“Thanks, but you don’t have to entertain me.”
She got up from the desk, walked over to him on sky-high heels, and stepped up so close that her breasts brushed against his chest. She looked up at him through her dark eyelashes, her straight, black bangs brushing the tops of eyebrows that had been groomed to the point that they were barely recognizable as hair.
“It would be my pleasure,” she said.
Ryan wondered briefly if Bellini had asked her to screw him in the back room to seal the deal. For a guy like Bellini, it seemed plausible. And then Ryan realized that Gen had once been someone’s Katya. She’d worked in jobs like this for guys like Bellini. What had she been asked to do? And for whom?
Suddenly, he could see why she’d had to leave New York in the first place. Because she wouldn’t screw wealthy men in back rooms.
A surge of rage shot through him, and the muscles in his jaw bunched up as he fought it back.
“Just give Bellini the envelope.”
He took a step back from Katya’s breasts and walked out, anger pulsing hard in his chest.
Chapter Thirty-One
“So this is it, then? You’re leaving?”
Back in Cambria, Gen was perched on a barstool at De-Vine while Rose stood behind the bar, leaning her forearms on the gleaming wooden top.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”
“But you like the gallery space.”
“Oh God, I love it.” She sighed and plopped her head down into her hands. She shook her head, and her curls flopped back and forth. “It’s gorgeous. I can see my gallery there, Rose, I really can.”
“So what’s holding you back? Ryan?”
“It’s … a lot of things.”
De-Vine had no customers at the moment, as it was barely ten a.m. and the wine tasting traffic didn’t usually pick up until after lunchtime. Gen was grateful, because she needed Rose to help her think things through.
“Okay, then,” Rose said, nodding her head, which was covered in lilac-colored hair. “Let’s do pros and cons.”
“All right.” Gen lifted her head and straightened on her barstool.
“Pros first,” Rose prompted her.
“Okay, pros. One, I’ve been wanting to go back to New York ever since MacIntyre died. Before that, really. Two, Manhattan is where all the action is, art-wise. I can’t really be a player if I’m not there. Three, the gallery space is … oh, jeez. It’s just everything I want. Four, New York is … well. It’s New York. It’s exciting. There’s so much to do. It’s got that energy.”
“Which Cambria doesn’t have.”
“No.”
“Okay, now the cons.”
“Cons.” Gen started ticking points off on her fingers. “One, Ryan would have to decide whether to come with me or not. If he did, it would really be hard for his family. And for him. Two, you and Kate and Lacy aren’t there.” Gen started to tear up at the thought of that.
“Oh, honey.” Rose reached out and squeezed Gen’s hand.
“Three, I love Cambria. God, it’s beautiful here. I think I take it for granted sometimes, the natural beauty. I mean, living here every day, I don’t know if I always notice. But to leave …”
Rose nodded. “I know.”
“And four,” Gen continued, “I’d kind of forgotten how sleazy people can be when there’s big money involved. You know? Bellini’s all about the money, he’s not about the art. And it’s not just him. It’s the gallery culture out there. I don’t know if I can be that way. Or if I even want to.”
“But that leads to another pro,” Rose offered.
“It does? How?”
“Because you can go out there and be a force for good.” Rose crossed her arms over her chest and raised one pierced eyebrow. “You can be all about the art. Sounds like somebody needs to be.”
“Yeah. That’s true.” Gen nodded. “Yeah.”
“So. Who wins? The pros or the cons?”
“I have to decide soon,” Gen said, feeling miserable. “The gallery space won’t be open forever.”
Kendrick was the one who decided it for her.
She went out to visit him at the ranch the day after she returned from New York. She met him at the cottage and told him the good news about his sales—and it was very good news, indeed. After they talked about numbers for a little while, he took her out to the old barn and showed her what he’d been working on. The new canvases were startling in their intensity. Amid abstract bursts of color, images came to her—of birds, of the shoreline, of grassy slopes and clear skies.
“Oh, Gordon,” she said with a dreamy sigh. “These are just wonderful.”
“So, who have you got lined up for your next residency?” he asked.
“Well … no one. This was kind of a one-time deal.”
He looked at her with surprise and dismay. “Genevieve,” he said with a scolding tone in his voice, peering at her over his glasses.
She wasn’t sure what she’d done to earn his scorn. “What?”
“Why on earth wouldn’t you continue the residency?”
“Well, I … The idea was to do this, have some success—which we did—and then relocate to New York.” She sounded uncertain and defensive to her own ears.
“That was the idea, was it?” He sounded like a stern professor, about to school his na?ve and impossibly immature student. “Genevieve. Come walk with me.” Kendrick led her out of the barn and onto a trail that led up into the rolling hills of the ranch.
The morning was cool and crisp, with a light breeze that sent the grass rippling in waves before them. The distant rumble of the waves crashing against the shore mingled with the sounds of birds and the burbling creek off to their left.
“Let me ask you something,” Kendrick said. “When you came up with this idea—the idea for the residency—what were you hoping for? What did you imagine might happen?”
“I told you. I thought we’d have some success—”
“But what does that mean? What did you think ‘success’ would look like? Was it just about money? About selling paintings?”
“No. No, no.” Gen thought carefully about her answer. “I had hoped that if I brought you out here, this place—the beauty of it—might inspire you. I could see that you were on the verge of something. I thought if you were here, with the quiet, and the peace … if you could just be with nature for a while, it might, kind of—” She made a shoving motion with her hands. “—push you over the verge.”
He paused on the path and turned to look at her. “And how does it feel to know that it did exactly that?”
To hear that, to hear him say it that way, made something within her soar. She blinked away sudden tears. “I … God, Gordon. When you put it that way …”
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She did.
“Now, just listen.”
She heard the ocean, the breeze rustling in the branches of the trees. Somewhere above, a gull cawed, and something else—some small, winged thing— tittered in the pines. She heard water rush through rocks, and the slow, gentle hum of her own breath.