To Sir, with Love

I knew it was coming. And of course, it’s not all mine. It’s made out to the business. But still. Holy crap.

I give Sebastian a wry smile. “I’m guessing my very humble abode reaffirms your suspicion that I needed this money sooner rather than later.”

I expect him to look around my apartment, note its small size, the tired couch, the outdated kitchen. Instead, he holds my gaze. “That’s not why I came.”

My breath catches. “No? Then why?”

His aqua eyes lock on mine a second longer before he steps around me and goes to the easel. He studies it for a long minute.

He looks back at me. “It didn’t occur to me that you used pencil first.”

“I don’t always,” I say, sliding the check back into the envelope and setting it on the kitchen table. “And when I do, it’s usually only on a practice run, not the final.”

“How many versions of each painting do you do?”

“Usually not more than two unless I goof up. But I almost always plan out what I’m going to do in my sketchbook before it makes it to this stage.”

“What’s this one?” he asks, leaning forward to look closer. My pencil strokes are light, more guidelines than actual sketch.

“Central Park. A picnic. I haven’t decided yet if it’ll be a couple or a family. Maybe a girls’ day or just a lone woman reading with her dog.”

As though in protest at the word dog, Cannoli comes strolling out from wherever he’s been hiding with a long meow and hops up onto the arm of the couch, tail twitching as he gives Sebastian what can only be described as a skeptical once-over.

The cat meows again, a little more friendly this time, and Sebastian steps toward him, extending a finger and rubbing the side of the cat’s face. Cannoli’s eyes close, and he pushes his entire head against Sebastian’s hand, pressing his face into the large palm.

I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty heart melting.

“Boy or girl?” he asks, still petting the cat.

“Boy. Cannoli.”

He gives me a sharp look, and I shrug with a smile. “What? I like dessert.”

His eyes narrow just slightly. “What’s your favorite kind of dessert?”

“I’m not terribly picky. If it’s sweet and delicious, I love it. Though I do think it’s hard to beat really good ice cream.”

“Gelato,” he guesses, though it’s more statement than question.

“Totally,” I smile, thinking of Sir. “Give me a pint of pistachio gelato, and there’s basically zero chance that I won’t finish the entire thing. By myself. In one sitting.”

He frowns. “That night in the park. We stopped at the ice cream truck, but you didn’t get ice cream. You got lemon sorbet.”

I smile, remembering. “A whim. A… friend of mine swears by it. I think it’s an affront to dessert, but I realized I couldn’t really say that when I hadn’t given it a chance.”

“What’s the verdict?”

“I still think it’s an affront to dessert,” I say with a grin.

Sebastian doesn’t grin back but studies me with a strange expression. Then I realize that he’d ordered lemon sorbet with me, and maybe I’d just insulted his dessert of choice. I shake my head. What is it with the men in my life liking frozen lemon nonsense?

Perhaps more important: When did I start counting Sebastian Andrews as a man in my life?

Cannoli grows bored and ambles off to my bedroom, and Sebastian nods toward the stack of finished paintings against the wall. “May I?”

“Um…” I hesitate, remembering the one of the man with the aqua eyes. It doesn’t look like Sebastian. It doesn’t look like anyone, really. It’s more shadow than features. Still, those eyes…

“Sure,” I say, because I can’t think of a way to say no that wouldn’t be rude.

I expect him to flip through them quickly, but he takes his time, holding each painting and studying it thoroughly before moving on to the next. I hold my breath when he gets to the one of the man.

He looks at it the same way he did the others, then sets it aside without a word and moves onto the next, seemingly without noticing the unusual eye color. I slowly exhale.

Finally, he gets to the last one—there are eleven in that stack, the ones I think are my best, though I’m still working to get twenty I feel are good enough to take to Mr. Wheeler.

Sebastian turns around to face me once more. “They’re charming, and no, I don’t mean that to be the least bit condescending. Hugh’s going to be thrilled.”

“Thank you,” I say, pleasure rushing over me. “I’ve been—wait… Hugh? Hugh Wheeler?”

He shrugs, then nods once.

I stare at him in confusion. “How did you know that a Chelsea art gallery was—”

Dismay settles low in my stomach as I realize there’s only one way he’d know about Hugh Wheeler approaching me. “It was you.”