Page 43 of Partnering with the Artist

Mademe? My good lass. Very few people canmakeme do anything anymore.

Merciless, she continues, “And…then I ignored it. Because I thought you were joking again, but you weren’t joking this time, were you?”

“You know something?” I say, hoarse. “You are a very bad listener.”

She winces, deeply agonized. “I know… I’m…sorry.”

Fighting for air, I push myself up to look at her downcast eyes. “I never said I minded.”

She glances toward me. Still, beautiful, gentle. She whispers, “You didn’t give me a chance to reply, to say whether or notIminded.”

“Minded what?” This woman has got to assume I am operating with approximately two percent of my usual max brain capacity.

Heat turns her cheeks rosy. “If you kissed me.”

And we’re down to zero percent.

Lovely.

My head shakes. “Oh. Um.” NowI’mum-ing? While she’s been somewhat eloquent this afternoon? “I don’t know how to do that.”

“Oh.” Her lashes flit. “Um. Right.”

The ums.

They’re contagious.

The rosiness in her cheeks spreads, blistering. “N-never mind then. I don’t know why I brought it up.”

“Probably because I’m pretty. My family has marvelous genetics. Lukas and Viktor? Those tanks haveeight packs. That’s a gene thing. I looked it up because, honestly, what the—” I cuss. And I’m rambling. And I should shut up, right now.

“I don’t think I’m that shallow.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know.”

Silence.

Frickensilence.

Silence and water for air. And red cheeks. And heat boiling in my chest.

“Very good then,” I croak. “I’ll just…” Go stare at the collection of your portraits, and ram my head into the wall. Repeatedly.

Unsteady, I find my feet and banish myself from Maelin’s studio. Despite my best intentions, I don’t give myself brain damage, though. I merely collapse—face first—in my bed, willing the abandon of sleep to take me.

Graciously, it does.

Chapter 16

?

Feeling like a klutz.

Maelin

He left his jacket crumpled in a heap on the floor. His tablet lays neglected on the bed behind me. I sit at my new sewing machine, grounding myself in the whir of its motor as I struggle to comprehend what just happened.

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