Page 49 of Selling Innocence

“Do safety concerns worry either of you? It’s not unheard of for you to have problems with obsessive fans, after all.”

Vance slid his arm around me, pulling me closer, the action so casual that it made my heart speed. “Her security is a priority for me, of course. I’ve hired an amazing security company to stay with her, to make sure she doesn’t suffer just because I love her. I could never forgive myself if I let anything happen to her.”

Pam nodded, then a glint in her eyes made me sit up straighter. It reminded me of when someone stopped playing a game. Her gaze sharpened, and she leaned forward. “Do you think this will get you back to work?”

Vance went still, his fingers digging into my arm. “Excuse me?”

“It’s been five years since you released a new piece of art. People have been clamoring for more, but we’ve seen nothing from you. Some people have speculated that you had a mental breakdown, since you disappeared from the public eye around the same time. Others said it’s a drugs issue. Now that you’ve found yourself a muse, can we expect new work from you?”

My arm hurt from where he held me tightly, but a glance to the side, to that false smile and his gaze locked on Pam, told me he probably didn’t realize he was doing it.

“Who knows?” His voice came across friendly, but a chill rested beneath it. No one else seemed to notice it. Was that because I’d gotten closer to him? Because I knew him well enough to read him better now? “Maybe.”

“Any comment on why you took the hiatus?”

I flinched when he held tighter again.

Looks like it’s my turn to save him. “You know the strangest thing I’ve learned being with Vance?”

Pam shifted her attention to me, annoyance clouding her expression. She couldn’t tell me to shut up, but she sure wanted me to. “What’s that?”

“I always thought living in the spotlight would be fun. To be admired and celebrated by hordes of fans? I mean, that sounds like a dream come true, right? I’ve learned that isn’t the case, though. I’ve seen what it can do to a person. It’s a heavy burden to bear. Beyond that, I’m an artist as well, and I know the toll that takes on a person. Vance doesn’t owe anyone answers for why he’s taken a break or when he’ll come back. If people truly support him, they’ll wait until he’s ready.” My words came out soft, but from my heart.

Vance was a shitty person in a lot of ways, but I remembered seeing his work, and I knew how much it had mattered to him. If he hadn’t worked in five years, he had a damn good reason.

The pain in my arm eased, and a glance to my side showed Vance staring at me with a questioning look, as if trying to figure me out.

It made me wonder just who the real man was. When he stopped pretending, when he wasn’t the famous artist or the playboy or the celebrity, who was he?

Chapter Eleven

Vance

I couldn’t stop my brain. The whole way home from the interview, I’d stared out the window without speaking, ignoring any attempt to draw me into conversation.

The idea of working through my own thoughts while also holding a conversation struck me as impossible.

Not that many people gave a damn whether I spoke or not. Even Kenz had only tried once before falling silent and leaving me to my own misery.

And didn’t that say something about how badly I’d screwed up? Kenz, who was nice to a fault, had given up on me. Then again, what had I ever done to give people reason to support me?

I stared at the large white canvas in my room, the one that mocked me. No, not the one—there had been so many. Each time I tried and failed to turn it into something beautiful, I’d get a new one to hang, like some reminder of what I’d lost, what I couldn’t have.

Why did I do this? Why did I insist on having that blank canvas right where I saw no matter what? It was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing before I shut my eyes at night.

I took a pencil in my left hand, hating the way it shook, both from anxiety and from a lack of use.

That damn interviewer’s words echoed in my head, her questions. How could they still bother me so much? It had been five years of people asking when I’d release new work, so when would I hold a new exhibit? My managers, patrons and various people in the art world contacted me weekly to ask, and I always responded the same way.

When I find a new muse.

What a bullshit answer… I didn’t need a muse, I needed…

I shook my head, unwilling to let the idea go further. What was the point? Where would it get me? Sometimes we lost things and those things ended up gone forever. No one could go back in time, could change what had already happened. All we could do was try to live with it.

I brought the pencil up toward the virgin canvas. The first stroke against a new piece always set the tone. It was like a first kiss—special and memorable and important.

My mind went back to Kenz in the living room, to how she’d told me she’d never forgive me for taking her first kiss.

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