Never Marry Your Brother's Best Friend (Never Say Never, #1)

Prickles run along my arms, and my own response to his honeyed voice saying my name all sexy like that annoys me. “What’re you doing here?”


His blue eyes go frosty, but he shrugs as though my challenge is no big deal. “Getting the help I need. I don’t give up easily, or ever.” He shoots a cheesy wink at the receptionist who’s probably sitting in a puddle of her own making.

I take a big breath to steel myself. “Fine. We’ll start with the medieval torture devices.”

We don’t even have those, but right now, I’m wishing we had an entire wing of them so that I could put Carter on a rack and stretch him until he was as long and elastic as Gumby.

“For my use or yours?” Carter quips with a sly lift of his brow. When my jaw drops in shock, he holds his hands up and grins that panty-melting smile. “No judgment if that’s what you’re into.”

“I could be into that,” the receptionist offers with a twirl of her hair.

“Argh,’ I growl. “Come on.”

I lead him to the Impressionist section first, showcasing the single Monet painting we’ve acquired that is the capstone of our collection. In full tour guide mode, I tell him, “This was loaned to the museum by an anonymous donor. It’s been on display here for over ten years and seen by thousands of visitors. If you’ll notice, looking at the piece overall, the way he used light and shadow creates a sense of vibrant movement even though the subject is a still-frame capture.” I pause, waiting for Carter to agree, and once he nods, I continue. “Moving closer, you can see that the way he does that is through small brush strokes going all different directions to create that fluidity. For example, here.” I point to the lower portion of the painting where there’s a section of greenery in the foreground that appears to be blowing in an invisible wind.



“I can see what you’re talking about.” Carter seems surprised himself, but no more so than I am. It gives me a little hope as we walk through the rest of the Impressionist area, moving into post-Impressionist and then toward more modern artists. He’s an attentive student, and as we go, I forget my official tour guide capacity and start talking about the art for real with Carter, sharing my thoughts, not just quoting the approved speeches about each piece.

Standing in front of a Picasso, Carter tilts his head left and then right, looking at it with a furrowed brow.

“What does it make you feel?” I ask.

“Huh?” Carter says, now looking straight on at the piece.

“All art is created from emotion. The artist sees something, whether with their eyes or their mind, and feels something within their soul. The art, or painting in this case, is merely the method the artist uses to convey that emotion. There’s no right or wrong answer, though, in what the viewer feels when seeing the art. That’s the beauty of it.”

“I feel . . .” He pauses and then admits, “confused.”

I laugh lightly. “That’s completely valid. Especially with pieces like this that challenge what you see with your eyes. I mean, obviously, people don’t look like this, exactly, but it was Picasso’s perception of them. Take the line of the eyes here. Most people have eyes that are unilateral.” I hold my hand flat at my eye level, showing that mine are even. “What could he be saying about this person by painting their eyes off a linear line?”

Carter pops off. “That he was drunk, high, or both, and seeing double?”

Disappointment floods me. He’s been doing well, listening and responding thoughtfully, but I’m trying to push him beyond the technicalities of the art. If he truly wants to impress his client, the deeper meanings will be key. He can’t just read the name on the painting and start repeating a Wikipedia page by rote memory. Well, I guess he could, but something tells me that won’t be enough for this client.

He could just smile at her and she’d probably hand over the passwords to her whole portfolio.

“Try again,” I challenge. “Think deeper.”

His lips purse, and I realize that what I said could be easily misconstrued. Thankfully, he doesn’t make a juvenile joke about ‘I’ll show you deeper’ like most man-child types would.

“Okay, the eyes are—as my grandma would say—cattywampus. I’m trying to think what she would say about someone like that.” I watch him as he stares contemplatively at the painting, and his entire mood shifts into something serious and introspective, which is somehow more attractive than his typical gregarious charm. “Someone who always thinks there’s something better around the corner. Like they’re here with you” —he points at the painted eye that seems to be in the correct placement and then moves to the other— “but they’re always on the lookout for something better or different. Distracted by what could be or what they could have. Like being with you in the moment isn’t enough.”

My heart skips a beat as my jaw drops. “Wow,” I say breathily. “That’s . . . really good.”

“You don’t have to seem so surprised. I’m not all dashing good looks and Southern charm. I’ve got a brain in this head too.” He taps his temple with one of those panty-melting smiles, seemingly not offended at my over-the-top reaction, but it feels a bit forced and there’s a blankness in his eyes that wasn’t there a few moments ago when he was talking about the meaning in the Picasso.

“No, I didn’t mean . . .” He gives me a sharp look, and I confess, “Okay, maybe I did. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed you couldn’t grasp what I was talking about. That was rude of me.”

“Apology accepted.” He dips his chin once, and with that, it’s like the whole thing never happened. He says brightly, “Where’s your favorite piece in the whole museum?”

Interesting. It seems Carter has a deeper side than maybe I’d considered, but he keeps it hidden away. I can understand that. It’s not like we’re besties. I’m just a means to an end for him, but for a moment there, I could see more to him. And that ‘more’ is way more interesting than Carter’s usual fa?ade.

“This way,” I tell him, leading him toward the piece that I love the most in the entire museum. I’m actually a teensy bit curious what Carter’s take will be on it.

Please don’t let him say something stupid like ‘I could do that in five minutes’ or ‘he really put his all into it’ about the white splashes. I hear comments like that too often, and they infuriate me with their dismissiveness of the talent behind the piece.