Page 40 of Painted in Love

Clay thanked heaven that Gareth didn’t freak out. Instead, he flapped a hand as if he were trying to ward off everything she said. “Oh no, I don’t paint anymore. I’m Clay’s lawyer.”

She looked first to Clay, then back to Gareth. “Oh,” she said with obvious disappointment. “So you used to paint, but don’t anymore?” When Gareth didn’t answer, she asked, “Why did you stop?”

Clay cringed, having no idea how to avert this disaster. He wasn’t a helpless man, but he felt helpless now.

Gareth shrugged his wide shoulders beneath the tailored suit jacket. “Long story. The art world just wasn’t for me.”

She tucked her chin, gazing at Gareth as if she were a cat trying to figure out why he didn’t immediately bend down to scratch her ears. “Really?” Then she puffed out just a sound. “Hmm.” She looked him up and down, from his short lawyerly auburn hair to that buttoned suit jacket to his shiny loafers. “Because you’ve definitely got that artist vibe about you.”

Having seen her take in his appearance, Gareth admitted, “I dabbled in college.”

She touched him, just a sweep of her fingers across his forearm. No one had seen Gareth’s artwork since their university days. He’d hidden it all away, taken back everything he’d given Clay to put in the show. Clay was pretty sure he’d destroyed it all.

But Saskia was so enchanting. Whatever Gareth felt in that touch made his tension melt away. She cocked her head again, as if the careful animal in her scented that Gareth wasn’t a threat and that maybe he was about to give her a treat.

She asked softly, “Do you display it in your house just for you to see?”

Clay felt jittery, his gaze flashing between the two of them. Gareth would walk out now.

Instead, his friend smiled. A real smile. Not a trapped smile. A smile that reminded Clay of the Gareth of ten years ago. When he’d been a happy artist instead of a staid lawyer. Then his friend shocked the hell out of him by saying, “No. It’s all in a storage unit.”

Clay barely stopped his jaw from hitting the floor. How had he simply assumed Gareth had gotten rid of it all, even as he mourned its loss?

But Saskia, that amazing woman, had drawn it out of him. She was incredible. A miracle worker.

She blew Clay away yet again by saying, “I’d love to see it sometime.”

Then Gareth did the most staggering thing. He pulled out his phone, scrolled through the contents, and finally said, “I have pictures.”

Saskia stepped inside his personal space to look at his phone. Clay couldn’t move. He wasn’t merely astounded—he was completely dumbstruck. Not just by Saskia and how she’d gotten Gareth to open up in less than ten minutes, but by Gareth himself. Clay wanted to horn in on their moment, to gaze at the photos. But he stood back watching, when normally he would never have allowed himself to be a mere observer.

All the time, he’d honestly believed Gareth had burned all his paintings. But Clay saw the truth. Gareth couldn’t bear to destroy his work. His heart and soul lived in those paintings. He was finally seeing the true Gareth again after so long. The one whose art still inhabited him.

Saskia said on barely a breath, “This is amazing.” She knew art. She worked for San Holo.

Clay couldn’t stop himself. He had to see the painting Gareth had shown her.

He barely swallowed a gasp.

It was the self-portrait. But a completely disjointed self-portrait—the nose in the wrong place, the eyes too far to the left, everything off-kilter. It was this painting the critics had trashed.

Clay could still remember the comments.

Do you think you’re van Gogh or Picasso?

This is just mimicry.

The artist is merely blending other people’s styles. He has no style of his own, and I doubt he ever will.

But Saskia knew none of that. “Wow, this is a self-portrait, isn’t it?” She looked at Gareth as if she saw him in a way Clay hadn’t for years. “Looks like you felt all twisted up about which direction your life should take—law or art?”

She was spot-on.

It was how Gareth had sometimes felt back then, beneath the happy-go-lucky façade, forced into law school by his parents but wanting only to paint. With Clay pulling him in the other direction, wanting him to put his art out there.

Saskia saw it all in only one self-portrait.

Stepping back, she surveyed Gareth, her face glowing. “This is brilliant. Why aren’t you doing this?”

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