Page 37 of Skin Deep

He was done.

He looked at his father, shook his head. Eyed his mother with disappointment. Caught his twin’s eye and gave a nod to indicate that they would speak later.

Then he turned on his heel to follow the path Amy had taken out of the dining room and to the door.

“Frederick!” His father’s voice thundered through the room, at a decibel that would have made Fred tremble in the past. Now he paused but didn’t deign to look back over his shoulder as he spoke.

“Yes?”

“If you walk out that door right now, you can consider your participation in Vaughan Enterprises over.” Did his father know how smug he sounded, how utterly certain that Fred would fall into line with what he’d demanded, simply because he wished it so?

There was so much privilege in that. As a wealthy white man from a prominent family, Fred knew that he possessed much privilege as well, but he’d just discovered a huge difference between himself and his father.

Frederick Sr. was content to let his privilege continue to serve him. Demanded that it did, even.

Fred, though? Maybe he’d felt that way, too, once upon a time. But being with Amy, with a woman who followed her own passions, had shown him that he’d rather use his position to make some kind of a difference.

He understood exactly what he was doing by walking away, but he did it anyway. Where was he going?

He needed to go find Amy.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“HOW DID YOU get in here?”

Paintbrush in the air, Amy stilled, just for a moment, before continuing on. On the sawhorse beside her was an artist’s palette that she’d brought up from her shop, fully loaded with pools of oil paint. Alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow, Prussian blue and zinc white.

Dabbing the tip of her brush—a dagger, this one was called—into the crimson, she swept it across her canvas, leaving a deliberate streak behind. Her canvas in this case was the plain white wall of the single empty retail space in the plaza. Well, formerly white—it now featured the outline of a giant orange rose, the beginning of a mural she’d sketched out to work through her anger.

“It wasn’t hard.” She shrugged as she examined her palette, still facing away from Fred. She wasn’t surprised that he’d found her, and in fact, she’d wanted to be found. “I know security is up to each tenant, but all you had protecting this empty space was a door with a thumb lock. I was prepared to try to pick it with a hairpin, but it opened with one hard twist.”

One hard twist that had broken it, but that was neither here nor there. She expected him to sigh heavily, to remind her that if she wanted to stay here, she needed to back down. That she should go apologize to his parents, grovel on her knees for not being who they wanted her to be.

“All they had protecting this place,” he corrected, as she geared herself up to argue with him.

“I’m not going to...” Her voice trailed off as she processed what he’d said. Turning slowly on bare feet, she found him standing a few feet behind her, hip propped up on the dusty sawhorse she was using as a table. He was watching her calmly, hungrily, and unless she was very much mistaken, he wasn’t in the mood to argue with her. “What did you say?”

“I think you heard me.” A sexy grin curved his lips, and Amy felt something tighten in her chest, a fist clutching her heart. “It seems that I’m no longer part of Vaughan Enterprises. Which I suppose means that we’re both trespassing, but I think Phyllis will give us a pass if she happens by.”

Amy was pretty sure that security guard Phyllis read Harlequin romance novels on her phone when things were quiet, so she was pretty sure that Fred was right. With no possibility of interruption, though, it meant that there was no more wasting time—it was time to have the hard conversation.

She ran a dry tongue over cracked lips, then tried to swallow. She opened her mouth to speak, but Fred beat her to it.

“I’m sorry I insisted on dinner with my family. I should have known better.”

“How could you have known?” Setting down her paintbrush, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Have you brought home other tattoo artists that you met in Amsterdam that your parents hated?”

“No.” The corner of his mouth quirked up with amusement. “I met the best of the lot right out the gate. Didn’t need to go looking anymore.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t say things like that.” Her voice was faint. She cleared her throat, tried to speak more firmly. “It will only make things harder.”

“What things, exactly?” He moved in closer, and she could feel the heat emanating from his skin. She wanted to touch.

“You know.” She swallowed again, wishing desperately for a glass of ice water. Warm water. Anything to wet her throat with. “Things between...us.”

“Amy.” Reaching out with one hand, he cupped her cheek. She couldn’t help herself; she pressed into the warmth of his touch.

“You didn’t follow me.” Her breath hitched; her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “When I left. You stayed. That says something.”

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