. We, this, us—it’s all going to destroy me if we go on like this.”

“You are going to destroy me if you leave me, Sara.”

More pain. His pain this time. It radiates through his words and insinuates itself deep in my soul, like he has. And in that moment, I believe he needs me as I do him. “I don’t want to leave,” I whisper.

“Then don’t.” His voice is a soft plea, exposing the rare vulnerable side of him I find so impossible to resist. “I’ll come home tonight and we’ll figure this out together.”

“No,” I say quickly. “Don’t do that. That you want to is enough. I’ll be here when you get home. I promise. I’ll be here.”

“I can fly back there tomorrow morning.”

“No, please. Don’t. What you’re doing there is too important and I work late tonight anyway.”

“I’m coming home.” A distant voice calls his name and he adds, “I have to go. I may not be able to call you again but I’ll see you when I get there.”

“I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

“Not a chance.”

We say a short good-bye forced on us by someone calling him again, and when I hear the phone go dead, I let my head fall backward to the wooden surface of the door behind me. I am far too happy that Chris is putting himself through hell to see me tonight, and he is far too willing to let it happen. What are we doing to each other? And why can’t either of us stop?

•   •   •

After pulling myself together, I step out of the bathroom and a prickling of awareness brings me to a halt. My gaze lifts, seeking the source. My throat tightens at the sight of Mark standing in profile to me at the counter to the right of the register, talking with Ava. I can’t see his face, but Ava does not look happy, even less so when Mark leans in closer, intimately close to her ear, to finish whatever he is saying. There is more to their relationship than I had thought and I wonder if I know any of these people at all.

Ava’s eyes lift and find mine, and I realize I’m not only staring, but have been caught. I tear my attention away and rush to my table, feeling Mark’s gaze on me, intense and heavy. I wonder if everyone else here understands that the power charging the air is him claiming the room simply by existing, or if they just feel the unidentified crackle I did upon exiting the bathroom.

I gather my things at my table, preparing to explain why I’m
here instead of at the gallery. It should surprise me that Mark doesn’t approach me at my table but it doesn’t. Of course, he’s building the tension, ensuring I squirm for his enjoyment. It’s a familiar method of control to me, or rather, used on me, that fits Mark like a glove. It used to fit me as well, but not anymore. I’ve come a long way toward understanding and even seeing the positive in Mark today. Understanding doesn’t mean liking all that I see, though, and I don’t right now.

It’s not until I am almost at the door of the coffee shop that he appears at my side. Towering over me, he opens the door; his eyes dark, filled with the never-ending challenge he offers me. “I was afraid you’d gone MIA like Rebecca, Ms. McMillan.”

I blink up at him and the past few weeks have done something to my self-censorship. I seem to have none left in me. “I told Amanda where I was going. And besides, I’m not that easy to get rid of.” I push open the door and steel myself for the wind that smacks me in the face as I step outside. Mark steps to my side about the same time the double, or even triple meanings that could be taken from my words, hit me. If he’d killed Rebecca, he might think I was saying he couldn’t kill me off, too, but I don’t think that Mark killed Rebecca. He just fucked her. In all kinds of ways. I’ve potentially just undone all I established with him by issuing him an invitation to give me a try and promising I won’t run.

I stop walking and turn to face him. “I didn’t mean that the way you might have taken it.”

His dark stare lightens with amusement. “I know, Ms. McMillan. But do remember it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”

“Somehow, I find it hard to believe you’d let any woman think for herself enough to do that.”

“You might be surprised what I would let the right woman do.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks. “I don’t intend—”

He laughs, low and deep, and I’m taken off guard. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him laugh. “I’m aware you don’t intend to do many things I’d like you to.”

I open my mouth to protest even having this conversation, but he cuts me off by adding, “And no, I’m not going to pressure you.” He turns me toward the gallery. “Let’s get back to the gallery. I left you a little gift on your desk.”

Thankfully, my back is to him, so he can’t see me react to his words. Mark has succeeded in doing what only Chris has done before this. He’s sent me into an adrenaline rush of anticipation and I can barely keep my pace slow and even. I don’t know what to expect. A rare piece of art? An official job offer? The possibilities are many.

I expect Mark to follow me to my office, but again, he is unpredictable. I’m relieved, certain that the less Mark sees me react and the less he knows what makes me tick, the better. The instant I walk into my office, I freeze. Lying on top of my desk is a journal that matches the ones I’ve locked away in Chris’s safe.

The journal Mark left for me is sitting in my lap as I drive to Alvarez’s Victorian mansion in San Francisco’s ritzy Nob Hill area, sometimes referred to as Snob Hill. Just ten minutes from the Allure Gallery, it’s here that the rich and famous are plentiful, and aside from mansions galore, the nearby shopping and theater districts cater to the elite. I’ve gone from avoiding the things that remind me of the money I left behind to drowning in it.

I maneuver into the driveway, which is remarkably unremarkable, but with a city less than forty-seven square miles, even here it’s expected. What space doesn’t allow on the outside is made up for with glamour on the inside. Since my Google search for directions brought up references to a renowned architect, I’m quite certain this one is not the exception.

Once I kill the engine of the 911, I stare at the red door of the house, my teeth worrying my bottom lip. I am not drowning, I remind myself. I’m taking control of my life. I’m no longer
hiding. I’m no longer in denial. I have a meeting with the famous, talented Ricco Alvarez. So why the heck am I not hopping out of the car, when it’s five minutes until my meeting and being early makes a good impression?

My fingers wrap around the journal I’ve found to be both a treasure and a disappointment. It is far from the dark and revealing view into Rebecca’s soul that are the other journals. It’s a detailed accounting of every piece of work she ever sold or evaluated for Riptide. The most revealing things are her short insights into the staff, buyers, sellers, and artists that she has encountered and their personality quirks, interests, and history.

Her notes about Chris are scribbled out and no matter how I try, I cannot make them out, though I’m not surprised about the various art he’s sold through Riptide to benefit the children’s hospital. I can’t think about that now, though. I have to conquer this meeting with success, despite the unease inside me I have no real reason to feel. Rebecca’s notes were positive on Alvarez. Generally misunderstood, and while motivated by money and success, he has proven generous in tremendous ways.

I’m close to the gallery. I’m supposed to call Mark after my meeting. People know where I am. But . . . I don’t want to be stupid. What if Mark and Alvarez are the two men in the journal?

I grab my phone out of my purse and hit the auto-dial I’ve programmed for Jacob. He answers on the first ring. “Everything okay, Ms. McMillan?”

“Yes. Completely fine. I just . . . want to make sure it stays that way. I’m probably being paranoid, but . . .”

“Paranoid is better than careless.”

I have no idea how much he knows about Rebecca or what
I have going on, but I don’t think it matters anyway. “I’m headed into a business meeting and my boss knows where I am, but in light of recent incidents, I’d like someone else to know as well.”

“What’s the address?”

“It’s the private gallery for the artist Ricco Alvarez,” I explain after reciting the address. “I’m not sure how long the meeting will be. It could be fifteen minutes or two hours. If it’s short I’ll head back to an event going on at the gallery.”

“Can you check in in an hour to let me know you’re okay?”