Page 52 of Dare To Live

I receive a text from Elena the second I turn off airplane mode. It informs me that she’s arranged a driver to pick me up from the airport and take me to my favorite penthouse suite at the Royal Crown Plaza hotel, where she’ll meet me at six pm sharp to go to the gallery.

Sure enough, there’s a driver waiting for me when I exit the airport. My name is neatly printed on the board he’s holding. I pay a porter to stash my suitcase in the back of the car and slip onto the back seat. I’m traveling light as my intention is to drive down to the house in the Hamptons for a week once I’ve showed my face at the art show.

I tip my head against the seat and close my eyes. The last two weeks have been a shitshow. I managed to finish the final painting with a few hours to spare before it was all collected and shipped to the gallery ready for the show tonight. I’ve barely slept, barely eaten, and given a choice, I wouldn’t even be here today. Between my agent and Elena, they hounded and hassled me until I got on the plane.

“Mr. Travers?”

My eyes snap open at the sound of my name to find the driver twisted in his seat, looking at me.

“We’re here, sir.”

I blink and look out of the window. “Oh ... right. Thanks.” I pluck a couple of folded bills out of my pocket and hand them to him, throw open the door and climb out.

A hotel porter materializes at the back of the car and takes out my case.

“Your suite is ready for you, Mr. Travers,” he says as he trots along beside me into the hotel. “The key is waiting at reception.”

“Thanks.”

Check-in goes smoothly, and I’m in the elevator and heading up to the penthouse suite soon after. The elevator doors open smoothly onto the interior of the penthouse. The key activates the floor, so there are no concerns of anyone else coming up here accidentally, unless I leave permission down at the desk for someone to let them up. It’s one of the reasons I like this hotel.

Pulling off my jacket, I drop it on the back of the couch as I move through the room and throw open the doors leading out to the private balcony area. As I walk through, I catch sight of my reflection and stop to look.

“Because you’re not a sad and pathetic hermit living in a cabin in the woods, right? God knows what the locals think. Crazy Mr. Travers, the artist who looks like some kind of freaking wild eyed lumberjack who wanders around talking to himself.”

The female voice rings out and I spin, looking for its owner before catching myself. There’s no one here but me.

***

“Well, don’t you look handsome.” Elena presses her hands to my chest and rises on her toes to press a kiss to my cheek, when I come out of the bedroom. “That tie, though.” She rolls her eyes and smooths her palm over it before fiddling with the knot. “There. Much better.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

She laughs. “I wasn’t sure if you’d try and cancel again.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

She pats my cheek. “Yes, you are. Shall we go?” She loops her arm through mine and draws me to the elevator.

“I just need to get my jacket.” I pull away, pick up the black suit jacket and slip it on. “Now I’m ready.”

We travel down in the elevator in a companionable silence. We became friends years ago, after Arabella left, and then grew closer still when my dad fell ill. I’d discovered a side to Elena that not many people were aware of. She thrived as my father’s wife, combatted an alcohol addiction, and became quite a well-known name in the Hamptons for her natural interior design skills which grew over time to become her own small business.

A car pulls up when we step out of the hotel and I hold open the door for Elena to climb in before settling beside her.

“When was the last time you attended one of your own shows?”

“I don’t remember. A year or two. I don’t need to be there.”

“But the rumor of the artist being there builds excitement.”

“And that’s why no one knows it’s me. All they’d do is ask me who the muse is for the Hellcat series, and whether I can introduce them.”

“I don’t know whether to be proud of you for that series or mortified over it.”

One side of my mouth tips up. “It’s not like you didn’t know what we were doing.”

“Knowing and seeing are two very different things, Eli. I would prefer to think my eighteen-year-old daughter was not indulging in those kinds of activities with her stepbrother.”

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