Page 70 of Undeniable

Fine,fuck, I was jealous, but like hell was I admitting that to her. Her smugness was already too much for me to handle.

“Why? Do you want me to be jealous?” Her expression dropped at my obvious attempt to turn the question back on her. But I didn’t miss the glint in her eye or the slight uptick at the corner of her mouth.

“You wouldn’t have a reason to be jealous anyway. He’s nice, but I’m not interested.”

“That’s what your mom said, too.” I could feel her eye roll in my bones.

“She,” Ivy began, swirling brush after brush in the water and carefully dabbing them dry on the new paper towel, “is nosy. Did she send you over here?”

“I was coming over here either way, but yeah, she wanted me to break up whatever was happening.”

“My mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” she muttered under her breath and then quickly added. “Unless you’re going to get a face painting, I need my chair back.”

I hadn’t planned to get my face painted when I sat down, but after glancing over the colorful options on her board, an idea popped into my head. One that was bound to produce a reaction that I was eager to see.

“A flower,” was all I said, and she froze.

Eyes pinned to the cup in front of her and her array of brushes and paints, she didn’t look up when she asked, “What kind of flower?”

I swallowed and watched her face closely as I said, “An aster. Preferably a blue one.”

The quick rise and fall of her chest stopped. Her right hand gripped a medium-sized brush and held it so firmly her knuckles turned white. Had I not been so close or watching so intently, I would’ve missed the way her breath stuttered when she finally inhaled once again. I wouldn’t have noticed the way her lashes fluttered with my words. Like they were a physical thing ghosting across her face.

“Where?” she asked, turning to me with her stone-faced mask back in place. Her grip on the brush hadn’t eased, though, and her leg was bouncing with a nervousness she didn’t dare let show anywhere else.

“Artist’s choice.”

She didn’t look up until all of the paint she intended to use was prepared in front of her. Then she finally turned and quickly appraised my face. I straightened as she turned back to her paints and chose a deeper blue that she brushed over the skin under my eye.

I nearly shook when her fingers brushed along my jawline and tilted my head in the direction she needed while the other hand held the brush and applied the paint.

She was quick and efficient, the entire process taking no more than five minutes. But the entire time, I watched her work. She carefully chose each color, picking up new brushes and cleaning old ones as she went. Her lower lip was captured between her teeth almost the entire time, but especially when she was deep in concentration. Her eyes narrowed every so often, and then she would lean back to look at the entire thing.

As she worked, I counted the freckles across her nose and over her cheeks. They continued up her forehead and scrunched every time she furrowed her brow. At one point, she scooted closer to do what I assumed were little details along the petals. She was so lost in her work she didn’t realize her hand was gripping my thigh until she leaned back and quickly removed it.

“Done,” she clipped and threw the brushes onto the table.

“Can I see it?” I asked when she didn’t move to hand me the mirror. When I spoke, I could hear the effect she’d had on me. Like I’d swallowed gravel, our proximity made it hard to speak or think.

She sighed. “Yes, but I’m not changing anything.” She handed me the mirror like it was a nuisance to her.

I held it to my face, and I hadn’t known what to expect, but what she’d painted was better than I imagined.

There were several petals framing my eye, and the darkest, deepest sapphire blue was concentrated at the center over my eyelid. As the color moved outward over the petals, it slowly disappeared until the ends were only a faint, light blue.

The detail was spectacular and done so well that it looked like the flower had actually been placed on my face.

It was a near-perfect replica of her necklace.

“Will you dance with me?”

My question startled her enough that she dropped the cup of water, but her assistant was quick to retrieve it.

“I should really stay here. I’m sure there will be—”

“Don’t worry about it,” her assistant interrupted, and Ivy looked murderous. “I can handle things here while you go have fun.”

I liked her. She smiled innocently and like she had no idea that Ivy wanted to throttle her. With Ivy’s excuse completely null, she let out a long breath and leveled me with an unsure look.

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