Naked Canvas (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (10 page)

I blushed at the memory of riding the saddle-like contraption into blissful oblivion.

“What was that thing?” I asked.

“It’s called a sybian. I would ask if you enjoyed it, but I think I know the answer.”

“Is that something you just had on hand or was that a part of Cavanaugh’s shopping list?”

Dominic smiled sheepishly and ran a hand through his dark hair. “It was on Cavanaugh’s list.”

I stifled a giggle with my hand at the thought of Cavanaugh with his starched suit and soft spoken manner trying to track down a list of sex toys throughout the city.

“You’re terrible,” I said, laughing.

“I know. But I didn’t do it to torture him, I promise. He offered to gather all those things for me. Although, to be fair, I don’t think he knew what he was getting himself into.”

“Cause he’s not a pervert, like you,” I said, still smiling.

“I prefer the term ‘open minded.’ Amazing things can happen when you open yourself up to the possibilities of the universe.”

“And what possibilities will I be opening myself up to next?”

“Well, for now, it’s the possibility that this Chinese food might be absolutely terrible. My regular place wasn’t open this early.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring in a private chef, with all your money.”

He smiled. “I promise next time I’ll have the whole thing catered.”

I was about to protest that there wouldn’t be a next time, but he cut me off.

“Dig in before it gets cold. I don’t know what you like so I got a bunch of different stuff. Take your pick.” He gestured at the containers lined up across the counter. It looked like he had ordered one of everything off the menu. The mixture of spicy aromas made my stomach rumble in an unladylike fashion.

I grabbed a container almost at random. Some kind of chicken and veggies in a brown sauce. I sat down at the small table and tucked in. Dominic sat across from me with a paper carton of his own.

We settled into a comfortable silence. For a while, it almost felt like we were a normal couple having lunch and enjoying the presence of each other’s company. The glaring red numbers on the wall caught my eye and shattered that illusion.

The twenty-four hour countdown was now at 20:14. I was his obedient slave for the next twenty hours. The thought soured my stomach and all the warmth I felt towards him was gone.

I sighed and pushed my food away. “What are we doing here, Dominic?”

He glanced up at me, his mouth half full of noodles. “Having lunch.”

“No,” I said, gesturing at the studio around us. “I mean, what are we doing here? Today? This whole arrangement?”

He put his fork down and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You’re modeling for me. Gillian interrupted us the other night—”

“Don’t remind me of that bitch,” I interrupted.

“Fine, but I never got a chance to finish working with you.”

“And that’s it?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I’m not done with you.”

“You understand that no matter what happens today, I’m done with
you
. I mean, you get that, right?”

He shrugged. “I’m trying not to think too far past today. After that, we’ll see.”

I shook my head. “No, we won’t. You need to listen to me.” I stood up from the table and paced around the kitchenette. “Look, I agreed to this because of the money. End of story.”

He stiffened in his seat. “I’m aware of that. It’s a fair trade for your time and for your company.”

“Be honest with me,” I said. “Is this whole arrangement just a way of getting me to fall for you?”

He looked down at his hands clasped on the table in front of him.

“Is it?” I asked again.

His voice was soft. Almost a whisper. “Would that be so bad?”

“Look, we had a one night stand. It was fun, but it was a one-time thing. That’s it.”

“It was more than that. I think there’s something between us. I know you feel it. Only you’re too afraid to admit it.”

“You don’t get to tell me how I feel,” I said, my voice rising. “You can tell me what to do. You can tell me what to wear. But you can’t tell me what to feel.”

“Then how do you feel?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“I feel like whatever spark we might have had is dead. It died when I ran out of here naked and humiliated.”

“I already apologized for that. And that wasn’t even my fault.”

I shook my head. “It was your fault. When your past comes back to haunt you, when it comes back to haunt me, then it’s your fault. And that’s just something I don’t want to deal with. My life is complicated enough without you making it worse.”

“Look,” he said. “If I could go back and change the past, I would. I wish you could understand that some things are just out of our control. And when things don’t go as planned, it’s not the end of the world.”

“You can downplay it all you want. What happened the other night was a giant mistake. What’s happening today is just business. Nothing more.”

He nodded slowly. “I can accept that. For now. But we still have work to do.”

“Something other than you trying to win me back?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Okay, so tell me. Why do you want me as your model?”

“I see something inside you,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, your dick.”

He rose quickly to his feet, sending his chair clattering to the floor behind him. He grabbed me firmly by the shoulders, and his eyes burned into mine. The muscles of his neck were tense, causing the tendons to stand out.

“Do you think so little of me?” he asked softly. “Do you think I just want to fuck you?”

I tried to meet his gaze but it was like trying to look into the sun. My eyes lowered. “No. I don’t know. I just don’t understand.”

He loosened his grip on my shoulders.

“Imagine a pristine block of marble,” he said. “Beautiful in its own right, certainly. But with the potential for so much more. In the right hands, a simple block of stone can be turned into something breathtaking.”

He lifted my chin with a gentle finger until our eyes met again.

“But first, the stone must be shaped.” He caressed my cheek. “The rough edges must be carved away and polished. Only then can we reveal the exquisite form that exists below the surface. That’s why I want you as my model.”

“You want to polish away my rough edges?” I asked.

“In a manner of speaking.”

I jerked away from him, knocking his hands from my shoulders. “Do you know how insulting that sounds?” I asked.

“It’s not an insult.”

“Oh? Saying I could be something special if I let you change me? That’s an insult.”

“You’re already special.”

“There is
nothing
special about me.”

“You’re wrong. You just can’t see it because you’ve built up these walls around you. And that perfect, special part of you remains hidden away.”

“What walls?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. Life. Expectations. All the pressure you put on yourself to be perfect all the time. You’re trying to be all these other things instead of just being you.”

I shook my head and backed away from him. “How can you say that? You don’t even know me.”

“You’re right. I don’t know you. Not yet, but I do know some things.”

“Like what?” I asked and crossed my arms over my chest.

“Okay, fine. You like to play it safe.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, unless you take it too far. Sometimes you have to take risks to get what you want in life. You have to put yourself out there where things aren’t safe. Where things are scary. Where things can hurt you.”

“How do you know I don’t take risks?”

“Alright, you’re a business major, but only because you think it’s the safe option. But if you took safety out of the equation, can you honestly tell me that’s what you want to do with your life?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So you’re telling me that little Angela, at eight years old, she dreamed of being a business woman? Dreamed of wearing stuffy suits and working seventy hours a week?”

“Well, no,” I admitted. “But what the hell do eight year olds know about life?”

“What does anyone know about life? We’re all just faking our way through the day. Doing the things we think we’re supposed to do. Not the things we actually want to do.”

“Well, we all can’t be billionaires, okay? Some of us have to work for a living.”

“And if you were? If you had a billion dollars right now, what would you do with your life?”

I snorted. “I’d lie by the pool with a pitcher of margaritas and order my servants around.”

He shook his head. “Maybe at first, but trust me, that gets old quick. We wither and die when our lives have no purpose. When we don’t have passion. What would you really do?”

I chewed my lip and thought about it. “I don’t know. Start a business probably.”

Dominic growled in frustration. “Again with the business. That’s a bullshit, generic answer. Let me guess, your father pushed you in that direction.”

“Don’t talk about my father.”

“So typical. Daddy was cold and distant, and all you’ve ever wanted was his approval.”

“Stop it,” I said. I could feel the chill in my voice.

But Dominic continued. “He probably worked a lot of late nights. You told yourself he was trying to provide for the family, but he came home stinking of booze and cheap perfume. You tried to ignore it, but deep down, you knew what was going on. You smelled it on his breath and saw it in the pain in your mother’s eyes.”

“Fuck you. My father was a saint. Yeah, he was never around, but that’s because he worked two jobs so we didn’t end up on the street. And those jobs put him in an early grave.”

“Sorry. I went too far. I didn’t know.”

“Exactly. You don’t know. My father was a strong man. A proud man. And I watched him wilt away under the strain of a mortgage and four mouths to feed. Then I watched him break. His heart just gave out one day and he was gone. I was just a little girl standing by helplessly as life beat a great man into the ground. I can’t live through that again. I can’t make my future family live through that, assuming I ever have one. I just can’t.”

“Look,” Dominic said. “I didn’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”

“Too late for that. You think you know everything about the world? You have no idea what I went through. You had your own personal driver growing up. We couldn’t even afford a car.”

“You think I had it easy because I was rich?”

“Yeah, I do. I think that spending your father’s money means you have no idea how the real world works.”

“You think I inherited money and I’ve never had to work a day in my life?”

“Didn’t you?”

He smiled grimly.

Chapter 11

“Growing up, we were more than comfortable. That’s true. My father inherited the Bell Foundation from his father. I guess you’ve never heard of it or me, but the Foundation was worth millions. Life was good.”

“I’m so happy for you. Really.”

“Thanks,” he said, ignoring my sarcasm. “Maybe your father was a saint, but mine wasn’t. He liked to drink almost as much as he liked to gamble. By the time I was twelve, he had pissed it all away. The Bell Foundation was gone, along with all the money.”

“Oh,” I said dumbly.

“Not being rich didn’t matter. Not to me. I loved my parents, despite their faults. As long as I had them, I knew I could get through anything. My father didn’t share that sentiment. He shot himself in the head on my thirteenth birthday.”