The Artist (The Game Changers #2) (20 page)

With a final resolution to simply enjoy myself, I turned to head back to the party. I hadn’t so much as turned my back on the water before I froze where I stood. Standing in the doorway was a sleek, formal Maverick. His face was blocked by a shadow, and he wore a tux instead of jeans and a t-shirt, but I knew. I was intimately familiar with the man behind the shadow, the man beneath the black and white.

My heart pounded, and I swore I could hear the blood pumping through my body. Thank goodness it was dark, because I was sure my skin was the same red color of my dress. Seeing him again did things to me, things that weren’t entirely unpleasant.

We stared at each other for a moment longer before I breathed, “Adam.”

“Katherine.” His deep voice remained quiet when he spoke.

“The ceiling. It’s yours.”

He nodded simply.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“How did you get it finished? I thought you said it would be months.”

“It’s been months,” he reminded me. Then he moved from the door and came to the edge of the balcony to look out over the water. “After you left, I moved up the timeline. I needed the distraction.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I whispered. Silence stretched between us for a few moments. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I asked, “How’s Jack?”

“Still going through chemo. He’s hanging in there.”

“He’s tough. He’ll make it through this.”

“I know.”

Another moment of silence.

“Look, I know you don’t want to talk to me, but I have so much to say to you. I want to explain, need to explain, to tell you the truth. I owe it to you.”

“You don’t need to explain anything, Katherine.” I winced at him calling me by my name and not Duchess. I missed the familiarity, the intimacy that we shared.

“No, I do. I really do,” I started, but he cut me off again.

“I know everything I need to know.” His words were harsh, but his tone wasn’t—I was confused.

“What does that mean?”

He ignored my question, turning to face me instead. “You look beautiful tonight,” he said, watching me carefully.

I laughed humorlessly. “I look the same as always. I’m regimented that way.”

He pushed off the wall and walked around me to the other side. “No, you look different.”

I quirked my eyebrow in question then turned away to look back out over the water. I knew I didn’t look different; I thoroughly examined myself in the mirror earlier that evening. Same ol’ Kitty in a designer gown, highlighting my long neck and clavicles instead of curves and cleavage. My shiny blond curls were perfectly in place, showing off my high cheekbones and cat eyes. Cat eyes. Kitty. Ha. Go figure. No, the outside of me was all the same. The inside? Now that was a horse of a different color.

He came up behind me, trapping me on either side with his arms. If I thought my heart had been pounding before, it was nothing compared to what was happening with him this close to me.

“I see you thinking there, Duchess. Overanalyzing yourself. Critiquing every detail, but you won’t find it in your reflection.” His mouth moved closer to my ear, and his voice dropped lower. As his fingertips trailed down my arms slowly, he said, “It’s in the way you carry yourself. The way you stand. The way you tilt your head and hold your hand.” He lifted my hand and studied it carefully. “It was all rehearsed before, rigid, careful, practiced. Now, it’s like you float, like the strings have been cut, and you’re moving on your own for the very first time. Sure, the grace you’ve always had is still there and the movement is perfection, but now it’s real. It’s free. I could paint it better than explain it.”

“I don’t understand you,” I whispered.

“What don’t you get, Duchess?”

I turned in the circle of his arms to face him. “The other day, you wouldn’t speak to me. Now you’re telling me this? What’s changed?”

The damn smirk made its first appearance. “The other day, I was running late to get here to finish this. They were taking the scaffolding down the morning after, and I had to finish the last angel. I wanted to call you, but Rex mentioned you’d be here.”

“So, you…”

“I came here for you,” he confirmed.

I couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”

He smiled widely this time. “It’s a funny story, really. You see, I met this girl, this beautiful, amazing girl. We spent one month together, a staggering month. Then she left me, broke me. I was going after her. I was ready to board a plane to get my girl back, because all I wanted was more months with her.”

“You came after me?” Months of worry and heartbreak bled from my body.

He nodded and moved closer. “I was almost to the airport when my mom called to tell me Jack had another seizure. He was on his way back to the hospital, and he was unconscious. Suddenly, my problems were put on hold. By the time everything was okay and I made it back to the loft, a few days had passed. It was enough time for you to move on, or so I thought. I received an email with a picture of you from page six. You were with the congressman’s son.”

“Oh.” I frowned. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who sent the email. Dick.

“I threw myself into work. Corbin handled the bar, and I did the one thing I could do to distract me.”

“You painted.”

He shifted, so he was leaning against the wall and pulled me to stand between his legs. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close. My hands instinctively went to his chest and rested there.

The damn smirk appeared again. “Well, imagine my surprise when a man named Ward calls me months after I thought I lost you only to tell me what a fool I was. See, I remember the name, Ward. It isn’t something you hear every day, and it happens to be the name that came up on your phone early that first morning I spent the night at your place, the night you drank yourself silly. I always wondered about him, but he convinced me I never needed to worry.”

“Oh yeah?” I didn’t know whether to be angry with Ward for going behind my back or kiss his feet for bringing Maverick back to me. Right then, I was leaning to the latter.

“See, he said that Miss Katherine Peters doesn’t put herself on the line for just anyone. When she saw a way to help me, she sacrificed her happiness to save my brother. There was a lot more to that conversation, but the point is that he made me understand why you left.”

“My father was going to come between us either way. I just wanted to help you and your family, even if I couldn’t be with you. He said he would make sure Jack had the best doctors and the best care.”

“And he has.”

“Then it was worth it,” I told him, hoping he could see how torn I felt.

“And now? Is your father going to come between us?”

“No. Ward and Maddox have helped me get on my feet. My father and I…That bridge was burned at both ends, so I don’t think I have to worry about him anymore.”

He looked in my eyes like he was looking inside of me. When he spoke, it was serious. Story time was over, and now he wanted to get to the bottom of my leaving. “Why didn’t you just tell me, Duchess?”

“You would’ve said no to the money. My father would have found a way to hurt you to get to me. He could have prevented Jack from getting the best care, and I was afraid he would do it, if only to prove to me just how much power he has. It was the only way I could help your family and make sure you had the people you needed in your life.”

Maverick’s hands gently cupped my cheeks. “I needed you too, you know.”

The tender way he spoke and held my face caused my eyes to fill with tears. “I didn’t know.”

“Then let me make this perfectly clear, Duchess. I needed you then, and I need you now. I fell in love with you during our month, and my feelings have not changed. If anything, I fell more in love with you the second I found out what you did for my brother.”

I opened my mouth to speak, and he took advantage by kissing me with months of pent-up frustration. When we broke apart, he held my body against his, hugging me tightly. “I missed you,” I told him. “I missed you more than I can say.”

“I missed you too,” he whispered.

“Kitty?” a deep voice rang out over the balcony. I turned to find Maddox in the doorway. “You okay?”

I looked up at Maverick, who was looking back at me with the damn smirk on his lips. “I’m great,” I told Maddox without breaking eye contact with Maverick.

“They’re seating for dinner. You two might want to come inside sometime tonight.”

“Sure, Maddox,” Maverick replied, but neither of us moved. “Do we have to go?” he asked.

“I’m supposed to be writing an article. You’re probably supposed to be inside getting fawned over for your amazing artistic ability.”

“I would like to show you some of my other abilities right now.” His lips found my neck, and I leaned, giving him better access.

“I’d like that too,” I told him, and suddenly it was like no time had passed. We hadn’t been apart for months. All the feelings had returned, and I felt safe again.

“Adam?” a woman’s voice interrupted us this time, effectively ending the moment that I had been dreaming about for months.

“Jesus Christ,” Maverick cursed quietly and turned to the doorway. There stood Blythe Withers with her arms crossed and a saucy grin on her face.

“Rex is asking for you, Adam. He’d like to recognize the artist. Perhaps you could at least wait until this is over before you drop trou.”

“We’ll be right there, Blythe,” he told her tersely.

“Sure, sure. Hurry up,” she sassed as she walked away.

Once she was gone, he cupped my cheeks and frowned. “I guess we should go.”

“We can pick this up later,” I assured him.

“I’m counting on it. You’re coming home with me tonight.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

After rejoining the event, Maverick and I weren’t apart for long. I joined my friends while he did his thing with Rex, but once he was back by my side, we barely separated. Handholding, affectionate kisses, dancing—we were that couple who made everyone else sick. While it was torture not being able to properly show him how much I missed him and tell him how I felt about him, it felt incredible to be there with him. Our friends’ eyes were on us the whole time, but I didn’t care. I was too busy making up for lost time.

“I can hear you thinking, Duchess,” Maverick said from underneath me. We were in his bed after several hours of catching up. The sun was starting to light up the city, and I had yet to go to sleep.

I leaned up on my elbows. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“Nah, just taking a break.”

“Can I tell you something?”

“As long as it’s not that you are leaving for New York, you can tell me anything.”

I flinched at his hurt tone. “I know I said I was sorry, but I feel like I should explain. I didn’t mean to hurt you. When I agreed to go out with you that first time, I knew we would only have a month. I knew my father would interfere. I just thought it would be better if I had one month of something than a lifetime of nothing. Better to have loved and lost and all that. What I didn’t anticipate was your feelings. When I say I didn’t mean to hurt you, I meant that I didn’t think I could. I didn’t think you could feel anything for me. That anyone could feel anything real for me, but when I left, I realized I might have been wrong. ”

“You were wrong,” he confirmed softly.

“I know,” I whispered. “I fell for you too, you know? I’ve never told someone I loved them, not my parents, not my friends. No one, but I’m telling you. I am head over heels, can’t sleep, can’t think of anyone else, in love with you. I thought about you every moment of every day. I missed you like I never thought possible, but you should know I would do it all over again if it meant I could help your brother. You need him first and foremost.”

“Duchess, my brother will be fine. What you did helped, but it was unnecessary. We would’ve figured out a way for him to get the best treatment without you having to leave us.”

“You underestimate my father, and besides, I wanted to take away that worry from you and your mom.”

“And I’m grateful, but I’d rather have you in my life and have to get rid of everything I own to pay for my brother’s treatments. You’re not a bargaining chip.”

I closed my eyes and absorbed what he was saying. Those words coming from Maverick were everything I needed to hear. All of my life, my father used my mother and me to do his bidding. It was our sole responsibility to make him look better. I have no doubt that he would have sold me into slavery if it meant he could get another business deal. My father was ruthless, and I was nothing but his pawn. For Maverick to tell me that was no longer an option, it made me feel safe and secure for the first time in my life.

“You don’t know what that means to me, Maverick.”

“Then you must not know what you mean to me, Duchess.”

“Show me,” I told him.

The damn smirk appeared as he flipped us over and hovered over me. “Challenge accepted,” he said. His kiss was slow and deep. His hands skimmed across my skin, causing every cell in my body to respond. When his lips trailed my body, my breathing became erratic. I was desperate for him, even though we had done this only hours before. My body couldn’t get enough. When his lips touched my neck again, my legs parted easily as he settled between them. “Damn, I missed you.”

Our bodies aligned and moved in a frantic synchronization, as if we were trying to climb inside of each other. He gripped my hip while I reached around him and held his body against me. I wanted him deeper, harder, more. His name escaped my lips in a winded cry. He growled my name as he finished right after. As we both came down, he whispered, “I love you.”

This time the words came out easily. “I love you too.”

“Please don’t leave me again,” he begged with his face hidden in my neck.

“You’d have to drag me away.”

As we lay there together, talking quietly as the sun rose in the sky, I realized I felt more at home than ever before. Hank was snoring on the floor beside us. The sheets smelled of Maverick, whose warmth kept me tucked tightly against him. This was bliss.

Eventually, the bright sun woke me. Seattle wasn’t exactly known for its sunny days, but today was a good day. I was alone in the bed but not alone. The smell of bacon told me where I could find Maverick and Hank.

Dressing in Maverick’s tuxedo shirt, I made my way to the kitchen. Hank lifted his head and grunted a greeting, but I was only interested in the man at the stove right then. I wrapped my hands around his waist and kissed his bare back.

“Morning, you,” he said as he transferred the eggs to a plate.

“Good morning.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Good. Perfect. Happy.”

“Good,” he said with a quick kiss to my forehead. “I made your favorite.”

“I see that. Thank you. I’ve been missing my bacon.”

“You mean to tell me you haven’t had any bacon since you left?”

“Nope. No bacon. You’re the only person who’s ever made me fatty pig strips, and the only person who ever will.” I wasn’t sure if we were really talking about bacon, but he needed to know, either way, that I was his, even when he thought I wasn’t.

“Delicious fatty pig strips.” He smiled as he fed me my first bite.

“What about you?” I asked. “Have you been making bacon for anyone?” I knew I didn’t have the right to ask, but I needed to know.

“Duchess, there wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t thinking of you.”

“That didn’t answer the question,” I said dryly then adjusted my tone. I didn’t get to be the nagging girlfriend after what I did. “It’s fine, though. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Maverick sat down in the chair next to me. “Look at me,” he commanded. Once our eyes had made contact, he said, “There was no one else. It’s you. It’s been you since I took you to see my paintings.” A huge smile broke out on my face. “Now, eat,” he demanded, and I happily complied.

After breakfast, he took me to see Jack. He was staying at their mother’s house until he was back on his feet, so we ended up having lunch with Maverick’s family and friends, who decided to stop by that afternoon. Jack looked good, considering he was going through chemo. They had shaved his head for the surgery, but he had obviously lost his hair, seeing how smooth his head was. He looked pale and swollen, but like always, his eyes sparkled mischievously.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” he smiled when I walked through the door.

“Never heard that one before,” I told him with mock offense.

“I’m glad you’re back. Now you can tell Adam all about our wild affair. He thinks I lost my hair because of chemo. I tried to explain it was from all the tugging on it during our sexy romps, but he doesn’t believe me.”

“Don’t make me punch the sick guy,” Maverick growled.

“So, everything’s all good?” Jack asked more seriously.

I looked to Maverick for him to answer. He nodded as his arm snaked around my waist. “Better than good.”

The tension evaporated immediately until Brock arrived. Hailey, Ana, and Corbin took one look at Maverick and decided everything was fine. It seemed they all knew about Ward’s phone call. Brock, on the other hand, was still suspicious of me. His glances in my direction were driving me crazy, but I didn’t want to have a heart-to-heart in front of everyone. It wasn’t the time or the place.

There was never a good time to talk to Brock, but it didn’t matter. It seemed that we didn’t need to have a talk. I just needed to prove to him I was in this thing with Maverick. I guess I did because over the next couple of weeks, he warmed up to me. He even helped me move my stuff from Maddox and Nolan’s house into Maverick’s loft.

My mother had shipped me the rest of my clothes and some other items from the penthouse. She was leaving my father and cleaned out the penthouse while he was in Seattle. I still hadn’t spoken to either of my parents, but my mother sent a letter with the boxes. I wondered if it was her attempt at extending an olive branch.

I wasn’t sure if I was ready to talk to her yet. Instead of worrying about it, I tried to keep busy with Maverick and my writing, but my mother was always in the back of mind. Maverick thought I should call her, but part of me was afraid of what she would say. Little did I know that if you ignored something long enough, it would find you whether you were ready or not. It was like a terrible game of hide and seek, and I lost.

The day Eve went into labor, we were out to lunch. She felt an odd pain in her back and dismissed it. When another pain hit, she started to wonder if she was in labor. By the third pain, she told me what was going on, and we were in the car moments later on the way to the hospital. I called Grant while Eve called her doctor. It turned out to be a good thing we moved so quickly, because her water broke moments after getting into a labor and delivery room. Grant arrived minutes after that, and Harrison Grant Mitchell IV was born a few hours later.

Maverick met me at the hospital to welcome Harris to the world. Grant was holding the sweet baby when Maverick entered the room. He brought a painting of Grant and pregnant Eve that he had been working on as a gift for them. Eve cried when she saw it, and I saw the emotion on Grant’s face. He handed me the baby to properly thank my Maverick for such a touching gift. It was a beautiful moment.

It was still early when Maverick and I were leaving the hospital hand-in-hand and hopelessly in love. We were discussing what we wanted for dinner like a normal, everyday couple when a voice called out my name.

“Kitty?”

I turned to see my mother leaving the gift shop with balloons and flowers that were obviously for Grant and Eve.

“Hi, Mom.” I gripped Maverick’s hand a little tighter. He squeezed mine in response to let me know he was right there.

“How are you?” she asked almost nervously. This was a version of my mother I had never seen. She looked different. Her hair was down, and she was dressed more casual but still conservative. She looked almost relaxed.

“I’m doing well, Mom. How are you?” This was the most awkward conversation.

“Better. Your father is being forced to give me the house, so I’ve been redecorating. You should come by for dinner one night. You both should.” She looked from me to Maverick and back to me. “I take it you worked things out?”

I looked up at Maverick, who was looking back at me affectionately. I couldn’t have stopped the smile from spreading across my face if I had wanted to. “We did.”

“Then I guess it was meant to be,” I heard my mother say, but that couldn’t have been right. My mother was the one pushing me on Grant then Ward then Alexander.

I turned to her. “Excuse me?”

Her lips spread into what I figured was supposed to be a warm smile. “I said it must be meant to be. If you found someone you loved, left him, then returned to him, only to find he too had been waiting on you…it must be meant to be.”

Maverick and I glanced at each other again, and I said, “I guess so.”

He kissed my temple. “I’m gonna get the car. Why don’t you two talk?” I gripped his hand to prevent him from leaving, but he used his other hand to reassure me then whispered, “You’ll be fine, Duchess. You need to hear what she has to say.” I let him go and watched him walk away.

“It’s obvious how much he loves you. You have it all, Kitty. A man who is head over heels for you, a good job, beauty. It doesn’t hurt that your Adam is so damn attractive either.”

She wasn’t lying. My man was very sexy. “I’m a lucky girl,” I agreed, looking back toward the doors where Maverick exited.

I heard my mother take a deep breath. “I’m sorry…about everything.” I turned to see her face, and while her face didn’t show much emotion thanks to her regular Botox treatments, her eyes told me the truth. She was truly apologetic. “I wanted to make your father happy. It never occurred to me how unhappy we were making you. All these years and you should have been my first priority. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

Guilt invaded my whole being. My mother wasn’t the worst mother. She always made sure I was healthy and safe. It could have been worse. I had never felt more like the spoiled brat everyone assumed I was. “It’s okay, Mom.”

“No, Kitty, it’s not okay.”

“Yes,” I interrupted her, “it is. You are a better mom than you think. I didn’t know everything you were going through before. Now I do, and I don’t hate you for anything. You were only doing what you thought was best. Had I spoken up sooner, things could have been different. Besides, I think I turned out pretty great. Your parenting couldn’t have been all bad.”

A laugh erupted from my mother’s mouth, and I realized it was the first time I’d ever heard her genuinely laugh. “I suppose not. Thank you for that, Kitty. You are one special girl, but as much as I want to, I can’t take any credit. I think amazing is simply who you are all on your own.”