Page 80 of Loss and Damages
“I can’t buy you. I can’t buy your love, and I want that most of all.”
She holds up her hands, the wounds the china cut into her delicate skin still healing. “They hurt me, Dominic. How do you fix that? How much money will fix that?”
I release her and step back, the coffee churning in my stomach. “I should never have driven out here yesterday. I gavein and exposed you to more danger. I’ll put eyes on you until this is over.”
“My family—”
“Will be protected. I can promise that because as you said, money can buy anything. Be well, Jemma. I love you more than I’ll ever be able to show you.”
I walk out her door before I fall to my knees and beg her to reconsider. She was hurt because of me and who I am. Leo spent a year with her, more, and not one thing threatened her life, her well-being, or that of her family’s. She’s been a part of my life for barely a month and the inexcusable happened. I’ll never be able to make that up to her.
I don’t have the strength left enough to try.
I take the long way around, doubling back and then doubling back again before heading to my penthouse. I shower and swallow a pain pill with more coffee. Leo’s paintings are still at the office, and I arrange to have them sent to my mother’s.
I haven’t opened the crate.
I haven’t allowed myself to think about Leo’s hobby. Not hobby, passion. He had a passion he didn’t tell anyone about, and he fed that passion every day keeping company with another artist, talking about things I would have considered frivolous when Jemma thought them deep and meaningful. She was raised to appreciate art, creativity, to find joy in flowers and bees and rainbows, and everything else I don’t have time for. Leo saw that, was drawn to it, and as the months went on, they fed into each other.
I never stopped to consider how much she’s been missing him. I don’t want to think it, don’t want to think that if giventime their friendship could have grown into more. The more I discover about Leo through Jemma, the more I know it would have happened, even if she says otherwise. I don’t know what Leo was waiting for, but only a man without a pulse could deny Jemma indefinitely.
Missed calls, voicemails, and texts clog my phone, reporters wanting to know what I’m planning to do with the property I’ve been buying in Oakdale Square. They want to know when the 1100 block evictions will start. They want to know how I’m coping with Leo’s death. For now, I’m lucky they don’t mention Jemma. I was blind believing that because she lived in Hollow Lake it would keep her off their radars. That wouldn’t have stopped them, and it didn’t. It won’t be long before the photographer I caught at the park last night sells his photos. I should have chased him down and paid him off, but all I could think about was getting Jemma home.
I need more manpower. I have Duncan digging into who broke into Jemma’s gallery when he should be doing other things like watching out for asshole photographers who want to earn a buck off my private life. I order him to bring the car around and tell him I need to visit my mother. Paparazzi will be crowding the front of the penthouse’s building, and me visiting her when our nonexistent relationship has been hot gossip for years will give them something else to talk about.
I sit in the back of the car and delete voicemails and scroll through texts, but there isn’t one from Jemma. I knew there wouldn’t be but I still hoped.Have a nice day. I miss you already. I scoff. Those are things couples say to each other and we aren’t a couple. We aren’t...anything. Not even friends.
I shove my phone into my pocket.
The elevator lets me out into the quiet foyer,Nonnaand the rest of the family leaving my mother be. My father’s at the office, his one of the many texts and voicemails asking where the fuckI am and why I’m not at my desk. He can wonder all he likes. He wants me working on the homeless shelter deal, but that can wait. I have more important things to do.
“What is this?” my mother asks, clicking to me in her heels, gesturing angrily to the crate. She’s ready to go out wearing a day dress, a pair of sunglasses clutched in a fist. Brunch with friends, perhaps, or a not-so-secret tryst with her lover. She’s not angry about the ugly crate sitting in her elegant foyer. She’s angry I’m in her penthouse, reminding her of my father.
“Something I thought you’d like to see,” I say mildly, not acknowledging her fury.
“The day I want something from you is the day hell freezes over.”
“It’s okay, Mama. It’s not from me. You could say the crate came from Jemma, but no matter who it came from, I think you’ll treasure what’s inside.”
“Jemma. What does she have to do with this?”
“More than you think.”
I ask the housekeeper if she knows where there’s a crowbar, and God bless her, she’s able to find one.
Long, thick nails hold the particle boards together, and they screech as I tear them out. I open the crate revealing hundreds of white foam peanuts and a stack of canvases, bubble wrap protecting each one. Whomever Jemma paid to pack Leo’s paintings did a phenomenal job, and I quickly count ten. She must have had a few in the back of her gallery waiting to be hung and sold.
I slide the top canvas out of the plastic sleeve, my mother fuming behind me, uncovering a lakescape at sundown, ducks floating on the peaceful surface, cattails hugging the shore. It’s the view from Jemma’s gallery porch, though I doubt my mother will ever make that connection.
“Here, Mama. This is why Leo was always in Hollow Lake. Jemma paints china and sells it in her shop. Leo found her online and asked if she sold on commission. She said she did, and he started selling his paintings in her gallery. She had a few she hadn’t sold, and when I went to see her, she said she would give them to me.”
My words are lost as her eyes skim the painting, absorbing every brushstroke, every shade of vibrant color. Leo infused his heart and soul into his work, and it captivates her. She kneels and reaches out to touch, her fingers trembling. “Leo painted this?”
“Yes. Jemma said he didn’t sign his name, preferring to sell based on his talent, but he used his initials.”
Tears fill her eyes. “And there are more?”
“Nine others. She gave me all she had left.” I leave out the one hanging in Jemma’s living room. My mother would not rest until it was in her possession.
