Surrender (8 page)

“Don’t call him that,” Aimee responded. But even as she defended him, Aimee was already anticipating the explosion that would come when she handed him back the artist’s agreement he had had delivered to her that morning.

The thought of accepting his offer had been tempting…oh, so tempting, she admitted, especially when it followed a night of the most passionate lovemaking between
them. It was because she had been so tempted that she had kept the appointment with Edmond.

Edmond’s rejection had stung. Unbearably so. And had made Peter’s offer even more enticing. She would have signed it and accepted it then and there—even despite his cocksure attitude. But learning just how thoroughly Leslie had used him and humiliated him, and knowing that Peter believed she could do the same, had stopped her.

So she would sell her paintings to Sterling’s, a fourth-rate gallery at best, which would pay her less than a fifth of what her work would bring at Gallagher’s. And, with a little luck, perhaps she could prove to Peter that it was truly him she loved and to herself that she was a competent artist.

Maybe then, when he finally believed in her love for him, he would recognize that what he felt for her was much deeper than simple lust.

He loved her. It was there in his kiss, in his touch, in the dozens of flowers he had sent to her in apology over the past two weeks. She had seen it in his eyes when he looked at her, heard it in his voice when he told her he wanted her and asked her again to marry him.

But he hadn’t said the words. And he hadn’t budged on the issue of the prenuptial agreement. Not that the agreement itself meant anything to her. It never had. It was the lack of trust and love that it represented that she objected to.

“So, when do you plan to tell him?” Liza asked.

“Tomorrow,” Aimee replied, pulling her thoughts back to the present.

“Listen, if you want to cancel the dinner and movie tonight, I’ll understand. We can always make it another time.”

Aimee reached over and touched her friend’s hand, nervously tugging on the place mat. “I said I’d have dinner and go to the movies with you tonight.”

“You don’t have to. I mean, if you’d rather skip it so you can be with Peter—”

“Quit worrying about Peter. I’ll see him tomorrow. I’ve promised to bake him some of my herb bread.”

“Decided the way to the beast’s heart is through his stomach, hmm?”

“Don’t call him a beast,” Aimee said reprovingly, hoping that her instincts were right and that she had already found her way into Peter’s heart.

A
imee dipped her brush into the paint, then carefully stroked the deep blue shade that matched Peter’s eyes across the canvas. She repeated the process, applying another thin layer of color to the eyes that stared back at her from the portrait. Unhappy with the results, Aimee tossed down the brush.

“What is this? The temperamental artist is finally showing herself?” Jacques asked, his deep, booming voice and accent filling the silence in her studio.

“I guess so,” Aimee replied, sighing. She wished her mood matched his jovial spirit.

Wiping his hands with a cloth, Jacques draped the figure he had been sculpting with a towel and moved the short distance from his own work to stand behind her. “What is it,
mon amie?”

“It’s no use, Jacques. I just don’t think I’m cut out to be an artist. Look at this.” She pointed to the portrait of Peter she had been working on for the past month.

Crossing his arms, Jacques rubbed one palm along the line of his jaw as he looked from the photograph of Peter she had propped up beside her easel to the canvas. “Your brush strokes are good, much better than your earlier attempts. The oil does not look as though you are putting it on with a mop anymore.”

Aimee’s lips twitched at she recalled his earlier assessment of her attempts at the glazing technique. The process was a time-consuming method by which an artist carefully and slowly created the portrait by placing layer upon layer of paint on the canvas. It was a technique used by the masters, and the end result was supposed to be a magnificent piece of art that, when properly executed, virtually made it possible to lift the completed painting from the canvas to stand on its own. Looking at the portrait of Peter, she knew that, while her technique might be perfect, she had failed to make the portrait come to life.

“It’s a good likeness of your Peter. Very good, in fact. You’ve even caught the stubborn jaw of the man.”

“But look at the eyes,” she told him, frustrated that her fingers failed to create the image in her mind’s eye.

“What is it I am supposed to see? They are the same eyes that are in the photograph.”

“I know. But they’re wrong—even in the picture,” Aimee said, dismissing the framed photograph with the wave of her hand. She hadn’t needed the photo of Peter to paint him. She knew his face. She knew each and every line etching the corners of his eyes from those rare moments when he laughed. She knew the slash of dark brows that made him look so fierce when he scowled. She knew the curve of his mouth that could move over her so hungrily and bring her indescribable pleasures when they made love. She knew his face, and while she might have captured the image, she had failed to capture the man.

It was the eyes. They were wrong. They held none of the compassion that was so much a part of Peter and that he tried so hard to conceal. The eyes that she had painted held none of the caring that made a man like him spend hundreds
of dollars to frame a child’s painting and then hang it next to a priceless work of art.

“What is wrong with the eyes? Even I, master that I am, could not have done a better job of matching the color and the shape.”

“But they’re not Peter’s eyes. They look too…too cold. Too distant. Peter’s eyes are warmer, more gentle.”

Jacques chuckled. “Ah,
mon amie,
I do not think most people would describe Peter Gallagher as a warm, gentle man.”

“But he is.”

Jacques shrugged. “Perhaps. But I am afraid you see him in a way others do not. Of course, it is because you are in love with the man. And that is the problem.”

“Why is it a problem?”

“Because it is never easy for an artist to capture the object of their passion on canvas.”

“That’s ridiculous. If anything, I should be inspired.” And she had been. That was the reason she had decided to paint him in the first place.

“Inspired, yes. And often the results are magnificent. But the process itself can be quite frustrating.” Jacques laughed again, and the sound was hearty, rich. “Just look at the portrait yourself, if you do not believe me. You see your Peter as a warm, gentle man, and you feel you have failed to capture that onto the canvas. No?”

Aimee looked at the painting. While she conceded that it was technically correct, it failed to satisfy her. “Yes.”

“And while I, your teacher, tell you the work is excellent, you do not believe me. You feel you have failed.”

“Yes,” Aimee admitted.

“It is because you feel you cannot do justice to the original. You feel you cannot capture with the paint this wonderful person that you love.”

It was exactly how she felt. “So, you’re saying I should just forget about doing a portrait of Peter?”

“No. I am saying you must not paint him as you see him with your eyes, but paint him as you see him here.” He brought his hand to his chest, patting the area over his heart.

Aimee looked from Jacques to the portrait. The color she had used to achieve the blue of his eyes, while correct, was too cool. She needed a touch of yellow to give the color more warmth. She turned back to Jacques. “Thank you,” she whispered. Already her fingers were itching to pick up her brush, anxious to return to work.

Jacques smiled at her then. The gesture was filled with warmth, with friendship, with understanding. As though sensing her eagerness, he picked up her brush and handed it to her. “I see the muse has struck once again. Paint your Peter, Aimee. Not the one in the photograph, but the one you see in your heart.”

Aimee took the brush from him. After mixing the colors, she dipped the tip of her brush into the oil and began to paint again. But this time, when she moved her brush along the canvas, she didn’t hold back. Each stroke was a caress, guided by the image of the man that she saw with her heart. She painted the Peter she saw, the man with so much love locked inside him, the love that somehow, in some way, she would find a way to set free.

Her fingers moved carefully, deftly, across the canvas, and it wasn’t until she sensed Jacques standing behind her once more that Aimee looked up from the portrait.

“Ah, your Peter is a lucky man. This is excellent work, Aimee. Excellent,” Jacques murmured.

Aimee tilted her head to one side and surveyed her work. Her heart swelled with pride at what she had created. “It is good, isn’t it?”

“It is more than good.”

Aimee warmed at the praise. She arched her back, realizing her shoulders were stiff, her fingers tired. She had been working far longer than she had imagined. But time was irrelevant in light of what she had accomplished. The eyes that looked back at her now were Peter’s eyes, warm and gentle, not those of a cool stranger.

Jacques was right. The painting
was
more than good, she admitted, surveying her work. It was the best thing she had ever done.

“There is only one thing you have missed,” Jacques told her.

“What?”

He picked up one of her brushes, dabbed it into black paint and offered it to her.

Puzzled, Aimee took the proffered brush.

“The artist’s signature.”

Smiling, she formed the large A of her name, then spelled the remainder in small letters. When she would have signed her last name, Jacques stopped her.

“No,” he said, stilling her movements. “You Americans. You have no sense of drama…no feel for capturing the moment. You are going to be a great artist someday,
mon amie.
Your work will require only the one name. Aimee. That should be your signature.”

Holding her hand, Jacques guided the brush with a flourish in a zigzagging motion beneath her name. “There,” he proclaimed. “Someday
that
signature will be a very famous one.”

Tipping back her head to look at Jacques, Aimee laughed.

It was the sound of Aimee’s laughter, so light and carefree, that made the tune he had been whistling fall silent on Peter’s lips. He pushed the open door wider and stepped into her apartment. He smiled, pleased but not entirely sure why the mere sound of Aimee laughing could fill him with such a sense of warmth and contentment.

Probably because a few weeks ago he had been afraid he had robbed all laughter from her with a few words spoken in anger and jealousy. Thank heaven, she had forgiven him. He knew without hesitation that he would have willingly parted with his prized Matisse just to hear the sound of her laughter again.

After pushing the door closed, Peter headed for the kitchen with the bottle of champagne he had brought to
celebrate. And they would be celebrating, he told himself, even as he noted the bare stove top and the cluttered table. He sniffed, then touched the oven and found it cold to the touch.

So, she had forgotten to make the herb bread she had promised him. Who could blame her? He certainly didn’t. It was too hot for baking, anyway. And food was hardly what he had in mind for them.

Pulling open the cabinets, he spied the ice bucket and retrieved it from its hiding spot behind some serving bowls. After placing the bottle of Moët in the container, he filled it with ice. He settled on the wineglasses for their champagne.

Champagne. Ice. Glasses. Peter went through the mental checklist. Now all he needed was Aimee, and once she said yes, he would slip the ring on her finger—and this time it would stay there.

A surge of adrenaline shot through him. Suddenly nervous, Peter patted the pocket of his slacks, feeling for the ring. He relaxed a little when he felt the prongs of the emerald-shaped stone.

Lunch or no lunch, they would picnic here on the floor, feast on champagne and each other. He would bask in her excitement and appreciation over the contract he had sent. He would tell her of his plans for her exhibit and watch her expressive face glow with anticipation.

He smiled, already anticipating the love that would shimmer in her ghost-blue eyes when he asked her to marry him. She still wouldn’t want to sign the prenuptial agreement, but somehow he would convince her.

And then Aimee would be his, and he would see Gallagher’s reestablished here, in this building on Royal Street, in the place where it was meant to be.

Aimee laughed again, and Peter warmed even more to the thought of making her his wife. To hell with icing the champagne. It had been in his refrigerator before he walked over. It was cold enough. Besides, he didn’t want to wait any longer. Picking up the glasses in one hand, he scooped the
bottle of champagne from the bucket and started toward Aimee’s studio.

“Oh, Jacques, you certainly are good for my ego,” Aimee said.

“Ego has nothing to do with it.”

At the sound of the other man’s voice, Peter stopped, his body going cold and still as he realized who was with Aimee. With the glasses and champagne clutched tightly in his fists, he moved to the doorway of her studio.

Peter allowed his gaze to sweep over the room, barely registering the myriad of paintings lining the space—the splashes of bright colors adorning the stark white walls and filling each corner with their vibrancy. He dismissed it all. His collector’s eye, an eye that had been unable to resist the quick assessment of most paintings within his peripheral vision, was unable to see anything now save the woman at the center of the collage.

Aimee.
His
Aimee. With her ghost-blue eyes bright and shining, with her soft, sweet lips smiling, with her lushly curved body encircled by the big Frenchman’s arms as he held her hand and guided her brush across the canvas.

Tipping back her head, Aimee laughed again. Her face glowed as the other man murmured something to her in French.

Jealousy, fierce and ugly, churned in Peter’s gut.

Damn the woman for making him feel this way. Damn her for making him want to hurl the Frenchman out the window…for making him want to haul her into his arms and claim her as his.

And it was because she made him feel those things that he forced himself to stay where he was.

A piece of ice still clinging to the champagne bottle slid down the bottle’s side and fell to the wooden floor, then shattered.

Aimee started at the sound. “Peter,” she said, her voice echoing her surprise.

“You did ask me to come by to have lunch. Didn’t you?” Peter asked, pleased that he managed to sound so detached while the blood pumped through his veins so fiercely.

A look of dread filled her face. “Oh, my God. Please tell me you’re early.”

“Actually, I’m a few minutes late. I stopped to pick up some champagne,” he said, lifting the bottle.

Aimee groaned. “What time is it?”

Peter tilted the empty glasses to look at his wrist. “Twelve-thirty.”

She groaned again.

“It seems I’m interrupting again.”

“Don’t be silly.” A tiny frown line creased her brow as she looked at him. “As usual, I’ve lost track of time.” Disengaging herself from Jacques, she removed the painting she had been working on from the easel and propped it, face in, against a nearby wall.

Peter felt a swift kick to the gut at the gesture. Though he had held no interest in her work until recently and had re fused her offer to view her studio in the past, suddenly he felt cheated, cut off from that which was the very essence of Aimee. He wanted to flip the painting around, to insist she share that part of herself with him.

Instead, he walked over to the worktable in the corner. Pushing aside tubes of paint and paper, he set down the bottle of champagne. “Gaston,” he said, acknowledging the other man with a nod of his head.

“Hello, Gallagher. You are having a celebration?” he asked, eyeing the champagne.

Peter thought of the engagement ring in his pocket, of his plans to propose to Aimee and how he had imagined them making love in her big, soft bed once she accepted. He realized the chances of his fantasy playing out today were now slim. “As you’ve pointed out before, being with Aimee is reason enough to celebrate.”

“Yes, it is,” Jacques said, smiling.

“I take it you’re still giving Aimee art lessons in lieu of paying rent.” It was a statement, not a question.

Jacques’s smile didn’t waver, and from the mocking gleam in his eyes, Peter knew the other man had recognized the gibe, if not the warning behind it. “It’s a lucrative arrangement for both of us, I think. And certainly a pleasure for me,” he said. “Aimee’s an excellent pupil.”