Back at Princeton, he’d dated a visual arts major who had a freakish obsession with time travel books and movies. She’d talked nonstop about a Scottish romance novel that she insisted should be made into a movie and made him sit through a dreadful film with the dead guy from Superman and the chick from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The best thing about the movie was the music: notably Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninoff, which was seductive enough that they’d ended up fucking hard on her dorm bed halfway through the movie.
Suddenly the plot of that movie came back to him as he parked his car in his brother’s driveway. The dead guy from Superman had become obsessed with a seventy-year-old portrait of Dr. Quinn, even though she was long dead by the time he’d actually seen the painting at a historic hotel. Because of his fixation on the woman in the portrait, he worked tirelessly to travel back through time to find her. For no good reason that could be explained, he felt a connection to the model he could neither forget nor deny.
Yesterday Libitz had said that there was “a lot of use in denying” their attraction to each other, but J.C.’s feelings for her weren’t just about attraction anymore: they were all twisted and tangled with their mutual love of art, their delectable verbal sparring, and an ongoing sexy battle of the wills. Lately those feelings had been anchored by the fact that they’d be sharing the godparenting of Noelle and imbued with the magic of the Montferrat painting and Lib’s uncanny likeness to its model.
Before the Kandinsky opportunity had presented itself yesterday, he didn’t know how he was going to introduce Libitz to Les Bijoux Jolis, yet he was desperate that she see it. He needed to know if he was alone in the mysterious spell it had woven over him, because he suspected that he wasn’t…or wouldn’t be once she saw it. With no true and solid basis for his hunch, he felt certain that she would be as affected by the painting as he.
And with all these thoughts swirling like soup in his head, he hopped up the steps of his brother’s house and raised his finger to ring the doorbell. But before he could actually make finger-to-bell contact, the door opened an inch, and Libitz slipped out.
“C’mon! Hurry!” she whispered, grabbing his jacket sleeve and speed-walking down the steps to his car. “She thinks you’re a taxi!”
Deprived of the chance to open her door for her, he rounded the car and jumped into his seat, starting the engine quickly. “What happened to honesty?”
“It’s overrated,” muttered Lib, pulling down the sunglasses that had been perched on top of her head.
J.C. flicked a glance to the house as he put the car in drive, relieved that neither Kate nor his brother was darting from the house in a flurry to stop their now-illicit getaway.
Once they were down the driveway and through the gates of Toujours, he turned to Libitz. “What changed?”
“When I woke up this morning, she was sitting on my bed, all weepy, sorry for what she’d said last night, but not for the intentions behind it. She’s really scared that we’re going to hook up, break up, and hate each other for life.”
“Huh.”
“She kept saying it would be high stakes for a meaningless fuck.”
Just as it had bothered him last night when she’d referred to today as “just business,” it rankled him again now when she used the word “meaningless.” Whatever Lib was to him, “meaningless” wasn’t part of the equation.
He hazarded a glance at her, noting for the first time that she was wearing emerald earrings that sparkled and shined like the necklace in the painting. For a moment, he stared at her ear, almost hypnotized while they waited to merge onto a main road. A sharp pang of longing twisted his guts even though he reminded himself that it was a coincidence and nothing more.
“So, um…what did you say? To Kate?”
“I told her not to worry. We’re not happening.”
He flinched. “You’re so sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“No hint of doubt.”
“None.”
They were both quiet for a few minutes of stormy silence before Libitz’s spoke up again. “One, I’m sure you have a piece of ass stashed away somewhere.”
A mental picture of Felicity flashed through his head, and he scowled.
“Two, I’m with Neil.”
His lips curled at the idea of Nice Neil’s floury hands anywhere near Libitz.
“And three, somewhere along the way…” Her voice, which had been firm and decisive with her first two reasons, had changed now. It was softer and more tender, almost wistful. “…I decided that I don’t want meaningless anymore…and you’re, well…you’re you.”
“And all I do is meaningless?” he asked dryly.
She shrugged. “If the shoe fits…”
She was right, of course, but the word felt hollow and bitter in a way it had never felt before. “Meaningless” had always felt right. Safe. Comforting, even. But here and now? Sitting next to Libitz, speeding toward his gallery to show her something so beautiful, it had attached itself unerringly to his heart? They didn’t feel right, safe, or comfortable. For the very first time in his life, they felt…wrong. All wrong.
He stopped at a red light, turning to her. She lowered her glasses to the bridge of her nose and nailed him with a look. “Tell me I’m wrong.”