Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
I hit the twenty-minute mark with Tiger haunting my thoughts, but I finally have the blessed distraction from him as I pull onto the long, winding path leading to the place I call home. The white country-style house I’d bought with my inheritance six months after my father’s death. I’d finally accepted that my mother would run the winery into the ground if I didn’t leave my life in L.A. behind. I’d had this crazy idea back then that I could merge my world with that of the winery. I’d been wrong, but today is my birthday, and I’m giving myself the gift of a weekend with my art, including a brush in my hand.
I park in the driveway rather than the garage, then quickly grab my bag, hurrying up the wooden steps to the porch that hugs the entire front of the house. Once I’m inside, I clear the foyer and hurry across the dark wood of the floors of the open living area to my bedroom. I enter the room I haven’t slept in for a month, everything about the space artsy and clean, done in cream and caramel tones. A cream leather-framed bed and fluffy cream area rug. Caramel-colored nightstands. A cream chair with a caramel ottoman. My painting, a Sonoma landscape, is the centerpiece above the headboard, because hey, I can’t afford a Chris Merit, though Josh loves to tell me I could be the next Chris Merit. I’d be happy to just be the next me and actually know what that meant, which reminds me of the card from my father. I set my bag on the bed and pull out the card, staring at my father’s script. I run my fingers over it, missing him so badly it hurts, but I remember that he saw my art as a hobby and the winery as my future. I’ve accepted that destiny. I’m protecting our family history and his blood and sweat. But I can’t open a card tonight and risk gutting myself before a night I’ve already committed to surviving. I set the card down and whisper, “I love you, and I’m going to make you proud.”
My eyes burn, and the guilt I have over the tears I haven’t shed for my mother has me rushing to the closet off the bathroom to change. I need to paint. I need to get lost with a brush in my hand. I turn away from the bed and enter the bathroom—done in the same shades as the bedroom, including the checked tiles, with an egg-shaped sunken tub—and continue to my walk-in closet. Once there, I change into jeans and a T-shirt, as well as sneakers.
A few minutes later, I’m on the second level of the house, which I had converted to my studio, with a smock over my clothes, a blank canvas in front of me, a brush in my hand for the first time in months, and my phone on the table beside me. And impossibly, somehow, Nick Rogers is still on my mind. I don’t like arrogance. I don’t like men with long hair. I don’t like men like Nick Rogers. And yet, that man is haunting me. I go to work, determined to paint him off my mind, long strokes, heavy strokes. Soon my creation begins to come to life, a work that is like no other I have ever created, and I am driven—obsessed, even—to finish it.
Time passes—an hour I think, maybe more—before my phone rings. I set down the brush and wipe my hands on the smock before picking it up. “Hi, Josh,” I say after noting my agent’s number on caller ID.
“I’m finally here,” he breathes out, sounding decidedly grumpy.
“Finally? What time is it?”
“Five,” he says. “And why the hell do you not know that, Faith? This is a big night for you. Chris Merit won’t be there, but he donated a never-before-seen painting for the charity auction. The event’s been sold out for months. And this is your event, too.”
“It’s his event. I’m showing my work.”
“It’s your event, too, and I will spank your pretty little ass if you say otherwise again.”
“You do not need to say things like that to me.”
“Because I scandalize you? We both know that’s no more true than Cinderella. Besides, A) you’d bust my balls if I ever tried anything with you, which I would not, because B) I like submissive types. You are so far from that it’s laughable. If you were, I’d already have you past this nonsense that you can’t paint and run your family business.”
I grimace. “Where are you going with this, exactly?”
“You should be at a spa getting a facial or whatever you women do before fancy black-tie affairs that would never cross our male minds.”
“Actually,” I say, blowing out a breath, “I was”—I stop myself, not wanting to give him the wrong idea about where this is going—“about to take a shower.”