Page 47 of Canvas of Lies
“Oh?”
“I got in touch with Evelyn, the journalist I mentioned. We were roommates in college. She put in a call to my father’s secretary and texted me back just after five to say he agreed to an interview at the house. I’m sure he looked her up and saw that she’s young and gorgeous, which probably helped convince him.”
I flinched a little. “I hope you warned her about him.”
“Oh, I did,” Kat said, grinning. “She carries pepper spray and has a black belt in some martial art or another, so she wasn’t overly concerned.”
“How much did you tell her?”
“Shockingly little. She’d already heard about the painting and the exhibit, so she was eager to have an in. I told her it was okay to mention we were roommates, but not that I’d contacted her. I think she’s used to anonymous tip-offs so she had no problem with that.”
I didn’t like Kat being connected to this in any way, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. “Good. That’s good.”
“The interview is set for tomorrow afternoon and Evelyn will be sure to get footage of the painting, wherever it’s hanging. I said I was curious about where it was, because I didn’t remember it. I’m sure she realizes there’s more to the story, but she didn’t pry. She’s hoping the piece will air tomorrow night.”
“You truly are a goddess,” I said, impressed.
This version of Kat, alight with excitement and glowing with success, was a far cry from how I’d left her that morning. It also went a long way to soothe the guilt I’d been carrying around with me all day.
She sat back and raised her soda in a toast. “One step closer, at least.”
Cozying up with her in the evenings was becoming a habit I knew would be hard to break, though I sincerely hoped there’d be no need to do so. This was the closest thing to family that I’d experienced in a long time, and I knew it was the same for Kat. When we finished dinner, I took the plates to the sink and held out my hand to her.
“I want to take you to bed,” I said softly. That now-familiar sizzle coursed through me as soon as she laid her hand in mine.
“By this time tomorrow, we should have more brainstorming to work through, which will leave less time for sex,” she teased.
My lips nuzzled her throat. “There’s always time for sex.”
Peeling the flannel pajamas from her body was just as enjoyable as the silk robe would’ve been, I decided later. More so, maybe, because these particular pajamas were so quintessentiallyKat: soft, warm, and pink.
Revealing the equally soft skin underneath as I unbuttoned the top was like opening a Christmas gift designed especially for me. I felt like I was making up for lost time, so I gloried in soaking up every opportunity to spend time with her, both in bed and out of it.
Late in the night, when she was curled against me, sated and sleepy, a surge of emotion caught in my throat. I loved her—Christ, how I loved her—but I was so damn terrified of putting her in danger that it threatened to choke me.
Smoothing a hand over her hair, I wondered what the hell I’d gotten us into and how I could navigate us safely back out of it again. When I finally dozed off, my dreams were unsettled, a flashing amalgam of memory and nightmare where we huddled under her father’s desk during a raging storm, but we were no longer children. Kat sobbed soundlessly in my arms as thunder shook the house and our fathers screamed at one another in a mix of English and French.
Long before her alarm clock could startle me into another heart attack, I jerked awake, yanked from the dream like someone had pulled an invisible thread. Kat murmured sleepily, unaware of my rioting pulse, so I eased my way out of bed and tucked the blanket around her.
In the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of water and chugged it down, my unseeing gaze falling to the countertop. As I set the glass aside, my elbow knocked over Kat’s purse, spilling bits and bobs of random junk, accompanied by a folded sheet of paper that fluttered open at my side.
“What the fuck?” I whispered into the silent kitchen.
It was a drawing of the Willoughby estate, perfectly to scale in a way that only Kat could manage from memory alone. I leaned down to read the notes in the light of the street lamp outside and a fresh string of curses fell from my lips.
Memories pounded inside my skull of Kat’s sudden whims throughout our youth—sometimes brilliant, always impulsive. Late-night excursions into the woods to see if there were really ghosts where the old carriage house had burned down decades ago, spy-style missions into the kitchen to sneak forbidden snacks, challenging a middle school bully to a battle of wits that resulted in Kat getting a fat lip and me having to threaten the kid within an inch of his life.
I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t put her own safety at risk in order to achieve our goal, and that was unfathomably terrifying.
“Nico?”
At the soft sound of her voice, I squeezed my eyes shut to control the urge to rage at her, shake sense into her, demand her solemn vow not to go anywhere near her father without me at her back.
“What is this?” I asked instead, my voice as tight as the muscles I kept clenched in restraint.
Her warmth teased my senses as she came to stand beside me, but even my panic couldn’t resist the pull of her. It loosened its grip on my heart when she threaded her arm around mine and tipped her head against my shoulder.
“It was just an idea, in case we don’t come up with anything else. I wasn’t going to do it without talking to you, I swear.”
