She was his distracting diamond, the one he wanted to gaze at all day today. But first he had to honor another promise he’d made her.
His destination was the gallery, to collect the painting he’d bought for Cass. He drove one of the company Escalades, since he still hadn’t decided on a new car after he’d donated the McLaren to a charity auction. While he missed the sports car’s maneuverability, he didn’t have any problem negotiating the narrow streets, making his way around the carriage horses already at work. As he passed the café on Royal Street, he inhaled the scent of fresh baked beignets. He might pick up some of those on the way back. Powdered sugar tasted just fine on Marcie’s skin.
It was morning, and the gallery opened at ten, so he expected he’d be the day’s first arrival. He was wrong.
As he entered the store, he saw Cassandra, sitting on a bench that had been placed before the monastery painting.
“She came in a half-hour ago,” the man standing at the desk said. Ben guessed this was the gallery owner, Mike Owens, according to the business cards in a holder on the polished desk. He was in his fifties, with silver gray fine hair pulled into a ponytail. He wore a maroon dress shirt with a silver tie and gray slacks. A spider web tattoo was visible above the starched collar. His gravel voice was at odds with the formally educated tone. It reminded Ben of Hector Elizondo in Pretty Woman.
“Did she bring the bench with her?” Ben asked.
“I put it there, so she’d have the option to sit,” Mike replied. “After she stood in front of the painting for about ten minutes.”
Sometimes a storeowner did things because of the money a customer spent or could potentially spend. Cass had the style and presence to broadcast she could be a generous patron. But Ben didn’t get the ingratiating vibe from the man. He was simply observant…and kind. A combination Ben appreciated, and would remember. Ben guessed he’d been in the back yesterday, since he seemed to realize not only that Ben was the owner of the painting now, but that Ben also knew Cass.
“She lost someone recently?” The gallery owner made a sympathetic noise at Ben’s nod of acknowledgment. “That piece does that. It’s the last work the artist did, and it was where he died. He told the monks he hoped to imbue it with all the serenity, compassion and spiritual hope he’d felt within their walls. Know it sounds crazy, but everyone who gets caught up in it is still in some stage of grief over someone who meant a lot to them. I almost hate to lose it, because it’s kind of nice to watch how it comforts people.”
Since Ben had kept his attention mostly on Cass, he could see firsthand what Mike meant. There was a peace to her profile, a quietness. “Doesn’t look crazy at all,” he commented.
Mike grunted in acknowledgement. “Take your time. We can pack it up to go whenever you’re ready. Mornings are quiet here.”
Courteously, he turned his attention back to his laptop screen. Not to dismiss Ben, but to give him the chance to move away without requiring a response, something else Ben appreciated.
Cass’s blue eyes shifted to Ben as he came toward her. He remembered the first time he’d met her. She’d come to them for a meeting at K&A, representing a client through Pickard Consulting, her employer. Unbeknownst to them at the time, Lucas already knew her, from a chance encounter when he’d been vacationing in the Berkshires. The electricity between her and him during the negotiations had been like watching an erotic light show, but there’d been a stronger, more captivating undercurrent. Each man of the K&A circle had fallen fast and hard for the woman he wanted, the submissive he intended to claim forever.
Ben had felt an odd yearning during that meeting, which, at the time, he’d dismissed. He’d dismissed it when Peter had found Dana, and Jon had found Rachel, though the feeling had become stronger and stronger, until Marcie’s stubbornness had forced him to face what it was. An acknowledgment of his own loneliness, and that he was trapped in a cage he’d made for himself out of his past demons.
Marcie had thrown herself right into that cage, taken on those demons head-on, and wrapped herself around his heart and soul, refusing to leave unless they walked out together. That struggle was still ongoing, as some of yesterday’s events had proven, but in the jewelry store, the bars had bent, just a little.
When he’d met Cass, he hadn’t known she was connected by blood to the woman who would completely fuck up his certainty that he’d never be in a long-term relationship. Let alone be thinking of crazy things like marriage, or picking out rings.
Cass loved Marcie as much as he did. But it wasn’t that side of her Ben was considering as he took a seat next to her on the bench. He slid an arm around her shoulders, rubbing her upper arm with easy strokes.
“Did you guess?” he asked at last. “Or did Marcie tell you?” Since it was a short bench, they were hip to hip, her shoulder pressed against his chest.
She let out a little sigh, relaxing against him. “Neither. At least not right away. I came back to buy it and Mr. Owens told me it had been purchased. Then I guessed.”
“Mike,” the proprietor said, his hearing obviously sharp, since he sat nearly forty feet away and they were speaking in low tones.
“Mike,” she repeated, her lips curving in a slight smile.
They sat in silence for another few moments before Ben spoke again. “You wouldn’t let me buy you anything yesterday.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t trying to disrespect that,” he said. “Marcie wanted me to buy the painting for you.”
She nodded.
“I also wasn’t trying to buy you off. Make amends with a fucking bribe.”
He hadn’t meant to curse, but the first sentence resurrected some of what he’d felt yesterday. It had apparently built up acid in his gut that hadn’t dispelled.
She turned her gaze to him fully, and the regret he saw there disintegrated some of it. “Oh, Ben. I’m sorry you thought that I felt that way. I didn’t. Not at all.”
He tightened his arm around her shoulders, but suddenly needed some space. Withdrawing and rising, he walked a couple steps toward the painting and stared up at it. Fuck, the artist had succeeded in his intent. A man could get lost in the swirling colors and textures he’d used to depict the monastery, and the way it nested in the deep forest. The inviting depth was the right balance between coolness and warmth.