Page 53 of Hard Limits

Finally, Carissa gave in. “What are you saying to her?”

“I’m just complimenting her menu choices. The Coquilles Saint-Jacques looks delicious.”

Carissa had a face like thunder for the rest of the meal. Meera bested her in every verbal jousting match, and when she gave his bitch of a wife a faux hug at the end and said, “Merci, Clarissa, dinner was wonderful,” he could have kissed her.

No, really.

Brax was in a colossal amount of trouble.

CHAPTER 21

THE ASSISTANT

I hadn’t expected Mr. Vale to be quite so hands-on with the renovations, but there he was, sitting on the floor in a pair of faded jeans, repainting a baseboard. I put down the bag I was holding and took a moment to study him. He looked younger in casual clothes. The suit added five years.

“Did you get them?” he asked.

“I got them.”

Several pieces of art had been ruined by the flood, erotic poses drawn in black ink. The artist lived in New York, and she’d spent the past four days recreating what had been lost. I’d just travelled across the city to collect them. The carpet installers were due at two p.m., and then we’d need to put the furniture back. Upstairs, the kitchen was back in action, the refrigerators had been restocked, and the laundry was being sent to a service until the new washers and dryers arrived. The faulty dryer was back with the manufacturer for investigation.

“What do you think?” Mr. Vale asked. “Did you look?”

I’d looked. The drawings were not safe for work, unless you happened to work in a sex club. A woman being fucked from behind while a man wrapped his hand around her throat, a naked woman cuffed to a cross, a man wearing a collar and leash… I’d always been taught that sex was shameful, but now I knew differently. Everyone I met at Nyx was happy to be there. There was no shame in pleasure among consenting adults.

“I think they’re beautiful.”

The artist, a sweet sixty-something lady named Bettina who’d converted one room of her apartment into a studio, had managed to capture emotions on paper. Passion, lust, vulnerability. I knew that because, for the first time in my life, I was starting to feel those things too.

But for the wrong man.

An unattainable man.

He stood, stretched, and took the package from me, handling it with the care it deserved. The T-shirt he wore today was tight, showing off muscles normally hidden beneath a dark jacket. I knew he went to the gym every morning before work, and all that exercise had certainly paid off. The man had abs. I’d dreamed about him these past few nights, while I lay in a luxurious room upstairs and he headed home to his wife. Did they share a bed? He hadn’t said either way, but I couldn’t see it. Watching them together at dinner on Wednesday evening, it had been clear they detested each other. And now that I’d met Carissa, it was equally clear that money couldn’t buy class. Their marriage showed that even with the freedom to pick your own suitor, the process could sometimes go very, very wrong.

Mr. Vale looked at the drawings one by one and nodded. “They’re just as good as the originals.”

“Do you have much more to do here?”

“Fifteen more minutes on the painting, and then I’ll hang these. Don’t worry; I’ll be finished before the carpet installers arrive.”

“How did you become the king of DIY? Did they run classes at Georgetown?”

“No, but I spent my final two years there renovating an old house.”

“As a job?”

“Not exactly. As long as we helped out, the owner gave us a good deal on the rent. I didn’t have much cash in those days.”

“Really? I always assumed you came from money.”

“I did.” He gave a rueful smile. “But things were difficult with my family.”

Just for a second, I saw it. The trauma he tried to hide. Had he turned his back on his father the same way I had? He still cared for his mother; all the gifts, the calls, the visits told me that much. In so many ways, Mr. Vale felt like a kindred spirit, and I wished I could tell him everything, ask his advice, but I had to maintain a respectable distance between us. Plus I didn’t want to burden him. He had enough on his mind with Carissa.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all in the past.”

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