“Exhaust them,” I say. “I don’t want to spook the bank before I have time to steal the winery out from underneath them.”
“If you do that,” he says. “The net outcome could be the same as me going underground. You end up stealing someone’s thunder and they come after you. Or Faith.”
“What the hell is it about the winery that would make someone want it badly enough to kill for it?”
“There is no record, or anything, that remotely sets off bells. I checked for oil. I checked for real estate developments. There is nothing. And I went back a hundred years.”
“It could be a business deal,” I say, thinking out loud. “Some kind of merger that has never been put on paper.”
“Or the same person who made Meredith Winter’s money trail disappear made a whole lot more disappear.”
“We just need to make sure they don’t make Faith disappear.”
“If the winery is at the core of all of this, and it seems that it is, make her put the winery up for sale. If it’s gone, she’s no longer a target.”
“You do have someone watching her, correct?”
“I have a man watching your place and two in Sonoma, watching her place and the winery.”
“Which brings me back to the purpose of this call,” I say. “I sent you a photo of a money clip. Faith found it in her yard Friday. Does that belong to one of your men?”
“I see it. And my guys working the Sonoma area don’t make stupid mistakes. And since Faith has no cameras on her property, I can’t see who is. We need to upgrade her and I can do it without her knowing, but with her stamp of approval, we can get far better equipment installed.”
“We’re here until Thursday and there for the weekend. Schedule it for Friday.”
“We’re talking murder here. We need cameras at her house and at the winery, where we can watch her staff, now, not later.”
I’m immediately hit by the fact that he’s just stated: We’re dealing with murder. He’s no longer on the fence about how my father and Faith’s mother died. He now believes what I do. They were murdered. “I’ll get you in by tomorrow night,” I say. “And Faith is working here at the Allure Gallery all week. I need you to be sure that you have someone watching her at all times.”
“Done. And FYI, I hacked your father’s autopsy reports. Nothing yet.” He hangs up.
Fucker.
I set the phone down on the table and stare at that money clip with a bad feeling in my gut, my fingers thrumming on my knee. “What the hell were you up to Father?”
I pick my phone back up and dial my assistant. “And here I thought that new woman of yours would make you get a life,” Rita says, bypassing a hello. In fact, I think she started bypassing hello with me seven years back. “Sundays are for church and reruns of Friends,” she adds.
“And me,” I say. “I need someone respected in Sonoma tomorrow, assessing the Reid Winter winery. They’ll need to bring a full team. I need it done quickly.”
“Tomorrow?” she asks incredulously. “No one is going to talk to me today, let alone be there tomorrow.”
“Pay them whatever you have to pay them.”
“That could be hefty.”
“I trust you not to let me get raped.”
“Oh good grief. I could do without your visuals sometimes, Nick Rogers. Tuesday is more reasonable, even with a bribe.”
“I prefer tomorrow. If anyone can get it done, you can. Text me when you know the details. And yes, I’ll bring the donuts you like in the morning.” I end the call and stand up, walking to my desk, where I stick the money clip in the top drawer. I consider digging through the boxes of materials I have on my father, but that’s risky with Faith in the house. And I’d rather be upstairs with Faith anyway.
With that in mind, I open my briefcase and pull out the sensitive material related to Faith and my father, filing it away in my desk. Selecting several client files I need to study, I seal it up, head to the kitchen where my computer still sits, and with it in hand, make my way upstairs. The minute I appear in the doorway, Faith turns to face me, a black cover-up over her clothes. Her hair piled on top of her head, little ringlets around her face.
She motions to her white Keds, now splattered with black and gray paint. “Maybe I could sell them to some clothing designer?” she says. “They’re stylish, right?”
“Very,” I tell her, walking to the wall behind her, where I can watch her canvas take shape. “It could be an empire.” I sit down and open my briefcase.
Faith removes her cover-up and sits down next to me, her black pants now splattered with paint as well. “Isn’t it going to be hard to work like this?” she asks.
“I’ll manage,” I say, leaning over and kissing her, when it hits me that she stopped painting the minute I showed up. “Unless,” I say, pulling back to study her, “I’m making you feel uncomfortable.”
She covers my hand with hers, a sweet gesture, when sweet has never been my thing. “I like you being here with me,” she says, and when she lets go of my hand, I want hers back. Apparently, I like sweet now. A whole fucking lot. “I just wish you had a better place to work,” she adds. “You should put a desk in here.”
Or I could just buy a new house. A thought that stuns me, but I don’t fight it. I’d buy ten houses for Faith, who is now flushing at her own words. “Not that I’m not suggesting I’ll be here often, but—”
“Faith,” I say. “I made this room for you. I want you here all the fucking time.” I don’t give her time to object. I move on. “And I’m fine right here. I have a ton of paperwork to review and emails to answer.”
She rotates to face me, on her knees, her hand on my leg. “Hard limit: One night.”
My lips curve. “That didn’t go as you planned, now did it?”
“No,” she laughs. “It didn’t.” She stands up and heads back to her painting station, and I decide I’ll talk to her about extra security tomorrow morning. She’s had enough hell today and she needs to paint. She has a show coming up. I watch her cover up before she turns back to me. “We need music.”
I pull my phone from my pocket. “What are you in the mood for?”
“Surprise me and I’ll see where it takes me on my canvas.”
I tab through my music and choose Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and the moment it starts to play, she sighs. “Perfection,” she says, a smile not just on her lips, but in her eyes.
I relax into the wall, intending to reach for my files, but when the music lifts with a dramatic chord, I find myself watching Faith. Every stroke of her brush mesmerizes me as I wait for that red streak that she has proclaimed the beginning of a story. To me this symbolizes a feeling of hope, a look forward, not behind.
My mind goes back to the night we’d met, sitting in front of her fireplace, talking over pints of ice cream:
“Why black, white, and red?” I’d asked of her trademark colors.
“Black and white are the purest form of any image to me. It lets the viewer create the story.”
“And the red?”
“The beginning of the story as I see it. A guide for the viewer’s imagination to flow. I know it sounds silly, but it’s how I think when I’m creating.”
I cringe with the words: The beginning of the story as I see it.
The beginning of our story is nothing like she sees it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Faith
There are things in life that are inarguably perfect: Milk chocolate. Good ice cream. A perfect sunset. A cold night with a fireplace. And me with a paintbrush in my hand for the past few hours, while Nick sits a few feet away, working, with Beethoven lifting in the air. There is just something about that combination, that inspires me. Nick manages to calm and center me, which is really incredible considering he’s intense, demanding, controlling and arrogant, while I am someone who is far more zen. But as I reach for the red paint to put the finishing touches on the mountain top of my painting, I debate the reasons that migh
t be, and an amazing list of answers come to mind that I decide I might just talk over with Nick.
Satisfaction fills me as I stroke a brush through the red paint to complete my work-in-progress. In another fifteen minutes, I set my brush down. I’m done and Nick is behind me almost immediately.
“Stunning, Faith,” he says, his hands on my hips, and I find myself leaning into him, his big, hard body like a shelter in a storm that he’s now helped me quiet. He really is a shelter, and there lies the core of why he calms me, why he works for me. He makes me feel like the rest of the world can’t touch me.
“I like it,” I say, inspecting my work. “But I’m not sure I’m going to use it for the show.”
He turns me to face him. “Why?”
“It doesn’t feel special. It’s safe. I have to be cautious everywhere else. I don’t want to do it on the canvas.”
“You don’t have to be cautious with me, Faith.”
I reach up and pull his hair from the tie. “I know.” I reach up and run my hands through his hair. “Because you’re…”
He arches a brow. “I’m what?”
“Tiger.”
“Tiger is for my enemies, remember. Not the woman I’m falling in love with.”
There is that word again: Love. It’s terrifying and thrilling. “It’s okay to be Tiger, Nick,” I say. “That name is a part of you. I’ve met him.” My lips curve as I think of the many sexy times we’ve shared. “I’m okay with him coming out to play.”
He doesn’t smile. “Tiger’s not a nice guy, Faith. You remember that, right?”
I flatten my hand on his chest. “He’s tough. He’s hard. He’s cold. And I really like him best when he’s naked.”
He remains expressionless for two beats, and then laughs. “Ah, Faith. Woman, what you do to me. Maybe you need to put a little Tiger on your canvas.”
My brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“You are nice, Faith, but you have a darker side. That part of you that can take on the Tiger side of me, and hold your own. That’s the part of you that wanted out when you were in the club, it just wasn’t the right place or way for you to do so. The canvas is your place. Put whatever you found in that club on the canvas. We both know nothing about that will be safe.”
It’s as if a switch flips in my mind. I’ve been boxed by everyone’s expectations of me on and off the canvas. I twist around in Nick’s arms and walk to my canvas, and I start to pick it up and move it off the easel. Nick is quickly there to help. “Where do you want it?”
“Against the wall seems to be the best spot,” I say, already grabbing a blank canvas and setting it on the easel.
“I’ll order you extra stands for your completed works,” he says as I turn to my blank canvas, inspiration starting to form. “We don’t want your work to get damaged,” he adds, as I reach for my brush. Nick intercepts, catching my fingers and walking me to him. “The food will be here any minute, sweetheart.” He glances at his watch. “And it’s almost ten. We both have early mornings.”
I blink. “We ordered food?” I ask, and then shake away the cobwebs, giving a low laugh. “Oh right. We did.”
Nick laughs, that deep, rough sexy sound I could really turn on and play like music, if it were possible. “We did.” He motions toward the doorway. “Let’s head to the bedroom and settle in so we can go to sleep after we eat.”
“Well, as much as I want to argue, my hands are cramped and my stomach is growling.”
He unbuttons the cover-up I have over my clothes. “You can spend some time with Sara at Allure tomorrow and then come back here and paint.”
“Yes,” I agree, “but you know what? Let me just put a few strokes on the canvas. Just to get the inspiration started.”
“You’ve painted for eight hours, Faith.” He is suddenly lifting me, and I yelp as he scoops me up and over his shoulder. “Nick, damn it, the blood is rushing to my head.” He smacks my ass and I arch my back.
“Nick!”
“Now where is that blood flowing, sweetheart?” he asks.
“You’re evil,” I say, thinking about the spanking he teased me with earlier today. “Really evil.”
He keeps walking and doesn’t stop until he’s set me on my feet beside the bed. “Evil is your beautiful ass teasing my hand, sweetheart. You do need a good spanking.”
Oh God. Why is just the promise of this man’s hand on my backside so incredibly sexy? My nipples ache. My sex clenches and my hand settles at his hip, my thumb intentionally placed near his cock. “I asked,” I remind him. “You didn’t answer.”
He cups my face. “Sweetheart, when I spank you again, you won’t be hiding from anything, especially me. I’ll do it because you trust me and you want to feel that trust, and no other reason.”
The doorbell rings. “And that would be the food. I’ll bring it up here.” He kisses me and heads for the door. I inhale on his words, that were sexy, and intimate, and about us, but I turn and stare at the card from my father lying on the nightstand, where I’d set it Friday night, my mind replaying my exchange with Nick. It was the first time I’d seen his house:
“Where is your bedroom, Nick?”
“Up the stairs directly behind you.”
I turn then and start up the stairs, my pace slow, calculated. I feel overwhelmed by him. I need to seduce him, to get back to a place I have control. I know every swing of my hips makes him burn. He doesn’t immediately pursue, though. He’s Nick after all. Always dominant and in control, except when I make him want me. It arouses me and it’s powerful when he responds, when he needs me the way I always need him.
I walk into his bedroom, taking in the king-sized bed, and the masculine décor, that fits him so well, and it affects me for no real reason other than the fact that everything about the man affects me. I need something now that I can’t even name. An escape. That’s what it was. I think this is the first moment I really realize how much this man could hurt me. I reach into my purse and grab the card from my father before setting my purse aside.
And then I sit on the bed with every intention of reading it, I think my subconscious just needs me to focus on something other than the man I am falling so very hard for. That I have fallen too hard for. He enters the room, and I swear he steals my breath with his size and just how damn beautiful he is, masculine and intense in his dark suit and white shirt in a way that only some men, very few, in fact, harness. But Nick does. So very well.
He looks at the card on my lap aware, I know, of what it is. “I need to read this,” I say. “And you know that means I need you.”
His chest rises and falls, expanding with delicious perfection. He closes the space between us, his stride long, graceful. He stands above me. I want to touch him but I don’t. I need some control. I need him to touch me first, but he always wants to be first anyway. I know this. He shrugs out of his jacket and removes his tie, tossing both to the center of the bed. And then he surprises me by setting the card aside and taking me down on the mattress with him, rolling to face me. “I’m not going to spank you, Faith,” he says, sliding his leg between mine. “Not now. Maybe not even this weekend. I want you to see and feel me. I want you to remember me this weekend, not my hand.”
Inhaling, I return to the present with the certainty that he’s achieved that goal. I see him and feel him in every possible way. And maybe he knew I didn’t really want to read the card. Because I don’t. I turn away from it now, rejecting its content, and walking toward the bathroom. I don’t need my father’s input on my career right before my show. Once I’m inside, I move my suitcase back into the closet, where I strip down. I’m about to pull on a sleep shirt I’ve brought with me when I spy Nick’s row of t-shirts, the idea of wearing one of them winning me over and quickly. I search through the various graphic designs, and smile as I find a Batman shirt of all things. Oh how Nick it is.
I pull it on, letting it fall to my knees and then grab my pink fluffy slippers from my suitcase. Shoving my feet
in them, I return to the bedroom at the same moment Nick returns as well, bags in his hand. “The Dark Knight?” I say, pointing at the shirt. “Really?”
“I told you, sweetheart,” he says, walking around the opposite side of the bed. “I’m not a nice guy and neither are my idols.”
“Batman is your idol?” I ask, settling onto the bed, and accepting one of the bags.
“That one should have your egg salad sandwich, and a bottle of water,” he says, before answering me. “And I don’t have an idol, but I like Batman a hell of a lot more than Superman. Better outfit, more money, no rules.” He sits down and checks his bag, then takes off his boots.
We do some shuffling of bags and drinks and soon we are sitting facing each other with our bags as plates. “What about you, Faith?” Nick asks, unwrapping his sandwich. “Apparently, my club sandwich is a Philly cheesesteak.”
“Do you like Philly cheesesteak?”
“It’s greasy and unhealthy,” he says. “Who doesn’t like a Philly cheesesteak?” he asks, not waiting for a reply. “Back to more important things. Who’s your idol?”
“At one point it was my father, but that ended. You know that. Aside from him, I have many artists that I admire. I think I told you that I really look up to Chris Merit. Aside from his talent, his family owed a winery here in Sonoma and became so famous that it felt within my reach.”
“In reality, I happen to know that he lived in Paris when he started painting and was always filthy rich, so you two aren’t much of a comparison.”
“True,” I say. “And it feels weird that I kind of idolized him now since I know him personally. But I did and I still admire him.”
“He’s a good guy,” Nick says. “And talented. I have one of his paintings in my office.”
“I need to see that,” I say, about to take a bite of my sandwich when a thought hits me. “I haven’t even told Kasey I’m not going to be there tomorrow. I should text him.”
“I’d like us to take him to dinner Thursday night,” Nick replies. “We need to make him believe that I’m a co-owner, just like we do the bank.”