Naked Canvas (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (11 page)

My mouth fell open. Dominic paced back and forth with a wry smile on his face.

“It’s funny. I’ve always wondered why he chose that day, specifically. Was it because he couldn’t afford to buy me a gift? That would, of course, make his death partly my fault. Or maybe he had no idea it was even my birthday. We were barely speaking at that point, so it might have been just another Tuesday to him. Or maybe he thought the best gift he could give me was to remove himself from my life. Or maybe he didn’t think of me at all at the end. Maybe it never even occurred to him how he would affect his family. Whatever the case, there wasn’t a lot of celebrating that year. Or since.

“Anyway, my mother couldn’t handle it. Something inside her just broke. The light sort of faded from her eyes. She withdrew into herself and never came back out. She lives in an institution upstate. Never says a word. Never even acknowledges me when I visit. One bullet took both my parents from me.”

“Jesus, I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. We can’t choose the things that happen. We can only choose how we respond.”

“How did you respond?” I asked.

“Badly. I lost myself in the dark heart of the city. Fell in with some really nasty people. I started dealing. The money was good and I didn’t really have any other options. I did bad things to myself and to others. Life had no value to me. Especially my own.”

Dominic’s eyes looked sad and far away.

“So what happened?” I asked as the silence dragged on.

“One day I woke up and really thought about what I was doing. I asked myself why I was doing all these fucked up dangerous things. I realized that I was trying to kill myself, only I didn’t have the guts to actually do it.

“Well, I’m a lot of things, but I am not a coward. So I pulled out my father’s old gun and held it to my head. I stared at myself like that in the mirror for hours. It felt so viciously poetic to the seventeen year old version of me. I told myself that one way or another, that was the day I would pull the trigger. Either on the pistol or on finally living my life.”

“You chose life,” I said.

“Actually, no. I pulled the trigger but the gun didn’t fire. I pulled it again and again and got nothing but dry clicks. Maybe the bullets had gotten wet. Maybe the universe had made the choice for me.”

“So then?”

“So then I cleaned up my act. Went legit. I started a little delivery company, just hustling packages around the city in a borrowed van. I had been delivering things around town in my former life, but now instead of drugs I was delivering letters and packages. I recruited a few friends from the old days who wanted to get out of the game, and things expanded from there.

“The company went national. Then global. I restarted the Bell Foundation, found Cavanaugh and rehired him, and now I let other people handle the business. Which is why I finally had the time to go back to college at the ripe old age of twenty-six. And that’s how I met you.”

“Jesus, I had no idea.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Nobody does. I’ve never told anyone. To be honest, I’m not really sure why I told you. I guess I just don’t want you to have the wrong idea about me. Still, I’m not proud of who I was back then.”

“But you overcame so much.”

“I did what I had to do. And now, I do what I want to do.”

“Art.”

“Yes, among other things.”

“But don’t you see?” I asked. “You’re able to do the things you want to do because of the security your company provided for you. That’s what I want. Security.”

“Security is important. That’s true. But I didn’t get that security by playing it safe. If I had played it safe, I’d probably be a bartender right now or maybe a mechanic or maybe dead. Instead, I took a risk and here I am. I had to let go of my fear to get what I wanted.” He extended his hand to me. “Come on. Let me show you something.”

I took his hand and he pulled me along behind him. I almost had to jog to keep up with his long-legged strides. He flung open a door along the back wall of the studio and yanked me through.

The door led to a winding metal staircase. We climbed up a single flight and through another door. Bright light assaulted my eyes as we emerged onto the roof of the building, forcing me to squint. A brisk spring wind whipped through my hair. I pulled the robe tight across my chest with my free hand.

He dragged me to the edge of the roof. A two-foot high brick wall was all that separated us from the five-story drop to the bustling city streets below. Dominic let go of my hand and hopped up onto the narrow wall.

“Come on,” he said, extending his hand to me again. His dark hair danced in the wind.

“What? No, I can’t.” My body trembled with fear at the mere thought of standing up there.

“You can.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“You promised to do what I said.”

“But I’m afraid.”

“I know. Come on.”

I took a deep breath and gripped his hand. He pulled me up onto the ledge with an easy motion. I looked down at the world below, and a wave of vertigo swept over me. The ground seemed to rush up to meet me and I felt myself teetering forward to meet it. Only Dominic’s sure grip on my arm kept me from falling.

“I’m scared.”

He laughed. “Good. That’s the right response.”

“Please. I don’t like this.”

“Stop looking down. Trust me.”

I couldn’t pry my eyes away from the ground. All I could think about was falling down to my death.

“I can’t. What if I fall?”

“There it is. There’s your problem in a nutshell.”

I could barely hear him over the sound of the wind howling in my ears. “What?”

“Look at yourself. You’re so worried about falling that you’re missing out on everything else.”

“What are you talking about?”

He swept his arm in front of him. “Look.”

I dragged my eyes from the concrete below and looked up. My breath caught in my throat. The city unfolded around me. Buildings soared above me, piercing the sky with jutting spires. Cars flowed in a multicolored river through the streets below.

I had seen a similar view from Dominic’s window, but it was like looking at the city through a television screen compared to this. Up there, on the roof, I felt like I was a part of things. With the wind surging around me, I felt as if I were floating in the midst of it all. I could feel the beating heart of the city thrumming within my soul. The chill spike of fear I had felt before was overwhelmed by the grandeur of it all.

Dominic laughed into the wind. “How do you feel?”

“I feel alive.”

“Yes,” he cheered. “Isn’t it amazing? But don’t tell me. Tell the world.” He gestured at the city.

“What?”

“Like this.” He thrust his head back. “I feel alive!” he shouted into the sky. “Now you do it.”

“This is ridiculous,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes, it is. Do it anyway.”

“Fine,” I said. “I feel alive.”

“Louder.”

I threw my head back and shouted, “I am alive.”

He laughed. “Louder.”

“I am alive!”

I screamed it into the spaces of the world. The howling winds carried my voice into the highest reaches of the sky.

“Now tell me,” he said. “What do you want to do with your life?”

“I want to feel this way forever.”

“Good. Chase that feeling. What else?”

“I want to help people. To leave the world a better place than it was.”

“Amazing. Yes.”

“But I don’t know how.”

“That’s alright. You can figure that out. At least you have place to start. Come on.” He stepped down from the ledge and held his hand out to me.

“Wait,” I said. I turned back to the city spread out before me and I held my arms out, embracing the moment. I closed my eyes as the wind coursed over me. I felt like a bird drifting on the breeze, weightless and at peace.

“You look so beautiful right now,” Dominic said.

I
felt
beautiful at that moment. The world was alive with hope and everything seemed possible. I turned to face him. He looked up at me with laughter and affection shimmering in his eyes.

My robe ripped open and the air gusted against my naked flesh. I screamed in delight, laughing at the madness of it all. I leapt at him and he caught me in his arms. My body pressed against his, and I looked up at him into those raging blue eyes. I wanted him to kiss me.

But he didn’t. He stuck to the agreement.

“Still think you’re not special?” he asked.

“You make me this way. You make me crazy.”

He shook his head. “This is all you. I’m just helping you find it. Don’t you see? Amazing things can happen once you let go of your fear.”

“I don’t know, Dominic. I don’t know if I can change who I am.”

“I’m not trying to change you. I’m trying to help you discover the woman hidden behind the fear and insecurity.”

“Fine, Mr. Sculptor. Polish away my rough edges. I want to see what else you can uncover.”

“Good. Follow me.”

Chapter 12

Dominic led me down from the roof and back to the studio. I was filled with energy and excitement, ready to see what this crazy, beautiful man had in store for me. He took me to a thick velvet curtain hanging along the back wall and pulled it aside, revealing a hidden door.

We stepped into a room shrouded in darkness. A light flared in his hands, and I smelled the acrid scent of sulfur. He took the match and lit a single candle, filling the room with a dim glow. A bed sat in the center of the room. How many beds did this guy have?

It was a big, wooden four-post monstrosity. Lines of carved shapes marched up the wooden posts in winding spirals. My cheeks reddened when I realized that the carvings were the shapes of people having sex in various positions. So many of them were unfamiliar to me, and I suddenly felt utterly inexperienced.

He slipped the robe from my shoulders and instructed me to lay down on my back. A thick canvas sheet was draped over the mattress. Its texture was rough against my skin, but I did as I was instructed. With expert hands, he bound my wrists and ankles, leaving me feeling vulnerable and exposed.

Then he set about lighting the rest of the candles in the room. The candles came in every shade of the rainbow. Their light bathed me in gaudy splashes of color so that my skin looked like stained glass.

Directly above me, a massive golden-framed mirror hung suspended by thick steel cables. It was positioned at the perfect angle and distance from the bed so that my body was framed squarely within it as I looked up at myself.

I shifted my body around on the canvas sheet, mesmerized by my own movements. I studied the colorful contours of my naked body, and my mirror image studied me back. Our eyes met and we smiled at each other through the glass.

Dominic busied himself beside the bed, arranging paints and brushes. He was going to paint me by candlelight. It all seemed so romantic, if a little impractical.

I wasn’t about to complain. Despite the bindings on my limbs and the canvas beneath me, I was quite comfortable stretched out on the cushy mattress. This bed, which had probably never been slept in, was nicer than the bed in my apartment.

Dominic settled himself onto a stool beside me. “Ready?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Paint me like one of your French girls.”

He smiled. “Maybe later. Right now, I have something a little different in mind.”

I wiggled my tied up arms and legs. “Yeah, I kind of figured.”

He shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to get bored.” He winked at me.

“Well then? What is it? The anticipation is killing me.”

“You’re going to talk, and I’m going to paint,” he said. He picked up a brush and dabbed the bristly tip into a glob of red paint.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s it?”