Chapter 13

13

F or nearly three weeks, I've felt like the biggest fraud on the planet. I've vacillated between I can do this, and these things can take time after such a long hiatus to I'm never going to be able to paint again and I need to figure something else out for my life. It's been a rollercoaster of emotions mixed with a lot of tears and cursing. The rollercoaster I have going at home with Owen isn't helping either.

I had fun with him last weekend.

I don't know what spawned the change, but after the party at his grandparents' compound, he's been lighter. Smiling more. On Sunday, we watched his friend Mason Reyes play and beat Minnesota. Jack came over along with a few of his other friends, including Katy, Bennett, and baby Willow. I'm not a huge football fan, and I didn't want to overstep by inviting myself to watch with everyone—I am still the nanny—but he insisted that if I wanted to, I was welcome.

It was a drastic departure from the avoidance we had going before that.

I'm trying. I'm trying so hard. But... I'm really starting to like him. More than I did before.

But this week I've done everything I could to fully get myself back in line, including not liking my boss. I drop off Rory at school and immediately come here instead of going back home to the studio in the basement. Clay, for some reason, is coming back to me faster and easier than painting. Maybe because clay is different for me than painting is. Clay is sort of mindless, whereas painting is all emotion.

I've started five different canvases that have all ended up in the dumpster Billy has out back. I finally broke down and called my mother yesterday in a fit of tears, and she took me to lunch and told me that forcing it won't get me where I want to be and that I have to feel inspired first.

Tonight, I'm going out with Katy, Keegan, Kenna, who is Keegan's twin, Wren, and their friend Tinsley Monroe, whom I have yet to meet. I'm looking forward to a girls' night out. But first, I need to fucking do this shit already.

I sigh and roll my neck, staring at the most daunting of all things an artist can face. A blank canvas. Some see endless possibilities and do not panic when faced with it, and that's what I'm trying to channel.

"You're overthinking this," Billy comments, sipping his coffee and eyeing me over the rim of his mug. "I've watched you in here for weeks now, and I've given you space since every artist has their own process, but you're too in your head with this."

I huff out a breath and nod as I keep my back to him and stare balefully at my canvas. "I know."

"No, honey, you don't. That's the problem. I don't know what happened to you that led you here or to this point, but shut that bitch down and lock her ass in a closet and remember what you love about painting."

I glance over my shoulder at him, trying to swallow the emotion threatening to rise from within. "I let him steal it from me. I allowed him to suck the joy out of it, and with that, it turned into something I was afraid of. His opinion held too much power. He knew it, and he used it against me."

Billy blinks at me, not understanding what I'm saying, but it's true. I think that's what my issue is. In the months leading up to that night with Claude, he had criticized everything I created. And not in a constructive way, but in a negative, terrorizing way. Painting became anxiety-provoking instead of pleasurable, and when he destroyed my work, it was the final nail in my coffin.

But I don't want that to be my story, and I don't want Claude to own that piece of me because, before all of that, I fucking loved painting. It was my life's blood. I could spend hours and hours doing it without a break. I'd sweat, bleed, cry, and work myself past the point of exhaustion, but I'd still come out smiling.

Claude stole that smile and turned my work against me. It became poison, and I'm desperate to turn it back into magic.

I turn back to my canvas. Close my eyes. Take a deep, cleansing breath. Open my eyes. And step forward.

I feel Billy come in behind me, and then suddenly something large and heavy is over my ears. I jump and spin around, my hands shooting up to my ears. "What are these?"

He rolls his eyes. "They're called headphones, sweetie. Surely, you've heard of them."

I roll my eyes back at him. "Yes. Thanks for that. What are they doing on my ears?"

"They're mine and I'm letting you borrow them. Put on some music and block everything else out. Get out of your fucking head, because the only opinion that matters in this world is yours. You're an artist, Estlin. Now make some fucking art."

He drops a kiss on my cheek and then saunters off, leaving me here with his headphones. I never listened to music while I was working before, but maybe Billy is right. Maybe some music is just the thing to get everything else out of my head.

I go to my phone and sync up his headphones, and then I start blasting the play mix I listen to when I work out. It's a lot of loud, high-energy beats without a lot of words, and immediately I start bopping my head back and forth.

I have my palette all ready filled with paints, and I lift my brush and dab it in the red before I add a touch of white to it and blend them on the bottom of the palette until it makes a stunning pale rose. Energy flows through me, and that giddy high I felt when I first stepped into this studio comes swarming through me like a pack of bees.

I roll my shoulders, crack my neck, and then bring my brush up to my canvas. And for the next five hours until I have to pick up Rory at school, I make some fucking art.

I've been a ball of energy all afternoon. I picked up Rory from school, and we went for a hike around the grounds of the house, and then we had dinner together because Owen got stuck in the OR with a patient. Now Rory is sitting on my bed, helping me pick out an outfit for tonight. I have no idea what to wear. I haven't been out with a group of women in forever, and the last time I did, I was in Paris, and many of those women were more Claude's friends than mine.

"I like the red dress," Rory tells me as she bounces her butt up and down on the end of my mattress.

"You don't feel like it's too much?" And too tight. Yeesh. I can hardly breathe. I step out of the closet, standing before the full-length mirror on the back of the door, twisting this way and that.

"What's too much?" she asks, and it's a valid question even if she means it in her childlike way and not in an existential one.

The dress is short and tight and shows a decent amount of cleavage with the plunging square neckline.

"This dress is too much." My old art professor and the mother of the children I nannied for gave it to me, swearing she'd never be able to wear it again. But she was built much differently than I am, and this dress shows that. "It's more of a clubbing dress than a going out for drinks dress."

Rory shrugs. She has no idea what I'm talking about. My hair and makeup are done, except for eyeshadow and lipstick, since I wanted to pick the outfit first.

"How about jeans and a cute top?"

"That's what Katy usually wears when she comes over."

"Perfect. Thank you."

Just as I start to tug my dress up and over my head, there's a knock on my door followed by the sound of it opening.

"Rory? Estlin?"

"Ah. Hold on." Blindly, I rush toward the closet, only to bump into the doorframe. Ouch . "Sorry. I was just getting changed." I tug and pull, but the dress is stuck somehow, and I can't get it. My arms are over my head, bound and tangled in the red fabric, while the rest of the dress is cinched around my upper body and face.

"Are you—oh."

I can feel my face turning the same shade as the dress I'm wrapped in because Owen is no doubt getting a good look at me in my strapless bra and thong with this thing suffocating me.

"Sorry! I didn't realize you were changing." I hear a bang and an "Ow" and a muttered curse under his breath like he too just walked into a wall or a doorframe. "I'm… yeah. Bye."

"Owen, don't go!"

"What?" he chokes. "No. I have to go. "

"Please, wait."

"Estlin, are you kidding me right now?" He sounds like he's in pain. "You're?—"

"I know what I am!" I shriek desperately. "But I'm stuck." I wiggle and fight, and somehow, I think that makes it worse.

He groans. "Can you stop moving like that? Rory is right there, and I…"

"You're what?"

He comes in behind me, his hands on my hips to stop my movement, only that's not all he does. He presses himself against me, so I feel… oh . Like when we played pool last weekend, he's hard. For me. And I shouldn't care or like it because I feel utterly ridiculous right now like this, and he's my boss, and we're on a good streak with each other.

But…

I lean back into him, and his grip on me turns bruising. "Don't do that, Estlin. Stay perfectly still for me, and then both of our problems will go away."

"Okay," I whisper, my heart racing in my chest and my teeth sawing into my bottom lip. "I won't move."

"Good girl." He starts to tug and pull on the dress. "What the hell is this thing made out of, and how are you so stuck in it?"

"I don't know," I wail, starting to feel some panic from it. "I knew it didn't fit me well. I knew it was too small. But I want to look hot tonight when I go out with your people because I haven't been out with women my age in a hundred years, and I…" Why am I crying? What is wrong with me?

"Shh," he hushes, his hand running up and down my spine. "It's okay. I've got you."

I sniffle, feeling so foolish for getting emotional about this.

"I'm going to give it a good, hard tug, and let's see how we do. When I do that, I want you to pull against me."

"Got it. "

"One, two?—"

"Just do it already!"

"I hate it when women say that to me."

I burst out laughing, and it instantly dries my tears, which is probably why he said it, but still, Owen made a joke. It's freaking adorable.

"There." He yanks with all his might, and I pull against him, and we're both struggling and twisting and moving and grunting. Except I trip over his feet, bang into the doorframe behind me again, and tumble forward. "Shit," he hisses, trying to catch me, but his hands are still over my head, and we both slam into the wall of my closet, my body pressed right up against his now.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

"I have no way to answer that."

I'm about to ask what that means, but then I register that his hot breath is fanning straight into my cleavage. Oh hell.

"Your chest is blushing, sweet thing."

I whimper and shudder as his hands meet my ribs. Thankfully, he pushes me back instead of pulling me closer because I'm not sure I have the same level of self-control right now that he does.

"Rory?!" he calls out, and my eyes pinch shut. Shit. Rory. God, what's wrong with me?

"Yeah?"

"Estlin is stuck in this dress, and I have to cut her out of it. Can you go find your safety scissors and bring them to me? Be careful carrying them. Keep the metal part in your fist as you walk."

"I know, I know. Okay."

"I'm sorry," I murmur, feeling embarrassed and foolish all over again. "I didn't mean?—"

"I know. Being attracted to your nanny sucks, and it's not helping anything. "

I smile a stupid, girlish smile because he can't see it. "Being attracted to your boss isn't so great either."

A moment later, Rory returns. "Don't move now," Owen warns. "I mean it. I don't want to cut you, but this dress has seen its last day."

I snicker. "I won't move."

The sawing and tearing sound of scissors on fabric fills the room, and I hold dutifully still as Owen cuts me out of the dress, freeing me.

I take a relieved breath and sigh. "Oh my God, thank you. I thought I was going to be stuck in that thing forever."

Owen chucks the tattered fabric to the floor. "You're welcome. It was truly a bit too much my pleasure."

He winks and walks out, giving me my privacy and taking Rory with him. I snatch a one-shoulder sweater and a pair of jeans, slather red lipstick on, and decide I'm good to go. I run down the stairs and say good night to Owen and Rory.

Owen's eyes are all over me, a darkness to them as he takes in what I'm wearing along with my red lips. He frowns, his gaze hardening, and pulls out his phone, essentially dismissing me. As I climb in my car and drive toward the bar to meet up with the women, I tell myself it's for the best. That our boundaries are essential, and we've already strayed, coloring outside the lines more than once or twice.

Still, as I meet the women who are all single except for Katy, listen as they scour the bar for hot, eligible men who don't hold my attention the way my boss does, I can't help but wish I were home with him. And that is a dangerous thing to wish for.