Sculpting Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 2) (15 page)

Maybe I ought to take up exercise, let Portia finally succeed in dragging me off to some of those exercise classes that she's always gushing about, I thought suddenly, poking my stomach with one finger and watching it wobble a little. Those classes gave her the gorgeous figure and toned arms that she always showed off. Maybe they'd help me.

Of course, I reminded myself, this wasn't a fair judgment. I had, after all, just eaten an entire Cobb salad and, if I was being totally honest with myself, most of Carter's fries. Of course my stomach looked big.

I felt my bed shake a little as Salem jumped up from the floor to land on top of the comforter, purring loudly. He advanced up towards me until he located the bulge of my feet beneath the covers, and then settled down on top of them. He moved in a slow circle until his legs flopped out from underneath him, lying across me like a pair of fluffy, breathing slippers.

"You're fat, too," I told him. "What do you think? Do we need to start going out and doing exercise classes? You and me, together?"

He just squeezed his eyes shut, purring a little louder.

Still, it wasn't the exercise that was my real problem. As his kiss goodbye this evening proved, Carter didn't have a problem with my looks. For some reason, despite my less-than-supermodel level figure, he still wanted me.

I remembered how he pulled me up against his hard body, the need that I'd felt in his hands as they wrapped around me, his lips as they parted to kiss me. Yes, he definitely wanted me.

But was that enough?

Could a relationship with him actually work out? Would I spend most of my nights laying awake like this, wondering if I was just going to end up losing Carter to someone more successful, more attractive, than I could ever hope to be?

After all, I wasn't exactly the most amazing catch, I reminded myself. Early thirties, slightly overweight, divorced, still living in a single occupancy apartment, with an entry level job, no savings to speak of, and a cat that I babied and overfed. Really, it was a wonder that men weren't lining up around the block to try and convince me to go out with them.

Helplessly, my eyes tracked back towards the catalogue of models, still lying open on my bed where I'd pushed it aside. I sat forward and flipped it shut, trying to put the pictures out of my mind.

Still sitting on top of my feet, Salem lifted his head and blinked his eyes sleepily at me, probably wondering why I was moving around - and hadn't yet turned off the lights and gone to bed. "Sorry," I told him. "Just feeling self-conscious."

He frowned at me for another moment and then plopped his head back down. Clearly, he didn't have any sort of self-confidence problems, and didn't think that trying to console me was worth the effort.

Think on the bright side, I reminded myself as I laid back down, punching my pillow into shape beneath my head. You've got two of the three tasks that de St. James assigned to you completed and done. From here, all you have to do is address one more, and then you can stop running around on his errands.

From that point, I tried to convince myself, everything will turn around. His work will be on display at the gallery, and even if he's still ranting at me, we can use the draw of his work to bring in new customers. That means more commissions for me, and more money for the gallery - and with that extra cash, maybe I can convince Preston to run some advertising and promotions to help keep customers coming!

Then, I told myself, I can sit down with Carter and explain to him that yes, I really did like him, and I wanted things between us to move forward. I could find the right words to explain that I just didn't have a lot of self-confidence, especially after it turned out that even someone like Barry felt the need to cheat on me. As long as Carter understood that, we'd do well together.

Just a little further, I sleepily thought to myself. Soon, everything would work out. I just needed to put up with this stress for a little longer, and then it would all be worth the effort.

I reached out and turned off my bedside lamp, closing my eyes. Salem was a warm, comforting weight on top of my feet, the heat from his gently vibrating body managing to soak in through the comforter and toast my feet.

I thought that I'd be awake for a long time, thinking about the events of the day, but sleep came sweeping in after just a couple minutes of lying in the dark. The last thing that I thought about, before losing consciousness, was the warm feeling of Carter's arms around me, the way that he smiled at me like the two of us were in our own little private world together.

I really did like him, I sleepily thought to myself. Surely, he'd understand that I just needed a little more time.

#

The next morning, I nearly had a heart attack when Lizzie lifted her head up from the front desk in the Halesford Gallery.

I'd come in through the unlocked front door, expecting to see her sitting behind the counter as usual. Instead, however, I saw the front desk seemingly empty. I'd frowned and taken a couple more steps forward, wondering if she was perhaps off at the restroom, when her head suddenly popped up from behind the desk, her blonde hair pointing off in a dozen different gravity-defying directions.

"Oh my god!" I exclaimed, jumping back a step and trying not to slosh my thermos of coffee all over myself. "Lizzie, what were you doing?"

"Oh, sorry," she answered without much enthusiasm in her voice. "No one ever comes in, so I just put my head down on the desk for a moment."

Once I'd managed to catch my breath, I took a step forward to the front counter, setting down my thermos before I ended up spilling coffee on myself. I planted both of my hands flat on the desk, trying to keep my fingers from trembling. "Don't do that, okay?" I asked. "You really scared me!"

"Sorry," Lizzie replied, reaching up and making an ineffectual attempt to smooth down her hair. "This job is just getting to me, that's all."

I perched on the edge of the desk, lifting my thermos up to take a sip with both hands on the cylinder. "Did you try thinking about some advertising approaches?" I asked, hoping to cheer her up a little.

She just shook her head. "They all need money," she mumbled. "And none of them would work. Old people don't want to buy anything. This sucks."

I wished that I had some way to console her, but I couldn't think of anything to say to make her feel better. In the end, I just walked around to the other side of the desk and patted her on the back a few times, hoping that she wouldn't burst all the way into tears.

"Listen," I finally said after a few minutes of awkward back patting. "I'm still working on trying to get more people coming in here. That's the reason why I'm off trying to convince Dean Benjamin de St. James to sign on with us. But I need to go work on his third task, okay? Will you be alright here?"

Lizzie sniffled, but managed to keep it together. "Yeah. I've started bringing a book along with me, so at least I have something to do while sitting here."

For a moment, I hesitated, wondering if I ought to reprimand her for reading while she was technically on the job. Then again, I reminded myself, I wasn't actually sure if I was supposed to be her boss - and besides, if the roles were reversed, what would I want to do? At least with a book, she could always put it down if a customer came in.

"Well, okay then," I said, standing back up. "I'll probably be back this afternoon, at least before the gallery's closing time. Maybe you'll get some customers today, huh?"

"Yeah, right," she muttered, but at least I didn't get the sense that she was on the verge of breaking down into tears.

I backed carefully away from her, making sure that I had the catalogue of models tucked under my arm. Out in my truck, I had my laptop sitting on the passenger seat, with the printed out documentation for de St. James so that he could operate the social media site online.

That morning, while brewing my thermos of coffee, I'd tried to figure out what de St. James might mean with the third and final item on his to-do list. Even after ten minutes of looking at it, however, I didn't have the slightest idea what he wanted me to do.

EX, de St. James had written.

That was it. Just "EX". Did he want me to retrieve something from an ex-wife? Settle the score with an ex-girlfriend? Did he just want me to find a big statue of the twenty-third letter of the alphabet and bring it to him?

Finally, I concluded that, as much as I didn't want to confront the man, I'd need to go talk to him in person to figure out what he wanted me to do. I could at least drop off the social media documentation and the catalogue of models at the same time, reducing the total number of necessary visits.

Climbing back into my truck, I sighed and gripped the steering wheel with both hands for a moment before turning the key in the ignition. "Just get through this," I said aloud, trying to psych myself up. "You're nearly done."

I didn't feel nearly done. I felt like I was drowning, waves of financial stress, emotional stress, and relationship stress crashing over me and pushing my head down under the water.

But I just had to keep on going, keep trying to swim.

I started up my truck and headed off to de St. James' house, dreading what his third and final task for me might entail.

Chapter Eighteen

*

At least he recognized me, I desperately told myself as I reluctantly followed the artist into his house. That was something, at least.

"So, how have the last couple of days been?" I asked the retreating back of de St. James, feeling like I ought to at least be making some sort of small talk as I followed him down the main hallway of the house, towards his studio towards the back.

The shoulders beneath his bathrobe shrugged. No other answer came back, and I lapsed into uncomfortable silence.

Was this the same bathrobe that I'd seen the man wearing before? I suspected that the answer to this question was yes; most people didn't own multiple bathrobes. de St. James didn't seem like the type that would buck that trend. I even thought that I recognized a couple of the stains on the robe that I'd seen on my last visit.

The interior of the house, at least the few glimpses that I permitted myself, also looked largely the same. I didn't see any evidence that de St. James made an effort to clean up. And why would he, after all? He clearly didn't get many - or any - visitors.

We arrived back in the artist's studio, and I held out the catalogue of models to de St. James as he turned back around to face me.

"What's this?" he asked, frowning suspiciously as he accepted the magazine from me.

"It's a catalogue of models from the Exalt Talent and Modeling agency," I explained, as he took the catalogue and flipped through its pages. "And listen, they are the only place left in the area that's willing to even consider working with you, so you had best treat them with respect, understand?"

de St. James drew back, his eyebrows coming together in a stormy expression, but I didn't let this glare intimidate me. "I heard about how you got dropped by your last modeling agency," I went on, pointing a finger up at him. "And I'm not the only one who's heard - that story's made its way around most of the modeling agencies. Most of them just laughed and hung up on me as soon as I mentioned your name! Exalt-" I reached out and tapped the catalogue, "-is the only one who was willing to give you another chance. If you piss them off, there's no one else, and you'll have to move to a whole different city if you want to keep working. Understand?"

I glared back at de St. James, wondering how badly I'd angered him, whether he was about to erupt at me in a cataclysm of anger. I saw his jaw work back and forth, trying out different words, his eyes burning as they stared back at me - but then, abruptly, they dropped down towards the floor.

"Fine," he muttered sullenly under his breath.

I nearly asked him to repeat that in surprise. He'd given in? I certainly hadn't expected him to back down instead of blowing up at me! Feeling slightly buoyed, I charged ahead into the next task: showing him how to work with social media.

"I also set up your social media accounts, like you asked me to do," I went on, next passing over the printed out documentation on how to work with the online program and looking for a clean spot to set down my laptop. I finally ended up heading over to a nearby workbench and sweeping my hand over it to send most of the rubble scattered on top of the flat surface down to the ground. "Here, let me show you-"

"I'm not so good with all that computer stuff," de St. James interrupted, his glare back in full force again. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have asked you to set it up for me! I don't want to bother with all that stuff; other people just keep asking me about it."

"Well, that's why I made it easy for you," I answered, doing my best to keep my voice light and pleasant. "Here, see - it all can be controlled just from one place! All you have to do is write a status and attach a picture of your most recent work, and then click this big 'post' button. And it goes on all the different sites, automatically!"

I waited for another eruption, but de St. James leaned in. "Wait, show me again," he instructed.

I did as requested. Just to make it clear how easy this tool was to use, I pulled out my phone, took a picture of the half-finished statue currently occupying the middle space in the cluttered and dirty workshop, and then pulled up the social media managing website on my phone's browser.