Page 89 of Sawyer
“He sounds like he missed the mega-bitch gene from his parents, unlike your mother.”
Her face softened. “Oh, he’s got an ego, but he’s also got a soul. You can’t paint like he does and be dead inside. That’s why he and my mother didn’t work.” Phoebe took back the pages of the article Madison had set aside. “To start this new year off right, I’m going to rip up this article on how great my mother is and burn it until it’s nothing but ashes, which I’ll flush down my toilet afterward. Because after this, we are so done. I’m calling her today and telling her that I’m not running the Paris branch, which means I need to close it down or she’ll take all my dad’s drawings, which are mine.”
Madison leaned forward as her inner outrage meter rose. “Do you want help taking them down?”
“I can manage but thank you.” She swallowed thickly and ran a hand through her tangled mass of hair. “I hate that we ended up here, even though I knew it could happen. This was my last chance at a relationship with my mom. It’s the only reason I agreed to do the branch.”
Her mother had set her up? Did she know?
“I’ll have to start all over again,” she said in a hoarse voice. “Maybe ask my dad for some help networking, although I’ve been trying to do this on my own. I used my own money for start-up costs and to pay the lease, despite it being in my mother’s name, which she insisted on. I know it’s stupid since I come from a privileged background, but I want people to see me as a professional and a damn good one. Not some slacker trust-fund baby who skates on their parents’ fame.”
“Commendable.”
“Dammit, I hate that she’s won.” She clenched her fist and knocked it against her thigh. “I don’t care if that makes me a bad person.”
Her mother had gotten in the way of her success, but Madison wasn’t sure she should point that out. God, thewhole mother thing could screw you up like nothing else. She didn’t think of her mother much anymore except to thank God every day she’d left. Because if she hadn’t, Madison would have had to cook and clean and wrangle two losers instead of one. “I like your style on the burn thing. Cathartic. You and Sawyer have that whole cutting ties off with family thing going on too.”
“Yeah, we do.”
God, was that a sniff? Madison didn’t like feeling weird about Phoebe looking so sad and defeated. When had she become such a softy? “Look, here’s how I see it. You have a great guy who loves you.”
“I love him too,” Phoebe said, her voice breaking.
Yeah, that was definitely a sniff. Madison shoved a tissue box her way. “Great. So burn pics of your mother and flush those ashes down into the Paris sewer. Scream into a pillow with your historic drama turned up if you have to. Maybe put some cucumber slices on your red eyes so you won’t look so psycho. Brush your hair. You know… Then figure out a way to make up with him and get over this stuff. Don’t let your mom win here. Because Doc is the grand prize.”
God, listen to her go on! The guys in the kitchen would laugh themselves silly hearing her giving love advice.
“I appreciate you coming over and breaking into my apartment.” Phoebe picked up a gold letter opener on the coffee table next to a stack of mail and thrust it out. “Just don’t do it again.”
Madison gave a full belly laugh. “I love that you think you could take me, Phoebe. Now, I’m so outta here.”
Phoebe didn’t move. “I assume you can find your way out.”
“Always.”
With that, she turned around and headed out with a smile.
Damn, but she was good at laying down the law.
Now she needed to figure out how to do that with Kyle,and what tack she wanted to take so she wouldn’t be the one sniffling on the couch and watching her version of the whole britches and bitches program—Fast and Furiousmovies—crying over some guy.
Except he wasn’t just any guy, and she knew it.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Sawyer stared at the blank canvas and couldn’t see anything in his mind.
No colors.
Nothing.
Inside his chest was a dead zone—like in the aftermath of Chernobyl or something where nothing would ever grow again. The canvas looked like a shape from his old geometry book now, not the gateway to a magical scene from his imaginary world.
He’d come back to hisatelierafter composing a long text to Phoebe beside the Seine, determined to paint. Maybe Axel was right. He needed to paint the little boy he’d been, the one who understood abandonment. Maybe the act would exorcise his pain.
The very thought had leached him of his last energy, though. Even squeezing different colors of paint onto his palette had been a chore. Picking up a paintbrush? One of the bravest acts he’d ever done.
