Work of Art (11 page)

Everything had come crashing down three weeks earlier. My father, George, had been arrested on multiple counts of grand larceny, embezzlement and fraud for stealing money from his clients – most of who lived in our town and whos
e children I went to school with. My mother had flipped out, and then she’d unceremoniously told me in a fit of rage that George actually wasn’t my father. Then, just when I needed them the most, my friends turned on me when they learned what George had done, and they’d cast me out the very next day. I was a social pariah, and school was miserable for me.

But at home it was ten times worse. My mother was an absolute train wreck. She cried non-stop, and when she wasn’t crying, she was storming around the house throwing things – mostly George’s things – but that only led to more crying. It was a vicious cycle. I was pretty sure she wasn’t eating anything, and she’d completely stopped paying attention to me. She also spent hours on end ranting to her friends about what a sham her marriage was and asking what she was supposed to do now that all of our assets had been frozen. The only reprieve was when she took the maximum amount of sleeping pills she could and passed out at night.

I’d taken to spending as much time as I could away from home, not that she noticed, but it really was the last place I wanted to be.

I sighed as I looked down at the sketch I was halfway f
inished with. It was just of an old, knotted oak tree on campus, but I’d noticed the way the angle of the sun was hitting the leaves when I’d walked outside and knew I had to capture it on paper. I wished I had my camera, but in my haste to leave the house that morning, I’d forgotten it, so I was relegated to my pencils and paper.

“What are you drawing?” a deep voice asked, causing me to look up.

My breath caught as I noticed Ryan Carson standing almost on top of me, staring at my sketchbook. I turned it over on the grass next to me.

I hadn’t really spoken to Ryan in the two years we’d been at Andover together. We’d
been on one class project team, but then we’d only met with other group members and talked about the assignment. We’d never had a conversation outside of the classroom. But he was one of the best looking guys in school, so I’d noticed him from day one. I just never thought he’d noticed me.

Now I was suddenly afraid his jock friends had sent him over to pick on me. I couldn’t think of any other reason why he’d be talking to me.

“It’s nothing,” I said quickly.

H
e squinted in the bright mid-day sunshine and hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder. “It didn’t look like nothing.”

“Well, it was,” I said tersely, wondering what sort of
sarcastic comment he was going to make next. As of late, anyone who spoke to me was sure to berate me in some way, and I was sure he was no exception.

“You’re pretty talented,” he said, as he dropped his bag and sat next to me on the ground.

I looked over at him like he had two heads.

“What are you doing?”

“Sitting. Is that cool?”

I sighed. “Just say whatever it is you wanted to say and leave,” I told him, too exhausted to even fight back.

In the beginning I had responded, and I had attempted to defend myself against the sarcastic remarks and false allegations people threw at me, but now it was just too much. Nothing I said mattered. My stepfather had stolen millions of dollars from people I went to school with, so I’d basically been living my semi-charmed life courtesy of them. And because of that, I was a leper and no longer worthy of their friendship or consideration. Never mind the fact that I had no idea George was skimming money off of his clients. I was sixteen. I had no control over the family finances. I got an allowance, and I had no reason to assume the money hadn’t been legitimately earned.

That’s what I go
t for assuming. And everyone felt it was their duty to stand up for what their families had lost and take their anger out of me. The worst part was that most of the people I knew had barely been affected by my stepfather. They still had millions in the bank. I now had nothing.

And I hadn’t been sleeping
well either, so my mental capacity for sharp-witted jabs was lacking. And my words didn’t do me any good anyway. Money was power in the world I lived in, and I no longer had any, so I had no power.

“Okay,” Ryan said, seeming sort of taken aback by my harshness. He ran a hand through his blond hair. “Can I take you out on Friday night?”

I looked at him in annoyed confusion and finally rolled my eyes. “No.”

He looked surprised, and I was sure that was why his friends had sent him over. No one ever said no to Ryan Carson when he asked them out. Not that he did it often, but when you wer
e deemed worthy by him, you said yes. I had no delusions that this was a legitimate ask-out. I was sure he was doing it to see if I’d say yes, and then he’d embarrass me by not showing up or by sticking me with the check.

“Uh, why?”

“Because I don’t date assholes,” I clarified, although I wasn’t entirely sure Ryan was an asshole. He’d always been nice to me, but he had assholes for friends, and they tended to travel in packs, so maybe he was just a really good actor.

“Good to know, because I’m not an asshole.”

I shook my head in annoyance. “Go away, Ryan.”

He smiled, and I hated that I found him even more gorgeous with his freaking dimples and bright blue eyes that lit up
as he grinned at me.

“No,” he responded
jovially.

“Well, I am so not in the mood for this shit, so I think I’ll just go.”

I started to stand, but he stood at the same time and grabbed my arm. I wheeled around to face him, and saw that the grin had dropped from his face.

“Harper, don’t go. I’m being serious. Look, I’ve seen the way everyone’s been treati
ng you and that Cami and Danielle stopped talking to you, and I think it’s shitty. I’m sorry about what’s going on with your family. It must be really hard for you, and I figured you might need a friend.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, not sure I believed him.

He offered me a tentative smile. “I’m being legitimate. Truthfully, I’d been thinking about asking you out for a while now, and it’s unfortunate that this whole thing with your dad happened–”

“Stepdad,” I interrupted him.

I’d never really liked George, and even though it had been a shock to learn that he wasn’t my real father, I was sort of relieved. He
was odd, and he hadn’t paid me much attention growing up, outside of throwing money at me, and I suddenly felt compelled to distance myself from him even further after what he’d done. I was glad I didn’t share genes with the man.

“Oh, okay, your stepdad.
Sorry. Anyway, I was going to ask you out before it all happened, but I was sort of trying to work up the nerve, and today I saw you sitting here, and you looked like you needed someone to talk to, so I figured I’d take a shot.”

“So you’re legitimately asking me out?” I asked, still not sure I believed him.

“Legitimately. I want to pick you up, take you to dinner, maybe see a movie, and at the end of the night I want to kiss you.”

I blushed and looked down, not wanting him to see the smile that had started to creep up on my face.
He reached out with his hand and tilted my chin up so I had to look at him, his eyes searching mine for a response. He smirked when he saw how flushed my cheeks were.

I had limited experience with guys, so the thought of him alluding to kissing me made me all weak-kneed and tingly. He had really full
, gorgeous lips.

“So?” he prompted.

I swallowed to buy time, hoping to sound witty with my response. “You’re so sure the date will go well that you’ll get to kiss me at the end?” I asked as casually as I could.

He shrugged. “I’m fairly confident. Like I said, I’ve
been wanting to ask you out for a while now, but I was trying to work up the nerve.”

“You had to work up the nerve to ask me out?” I asked incredulously, and he grinned.

He smiled, his dimples popping. “You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever met, Harper. Yes, I had to work up the courage.”

“Okay,” I said, after a few secon
ds of silence, really hoping this wasn’t a practical joke.

“
Seriously?” he asked, seeming sort of surprised that I’d said yes.

“Yes, I’ll go,” I clarified. “Your flattery totally won you points.”

“Just wait until you kiss me,” he teased. Then he started to walk backward away from me. “I’ll be at your house at seven on Friday.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling happy for the first time in weeks.

Ryan Fucking Carson.
He’d had my heart from day one, I thought as I got up and dipped a brush into purple paint.

‘
LIAR’ I painted in large purple letters over the blackened heart. It was what Ryan was. He was a liar. And an asshole. And a guy I couldn’t stop thinking about no matter how hard I tried.

He’d invaded my life after eleven fucking years! I dipped back into the black and was slashing the sheet as a murder
er might slash though a body, letting every bit of my anger pour out of me and onto my canvas.

I would do everything in my power to let him go, to forget about him and never think about him again.

Chapter Eleven

Ryan

I was sitting at the bar in the kitchen drinking a beer when the lock in the front door clicked. I quickly shoved the piece of paper I’d been looking at for the past hour, ever since Brandon had given it to me on his way out the door, into my pocket. It had Harper’s cell number on it, and all I could think about was calling her.

“Baby, what are you doing home?”
Trish asked, as soon as she came through the door. Her eyes lit up, but then they clouded over. “Why are you drinking a beer? It’s two-thirty in the afternoon.”

I shrugged. “How was the weekend?” I asked, deflecting her question, as I got off the barstool and pulled her into my arms.

It felt good to hold her. It made me feel a little more stable after the rollercoaster weekend I’d had with Harper Connelly at the forefront of my mind.

“It was great. We had so much fun at the spa, and then we got a lit
tle crazy at one of the wineries that was nearby, but not too crazy.”

I felt like laughing. Crazy for Trish was getting buzzed. I wouldn’t tell her that I was drunk off my ass for three quarters of the weekend.

“I’m glad you had fun, but I’m also glad you’re home.”

I
knew I been complaining about her, but at the end of the day, she made my life better, and she’d been there for me when things had gone to complete shit. I shouldn’t be so hard on her.

She smiled. “I thought you had to work today.”

“I did earlier,” I lied. “The office was closed for the Fourth of July, so I took some calls from here and got on email.”

Yeah, I’d pretty much had the pretense of doing that, but
then I’d opened my inbox to see I had a hundred new emails and closed my laptop pretty much right after. I hated my job. It sucked, and the next day when I went in I knew it would be non-stop work, and I wouldn’t be home before eleven. I was seriously too old for this shit.

Brandon had echoed those same sentiments to me on Saturday night when he’d waxed on for a good hour about how he was going to quit his job, move out here, buy a winery and relax for once in his life. Then we’d driven out to Sonoma the day before and toured the winery he was looking to buy. And I have to say, it was a pretty sweet set up. There was a house on the property, a few
hundred acres of land, a state of the art facility, and a tasting room.

If I was smart I’d follow in his footsteps and change my life before it was too late, but I’d been working in banking for almost ten years. I wasn’t sure I knew how to do anything else
other than kill myself for my clients, work long hours, and play corporate politics. I wasn’t even sure what would make me happy, but Brandon had found something that would make him happy, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous.

“That’s good,” Trish said, looking up at me adoringly. I loved when she looked at me like that. “I have a ton of calls to make about the benefit on Saturday night since I’m not going to be there which makes me sick, but there is just no other way around it. I have to be in Monterey by Saturday afternoon.
”

“You do?
Since when?”

What I was really thinking was, ‘hooray, no boring benefit for some unknown charity!
’. Okay, that was mean, but even if we didn’t go, I was still writing a check. We just went to one a week it seemed like, and sometimes I just wanted to stay home.

“I’m meeting our mothers there to finalize the wedding plans. I’ll be there all week
end with them.”

“You will?
Our mothers are coming out here?”

Shit.