Page 66 of Quinn, By Design

“Figured what out?”

“My demand for you to restore furniture was miserable, bloody, unreasonable, and unfair. You should have called me on it.” She whirled in a circle, her distress like a whirling dervish’s skirt, keeping him at a distance. “I was incapable of seeing the bigger picture—the connection between your work and the mentorship. You should have told me. Instead, you’ve rejected Grandpa’s bequest.”

“I don’t need charity.” His hands formed fists.

“Grandpa wasn’t offering charity—"

“I’d be taking money under false pretences. I’m not a suitable mentor.”

“The exhibition would have given you publicity and showcased your work. Grandpa knew that. I bet he also knew how stiff-necked you are and how you dread being beholden to anyone. He was offering you a chance to repay a debt that’s largely in your head by mentoring people in his foundation.

“I haven’t offered charity either. Friends help each other. But you won’t accept help from me. You throw it back in my face, with the most obscene insult you can think of—charity!Ihaven’t shown you an inch of charity.” She turned on her heel and paced across the floor. “I demanded you restore furniture when you’d already squared your account with Grandpa. I offered your skills to rich collectors who could wait for their restoration. You turned me into a thief.A thief.” She stopped, her gaze stricken. “I didn’t focus on the right things,” she groaned.

“What things?” he asked, afraid of the defeat dragging at her body and echoing in her voice. She was revealing something important, and he couldn’t read the cues.

“It doesn’t matter.” She waved him away.

“Whatthings?” he almost shouted.

“You’re a brilliant craftsman. I kept wondering why you didn’t do more with it. Why you’d settle for restoring furniture, even though it’s a desperately hard time to crack the market. I accepted your excuses despite them being inconsistent with the man I was getting to know.” She shivered, tears filling her eyes. “Because I didn’t push, didn’t ask the right questions, didn’t open the right door, I’ve left you to die.”

“That’s melodramatic crap,” he protested, although her insight, that cancelling the exhibition was a kind of death felled him. Watching tears he’d caused spill down her cheeks, he took a step forward, but she held up a hand to stop him.

“It’s not melodrama.” She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks. “It’s a tragedy.”

“I care about you, Lucy.”

“Not enough to tell me what’s important to you. Not enough to trust me with your dreams. Not enough to tell me you’re dying inside, because that’s what the last few weeks have been about. You’ve been locking me out bit by bit.” She lashed him with the truth.

“I’m thirty-four and can’t make enough money to support myself much less anyone else.”

“You need to take a hard look at yourself. You’ve been making a living for yourself and profit to share with your brother. You have numerous options to make a living for yourself, but you claim the only real one is Furniture by Quinn. Maybe you’re just afraid, Niall. That you haven’t got what it takes to be a master craftsman.” She cut through to the underbelly of his insecurity. “That if you come out into the harsh light of day, you’ll be shown to be wanting.”

“Without Cam’s advice and money, I wouldn’t have considered an exhibition.” Creatives breathed doubt every minute of every day, although he’d started stockpiling pieces before he met Cam.

“Keep telling yourself that bullshit. At the risk of repeating myself”—she sounded annihilated—“you’ve cancelled the exhibition. You’ve refused the chance to do your own work and mentor others. You’re moving out.”

He nodded. “I’ll leave at the end of the initial agreement period.”

“So, you’ve decided that in a few weeks you’ll give up your home and your workshop.” She skewered him with her contempt. “Worst of all, you’ve shown disrespect to my grandpa.”

“You’re wrong. I respect him. More than I can say.”

“Look around you.” Her gaze travelled around the room. “You’re squandering his belief in you. Why? Sainthood or martyrdom?”

“I don’t have the pieces for an exhibition,” he roared, his hands forming fists.

“Your brother and his wife have a cradle and a table, maybe more ...” She stopped with her back to him, her spine rigid, and her courage highlighted his cowardice. “You’ve made other sales. You could assemble an exhibition by borrowing back some of your best pieces instead of wallowing in manufactured guilt about Cam and me.” She grabbed her bag and headed for the door.

“Don’t leave,” Niall called, searching for a better way to explain himself. He’d made the wrong choices, not her.

“You’re the one who’s leaving,” she said.

The door banged shut.

* * *

Lucy clung to her righteousrage for three blocks because hehadleft her. He’d bolted from her bed and torpedoed their business and personal relationship. Her hands gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles bled white.Damn the setting sun. Bouncing off her rear mirror, it was an obscene reminder the planet continued to turn on its axis, when her world had come to a stumbling halt. She tried to swallow the sobs building in her body. Chest heaving, she pulled into the side of the road, her blurred vision making it impossible to identify hazards.

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