For 100 Nights (100 2)

“Yes. He has.” I swallow, glancing away from her. As much as I hope she’ll like my art enough to offer for one of my paintings, I can’t stand here and pretend I’m better than I truly am. “Some of my earlier work was on display at Dominion a few months ago. Nick didn’t think I was a good fit for his gallery.”

“Is that right?” There’s no masking her curiosity. She doesn’t even pretend that she’s anything but avidly intrigued. “What, precisely, did he say about your work?”

“That it was self-conscious.” There was a time when I might have recited Nick’s criticism with embarrassment, even shame. But the sting is gone as I recount his words now. “He said my art was dishonest, fearful. He said

I wasn’t letting the truth take shape on the canvas, that I was hiding from it.”

Kathryn exhales a slow, thoughtful sigh. “Harsh judgment. And so classically him.”

“He was right,” I admit. “He made me better by telling me that. He’s made me a braver artist, a better one.”

She considers me for a moment, something cryptic flickering in her weary eyes. Something that looks very much like sorrow, like unbearable regret. “Dominic has unerring instincts when it comes to art,” she murmurs quietly. “The only thing more extraordinary than his eye was the depth of his own gift.”

“His—wait. Are you saying,” I stammer, mentally tripping over what I just heard. “Are you saying Nick is an artist too?”

“Was,” she replies. “One of the most talented painters I’ve ever seen. His work was breathtaking, raw and unrestrained. Heartbreakingly sensitive. It was astonishing.”

I realize I’m gaping at her, but I can’t help it. Nick, a painter? I’m not surprised to hear that he possesses this other talent among all of the other things he seems to have mastered so expertly, but why has he never mentioned it to me? Am I the only one who doesn’t know this?

“Even to this day, I’ve seen few who compare to him,” Kathryn adds. “But that was before, of course.”

“Before?” The word hits me even harder than her first revelation. It hits me like a body blow, knocking the wind from my breast. “You mean, before the accident that ruined his hand.”

“Accident.” She slowly shakes her head. “Is that what he told you?”

“He told me he got into a fight with a drunk when he was eighteen. Things escalated, and the man sent him through a plate glass window.”

I recall how Nick told me about the incident over dinner on our first getaway together. I remember how he had relayed the details—scant as they were—in that nonchalant way of his, which neither invites questions nor offers any answers beyond what he is willing to share.

“What really happened to him, Kathryn?”

“Yes, there was a fight,” she says, “but it wasn’t an accident that stole his ability to paint. Dominic was nearly killed that night. And the drunk who pushed him through the glass was his father.”

All of the breath in my lungs seems to evaporate as I absorb the truth of what really happened. Nick’s pain must have been tremendous. Dear God, how he must have suffered, not only through the healing of his injuries, but with the realization of what he’d lost.

And by whom.

“I . . . I wasn’t aware.” I shake my head lamely, hoping I don’t look as wounded as I feel by all of these unexpected discoveries. “Apparently, he didn’t think it was important to mention any of this to me.”

“My dear,” Kathryn says gently. “That part of him died years ago. Unfortunately, I am also to blame for that.”

She turns away from my paintings and walks back to one of the velvet sofas.

“Please tell me.” I follow her over and take a seat beside her. “Please tell me what happened between you and him. Please tell me everything, Kathryn.”

At first, I don’t think she’ll comply. She has no reason to divulge details about her past personal life with Nick, after all. I’m prying, and there is no excuse for it. Nothing except my love for him and the ache I have for everything he’s been through.

“His hand was already destroyed when I met him,” she murmurs, toying with the lace edge on the sleeve of her silk pajama tunic. Her fingers look frail and aged against the collection of diamonds and gleaming platinum rings on them. Only her beautiful, cosmetically preserved face belies the true state of her physical health.

“Dominic was young—barely twenty, as I would later find out—and he’d only been in New York for a few months. He was earning his living parking cars at the Four Seasons when I first noticed him.” She shakes her head faintly, a faraway look coming into her gaze. “I was attending an art auction event and there he was, the handsome, dark-haired young man who’d parked my companion’s Jaguar, standing at the back of the room utterly absorbed in one of the auction house programs.”

My mind conjures the scene as she describes it, my heart squeezing at the notion of twenty-year-old Nick, freshly arrived in the city and completely unaware of the golden future and staggering fortune that awaits him.

It breaks a little, too, realizing only now that his success in business was born out of the ashes of his forfeited art ability.

“I’ve always enjoyed the company of beautiful younger men,” Kathryn confesses, glancing at me now, her expression utterly lacking in remorse. “They make me feel younger too. They make me forget that I’m mortal.” She shrugs. “I struck up a conversation with Dominic. His intensity was magnetic, even then. And he impressed me when I realized there was something more to him than just that remarkable face and those blue eyes that could drown a woman if she’s not careful.”

I nod, because I know exactly what she means. I’ve swam in his fathomless gaze often enough to feel the tidal pull that comes with being the focus of Nick’s stare. I succumbed to his powerful allure from the start, never able to resist him.