I had to paint.
I had no idea what, if any social commitments I might have tonight, but I didn’t care. Everything could go to hell when the need to paint struck. It had been weeks since I’d picked up a brush, and even longer since I’d completed a single piece.
No one knew about my closely guarded hobby. Because if they knew, they’d ask me why I didn’t show my own work at Noble Art. I was the owner, therefore I could do whatever I pleased.
The reason? While I had confidence in my ability to choose great artists and pieces to sell, I had no confidence in my own work. Instead, I held a piercing, blinding certainty that it was beyond terrible and not fit to be seen by human eyes other than my own. I had no classical training, and those flaws I was so critical of in others’ work while assessing its ability to sell were more than present in my own. But I didn’t care because painting wasn’t something I did for money or for show—it was all about the escape for me.
The night I was raped over ten years ago, my entire life had changed. One moment of bad judgment contaminated every day since like black paint tainted every color it touched.
I’d been torn apart on the stand by the defense attorneys, my reputation put on trial. Rape charges were ugly, and they were even uglier when your rapist was the son of a politician who had plenty to lose. I’d been barely twenty-two when it had happened, and I hadn’t exactly been a choirgirl in college. At least the proceedings had been kept closed—again the benefit of the plaintiff and defendant being well-connected—and the general public never knew my humiliation.
I’d given up so many things after that. I was careful to keep any of the limited number of sexual partners I had completely off the radar, because of my hyperawareness of my reputation for the last decade. Instead of going out with friends and having fun, I’d locked myself away with my canvases. Painting had become my own personal salvation.
For years, I’d told myself I’d moved on, but I hadn’t. I would have been living a normal life all these years if I’d really moved on rather than burying myself in work and paint.
I paused to take in the man I’d painted while the events of the day replayed in my head. Tall, broad-shouldered. His skin color strikingly similar to the man I’d met today. I dropped my brush and stepped back.
What the hell?
Painting him hadn’t been a deliberate act, but it wasn’t something I could deny had just happened. There he was. All rippling muscle and striking silver eyes.
The only things that were missing were the tattoos I didn’t get a close enough look at to replicate.
But it was him. Rix.
His name didn’t seem to fit him.
Stop, Valentina. Just stop. He’s not important, he’s not relevant, he shouldn’t even exist to you.
I was just starting to believe the things I was telling myself when my phone vibrated from the side table where I’d left it. After quickly cleaning my hands and wiping them dry on a rag, I reached for it.
Two things struck me at the same time: I’d been painting for hours. It was after midnight. And the second was: Trinity.
I answered immediately. “Are you okay?”
Her voice, which I expected to be filled with excitement over what Rix had told me, was shaking when she spoke. “Can you come get me? I’m scared, V. Something’s wrong here and I’m freaking out.”
Protectiveness to rival a mama bear roared to life within me. “Baby girl, I’m coming for you. Just tell me where you are.”
She rattled off an address, one that was almost the same as the one I’d already visited today, except for two transposed numbers. Apparently my memory sucked when I was sneaking peeks at a cop’s computer screen.
“Is that Derrick’s house?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m in the bathroom. I just want to go home, but there are people downstairs and they’re yelling, and I can’t find Derrick. I don’t know what to do. I tried to go out the back, but one of his friends wouldn’t let me leave and told me to get out of the way.”
I thought about the neighborhood she was in, and was happy someone didn’t let her run out into the night by herself. I’d had no idea she’d been hanging out there the last few months, or I definitely would’ve had something to say about it.
She might only be my employee now, but I’d watched her grow up from awkward middle schooler to a bright and beautiful woman. I’d given her birthday and Christmas presents. I’d taken her prom dress shopping. I’d done all of the things a parent would have done that her grandmother was too old or too uninterested to do.
“It’s okay, honey. I’ll be right there.”
I didn’t bother changing except to toss off my smock and grab a light cotton zip-up hoodie. It was still humid and hot, but it was late and I wanted to be covered when I ventured back into the lion’s den. Because this was the lion’s den. It was Rix’s world, and he’d made no bones about the fact that I didn’t belong in it.