Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“I believe you were going to tell me.” Then he had to ask, “Why do you think he did it?”
She dropped her head into her hands for a moment before looking at him again. “I was twenty-two, and my art wasn’t making huge waves, but I was getting some recognition. Then I met Hugo. I thought he was wonderful.” She sniffled, and he heard the regret in her tone. “He was a fairly important artist then, and he felt like my mentor, praising my art, telling me how big I was going to be. I thought he loved me, that he meant every word. Maybe he did. We were together five years, and I was gaining greater fame as the artist Lynx.”
He gaped, couldn’t help it. “You’re Lynx? Not Hugo Lewis?” She’d said Hugo had stolen her art. But what he’d actually stolen was her name?
“Yes. I was Lynx.” Her jaw tensed, her teeth grinding with her feelings about Hugo Lewis. “He acted as my manager. I let him take care of everything so I could paint. Adrian didn’t like it—” She gasped. “Oh, I didn’t tell you that Adrian’s been my best friend since we were sixteen.”
“You are British.” Clay allowed himself a chuckle. At least he’d been right about something. But there was so much they had to learn about each other. He would love every new discovery.
“Yes. Both of us came here five years ago, after Hugo.” She’d obviously wanted to start her life over. “I practiced sounding like any other street artist in San Francisco. Very American,” she said with a smile. “Anyway, Adrian never said what she truly thought of Hugo when I was with him. If she had, I probably wouldn’t have listened. Lynx began earning big. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Hugo told the press that he was Lynx.”
“That ass,” he said on a hiss.
“Believe me, I’ve called him worse.” Her eyes were dark with all the things she’d called him. “But I couldn’t say anything. No one would’ve believed me. They all thought I was just a hanger-on of the great Hugo Lewis.” She closed her eyes and hugged herself the way Clay wanted to hug her.
Her pain over what Lewis had done raked through him like hot coals. He burned with anger, with the need to hold her, to make everything better. But that’s what he’d always done—tried to make everything better. What she needed right now was for him to listen.
“Hugo broke my heart,” she said on a whisper of breath. “I didn’t know how to fight him. I just wanted to run away. Adrian suggested we should get away from the Hugo Lewis show and visit her aunt in San Francisco. Then we decided to stay.” She sighed. “Maybe I should’ve left London long before that. Gotten away from my parents.”
“You said your parents didn’t approve of your art.” They’d talked about that when he’d told her about Gareth.
She sucked in a breath, held it a moment. “I didn’t tell you any of this either.”
They both had so much they hadn’t said. “Tell me now.”
“It wasn’t just my art. They didn’t approve of me. They always told me I was an accident, that they hadn’t meant to have me. They acted like I was the luckiest girl in the world that they’d decided to keep me.” She raised her hands and gave a half-hearted, “Woo-hoo.” Her pain lanced through him. “You see, they were both famous artists when I came along. They expected me to do exactly what they told me to. But I just couldn’t.” She clamped her teeth and balled her fists. “I was arrested for tagging when I was sixteen, and they let me stew in custody for days. When their solicitor finally got me released, they told me I could never paint another wall.” She closed her eyes as if the thought of never creating street art again killed her. “I couldn’t stand it. I said no way, that I had to paint what I had to paint. Isn’t that how artistic talent works?”
Christ. How awful to hear that your parents actually considered getting rid of you. His parents might have lived in a world where only they mattered to each other, but they’d at least paid for nannies to take care of them. But Saskia’s parents had told her they’d never wanted her at all.
He stroked her knuckles with his thumb, tried to take her pain inside his own body so she wouldn’t have to feel it anymore.
“When I refused to stop, they said I was an ungrateful wretch who wanted to deface property instead of making something of the talent they had given me, like they owned it. They told me that if I continued on my course, I couldn’t live with them. I refused to beg. So I left.”