Looking for You (18 page)

It was hard to make the most of it
when your stomach was roiling with unhappiness.

Pearl Jam's Corduroy blasted in the
store. Gwen didn't often play such loud, enthusiastic music in the shop, but
she needed something to match her mood.

It was a good mood. Buoyant.
Exultant.

Blissful.

She sang along with the song. She
felt happy whenever she heard it—it reminded her of a great weekend in
Seattle with a couple she happened to meet. She'd started talking to the man named
Eddie and his girlfriend at a café and they'd hit it off so well she ended up
staying with them for a few days.

It wasn't until later that she found
out who he really was.

The front door opened. She
reluctantly turned the music down and turned to greet whoever it was. Her smile
became genuine when she saw it was a good customer of hers who lived in the
neighborhood. "Stacy. I haven't seen you in a while." 

"We were in Europe. I've only
been back a week, but I thought I should get in here before the masses."

Gwen looked around. What masses? But
she shrugged it off.

"I want a commission. Something
royal." Stacy giggled, wide-eyed with eagerness.

"Okay," she said
hesitantly. "So you want purple? Or maybe something with a British
flag?"

The woman patted her hand.
"You'd know better than I do, sweetie. I just can't wait to tell my
friends I commissioned a piece with you. When do you think it'll be done?"

"A couple weeks." That was
new—that someone wanted to brag about having her artwork. Maybe the de
Young article had come out. She needed to check.

"You'll call me? See you
later." The woman waved, giggling delightedly, and headed out the door. As
she left, there was a small commotion and Lola entered a second later.

Gwen was about to give her a perky
hello when she saw her friend's face. "What happened?"

Lola simply set a newspaper down in
front of her.

It took a moment before the headline registered.
Grape Princess Hiding in the Fog
.

All the blood drained from her head.

"Sit." Lola stuck a stool
under her and pushed her onto it. "Do you need water?"

She shook her head because she'd lost
her ability to speak. She leaned forward, looking at the old picture of herself
in black next to a new one she hadn't known had been taken. She slowly read the
article below it.

It was all there. How she'd disappeared
and shown up fourteen years later in San Francisco. It described her store and
how she'd given up a socialite life to be an artist.

She slumped, stunned.

"Do I need to ask if it's
true?" Lola asked.

She shook her head again.

"You're really Geneviève de la
Roche? Is it okay if I'm excited about that? I've never met an heiress
before."

"I'm not an heiress anymore. I'm
a gourd artist."

"That's not what this article
says." Lola tapped the paper. "This article says you just inherited a
large chunk of your family's business when your grandmother passed away."

"I don't want it." Feeling
a fire lit under her, she jumped up and began gesturing. "I left all that
behind. I didn't want any of it then, and I definitely don't want any of it
now."

"Was it that bad?"

"Worse. The games, the lies, the
expectations and disappointments. It was poison." She jumped up, feeling
as though something shocked her system. Waving her arms, she paced back and
forth. "Then the media was there, cataloguing every mistake I made. It was
suffocating me. I won't live that way again."

"But you're an adult now."

"The media never quits, and then
there's my family." She gave Lola a dark look. "Now that Mamie Yvette
is gone, her shares will be divided, and if she left any in my name, there'll
be a tug-of-war to see who controls my interests. My father doesn't play fair.
I'll be bloodied and left at the side of the road."

"And they tell me
I'm
dramatic." Frowning, Lola
picked up the paper. "I can't believe you've been living anonymously all
this time. It's amazing. I wonder how the reporter put two and two together
though."

Gwen glared at the byline. "It's
that reporter with the hungry eyes who did the article on the de Young. And to
think I helped her make a gourd."

Lola tapped the newspaper. "This
is comprehensive. Something had to tip her off, or else maybe she found a
source."

"No one knew
anything—" She stopped abruptly.
Rick
.

"You thought of something. Or
someone."

She'd told Rick details. If anyone
were going to decipher the mystery of her, it'd have been him. He said he
hadn't snooped into her things, but he
had
found her money.

A wave of desolation crashed over
her. She dropped straight to the floor, landing on her butt.

"Gwen!" Lola crouched in
front of her. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head. "I don't
think I'll ever be okay ever again."

Lola got down and sat cross-legged on
the floor next to her. "You know what we need to do? We need to
brainstorm."

"No, we need to pack and
leave." She frowned. "No, I'm not going to leave again. I've been
running from them all this time. It's time to stop."

"Hell yeah it is." Her
friend patted her on the leg. "This is your home. It's time to stand your
ground."

The phone began to ring. They both
looked at it.

"Are you going to answer
it?" Lola asked.

"No." It'd be press. Or
worse: her family. "They're
going to come for me."

"Nobody can make you do anything
you don't want. Circumvent them."

"Excuse me?"

"Change the events." Lola
shrugged. "Throw a wrench in their plans. Don't play their game. Do
something they won't expect."

She blinked. "That may be
brilliant."

"I know." Lola smiled,
pleased with herself. She held out a hand.

Gwen took it and let her friend haul
her up. Then she hugged her. "Thank you."

"Anytime."

The door opened for the second time
in minutes. This time it was Rick.

A growl emerged from somewhere deep
inside her. She clenched her fists, the bite of her nails the only thing
grounding her. If Lola hadn't been there, she'd have lunged for his neck.

He must have sensed that because he
stopped abruptly. "Gwendolyn?"

"You bastard." She hissed,
picked up a gourd, and threw it at his head.

Of all the reactions he'd expected
when he walked into Outta My Gourd, having Gwen yell "You bastard!"
as she beaned him with a pumpkin wasn't one.

Then again, the morning was full of
all sorts of things he hadn't expected. Like finding out the woman he was
interested in was a runaway wine heiress.

"I think I'll just leave
not," Gwendolyn's blond friend said. She gave him a pitying look and
hurried out of the store.

He hadn't even noticed her, and
usually he noticed everything, especially an attractive blond. It was a
testament to his state of mind.

Waiting until the blonde was gone, he
turned to the Grape Princess. "When were you going to tell me?"

She made a sound that was halfway
between a choke and a chortle—wholly humorless. "Why did I need to
tell you when you figured it out on your own?"

"I don't know what you're
talking about."

She poked at the newspaper in his
hand. "How else would they have gotten the story? Was there another
private investigator following me around?"

"You think
I
outed you?" He gritted his teeth at the surge of anger.

"If the shoe fits." She
grabbed a gourd from a table and moved it, setting it down so hard that he was
surprised it didn't break in half. "You were so clever with all your talk
of wanting honesty and hating deception, too. Well done, Clancy. You totally
fooled me."

"You think I'd do that?"

"I don't have to think."
She shoved a piece of art aside and glared at him or something. "I just
hope you got enough money for your sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?"

"Well, yes. For sleeping with
me." Her face hardened, but her eyes were pools of hurt.

He wanted to take her in his arms and
reassure her as much as he wanted to shake sense into her.

"You performed really well, by
the way," she added.

"Stop."

She stepped up to him. "I
wouldn't have ever been able to tell you were doing it for information. You go
above and beyond. Your clients must be thrilled with your results."

"Gwen,
stop
."

Her lips pouted, in that way they did
when she was hurt but trying to hide it. "At least I can stop feeling bad
for faking—"

He grabbed her and pressed his mouth
to hers to stop her words.

She struggled against him, hitting
his chest, but in the end she softened. Not completely, but enough. The kiss
was passion incarnate, like always, but angry and desperate. Bitter.

She pushed him away. "Just
go," she whispered. Eyes streaming, she walked dejectedly to the back.

He didn't follow her. Why should he
when she didn't trust him? He turned around and walked out, slamming the door
behind him as he tasted the saltiness of her tears on his lips.

Too agitated to go to the office, he
stalked up and down the street a few times before going to Olivia's store.

She looked up when he walked in, her
gaze taking him all in. Without a word, she went to the front door, locked it,
and returned to give him a big hug.

Olivia felt nice, but wrong. At all.
She was too tall, too filled out. It seemed he preferred one particular elfin
woman with a stubborn chin. He shook his head. Great.

"You looked like you needed
that." She crossed her arms. "Assuming this is about Gwen."

"Do you know who she is?"

"Everyone who can read knows who
she is." Olivia shook her head. "Who would have guessed? Other than
you. You claimed she was hiding something all along."

He should have felt righteous for
being right but he didn't. He felt angry because she could believe he'd betray
her. "She thinks I outed her."

"Did you?"

He glared at her. "Of course
not. How can you even ask?"

She shrugged. "You're the one
who went around declaring you were going to uncover her secrets. She knew
that."

He remembered the way he'd spied on
her and winced.

"See?" Olivia arched her
brow.

"She blames me."

"She would. What are you going
to do about it?"

"Why should I do anything about
it?"

"Because you love her."

He snorted.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "The
clues are all in front of your eyes if you'd only open them."

"The only thing in front of my
eyes is that Gwen lied to me about who she was."

"And who was that? That she was
a caring, sensitive, artistic person? That she has a big heart and a penchant
to enjoy life?"

"That she's an heiress."

"Because that negates everything
else? Because you hate rich people? What?"

"No, because she
lied
."

"She didn't lie about who she
was." Olivia took him by the arms. "I saw the article this morning
too, and just like you I was indignant that she'd deceived me. But two seconds
later, when reason prevailed, I realized that she hadn't deceived anyone. Sure,
there wasn't full disclosure about her family, but Gwen is who she always said
she was. She's a bright, shiny, sweet friend who likes to paint squash."

"And if I'd conveniently
withheld that I was a serial killer in my past?"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "You're
being difficult."

"I'm being realistic. If you lie
about one thing, you lie about everything."

"I'm telling you, Gwen never
lied. She just didn't say she had a buttload of money." Olivia threw her
hands in the air. "But fine. Cling to your hurts."

"Are you saying I'm being
unreasonable in my anger? Because I think it's justifiable that I'm a little
pissed."

"I don't." She pointed her
finger at him. "And you know what? You need to get over it and realize
what's important here."

"What is that?"

"Definitely not your pride.
That's going to make you miserable and is going to be a poor companion in your
old age. Gwen, on the other hand—"

"Geneviève," he corrected
with an exaggerated French accent.

"
Gwen
," Olivia stressed, "is warm and funny. She'll be
much better company as you get older. She'd at least keep you from becoming a
crotchety old man."

He crossed his arms. He'd been
imagining growing older with Gwen—at least he had been before all this.
Not that he was going to admit that.

Olivia threw her hands in the air.
"You're so dense. You know, most people only have one chance at
love."

"Who said anything about
love?"

"I did."

"You're just one of those people
who's in love and wants everyone else in the world to be as happy."

"That's not true. Some people
are too stupid to deserve love. I'm talking about you." She poked his
chest. "The clues are all in front of your eyes, if you'd just open them
and see."

He threw his hands in the air.
"She lied to me, Olivia."

"What was she supposed to do?
Confide in you? When you'd been such a bastard?"

He hadn't been a bastard to
her—not after the beginning. He'd given her countless opportunities and
openings to tell him.

That was what hurt.

Granted, she'd started to talk more
about her past. He just wanted her to do it faster. If they'd had more time,
would she have confided in him?

He wasn't sure.

Olivia whacked his chest, dragging
him from his thoughts. "Think about it. Don't screw this up."