Chapter 16
Malena
We strained to listen as the footsteps roamed the studio and the conversation became completely inaudible. Time warped in that cramped closet, like every passing second was an hour.
“I wonder what’s in the poster carriers,” I whispered, my breath bouncing against his skin and warming my own.
With every inhale, that rigid body pressed harder against mine.
I tried to think of anything else.
Who knew rowing a boat honed a body into what felt like a marble statue chiseled by Donatello himself? I had to start mentally listing off all the US presidents in alphabetical order so I wouldn’t think about how it might feel to have that body on top of mine.
He didn’t answer, so I settled on yammering quietly until he stopped feeling… good. “Probably works by an—”
“Stop talking.” His rough command faltered in its hushed whisper.
His jaw flexed and he looked up at the ceiling as he pressed his hands into my hips and turned me slightly to the side. It put a fraction of space between us—not nearly enough.
“Right,” I squeaked. We should’ve been listening. “In a closet, inside a studio we shouldn’t be in, we—”
“Malena,” he warned. The deep, gravelly sound ricocheted between my thighs.
I closed my eyes and thanked whoever was listening for the dark, because I was blushing up to my hairline. I took a deep breath, sure that I was a second away from passing out.
After what felt like hours, the voices subsided. I shifted to open the door, but Conrad yanked me back.
“Wait,” he ordered, keeping me tight to his chest.
My stomach dipped. God, he needed to stop talking to me like that.
I looked up at him and mouthed, For what?
“Make sure they’re down the hall first.”
I counted to three in my head before bursting out, sighing as the cool air rushed against my face.
“Well, that was convenient,” I said matter-of-factly. I turned around and made myself busy by picking up all the poster canisters I displaced.
“Shoving me in a closet?” Conrad knelt down next to me and helped.
“Yeah…” I tried to focus on the fact that I needed more evidence. I opened one of the poster cannisters and out popped around twelve neatly stacked and rolled pieces of paper. I carded through them. Each was the same landscape of the same ocean waves crashing against a stony shore.
“Maybe it’s a reprint?” Conrad speculated from over my shoulder.
“Dozens of them? That all look slightly different?” I tilted my head in thought.
Based on the conversation we’d just heard parts of, whoever these belonged to wasn’t supposed to be in here.
“Practice makes perfect.” Conrad opened another poster cannister. And just like mine, it was a stack of near-identical painted works rolled together. The same ocean and shoreline there too.
The painting styles were similar. Light and wispy brush strokes juxtaposed against the color scheme that was deep and practically exploding with emotion. All landscapes too. I took out my phone and tried to snap as many pictures as I could. “Yeah, but why?”
It looked as though someone was attempting to master this one specific painting style and these forgotten canvases showcased their efforts in improving the technique.
The version Conrad held up looked to have fluffier brush strokes in the cresting waves, while the two I’d just taken shots of were a bit sleeker, more refined, with the rocks appearing hyper-realistic.
“A few of them are signed,” Conrad said as my mind began to wander. I couldn’t make out the signature, but I zoomed in with my camera and took a few pictures anyway. “Maybe they’re meant to be forgeries.”
“I wonder…” I stood and heard him rolling up and sliding the works back to where we’d found them.
I walked to the easel that sat front and center of the room.
It was positioned in front of the paned window, so I didn’t need to use my phone to study it; the twilight outside was already doing the heavy lifting.
It was a landscape that resembled the works splayed out on the studio floor behind me, only this one had a cottage beside a river at sunset.
No waves. But similar blues and purples.
Conrad approached and he waited for me to capture what I needed.
Then, he stepped forward, ran his finger over a blotch of the inky blue and showed me the pad with a cocked brow. The paint hadn’t dried despite it being at least six or seven hours since anyone had been in here—no one would be so reckless with the dinner’s preparations underway.
“I think you’re onto something, Watson.” He smiled.
The air between us shifted. Not as heavy as it had been in the storage closet and not awkward like it was directly after the storage closet. It was light but enthralling. Like every breath was laced with something hallucinogenic.
“You can call me Mal. Everyone else does.”
“Oh.” His brows arched. “Sorry.”
“I don’t mind,” I added offhandedly. “But why am I Watson? I’m doing the heavy lifting here.”
“Watson was the smarter one.” The innocent look plastered all over his face felt like friendly fire.
“I am no sidekick.” I took one last picture and tucked my burner back into the pocket of my dress. I raised one hand in the air and held it flat like a line. “Me.” My other hand came up to float a few inches below it. “You. Got it?”
He rolled his tongue from one cheek to the other, a smirk tugging at the side of his jaw.
Butterflies. Everywhere. Flapping their wings in dizzying unison.
“You want to be on top of me?” He shrugged. “Got it.”
And with that, he crossed the distance of the small studio back to the door. He opened it and tipped his head out into the hallway, his eyes shining with mischief.
We made our way back down the narrow hallway and into the atrium.
The twenty or so dinner tables, each perfectly set with crystal stemware and crisp white tablecloths, were spread concentrically around the circulation desk.
Covered by towering floral arrangements, I could hardly recognize the same desk that I often used to locate old literature.
Just to the left of the entrance was the bar, and as we made our way to it, we were met with a hushed voice. One that did not sound the least bit impressed. “Where have you been?”
I caught Conrad’s flinch before he masked it and braced myself for what Mr. Hastings would say next.
“Reading? Half of this building is a library.” A knowing smile inched up one side of his mouth. The side closest to me. “Dad, you remember Malena.”
His father bristled, skating a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair as he glanced around. “Conrad. I brought you here to speak to some of the other important families, not run around with—”
“You’ll have to excuse my father,” Conrad cut in sharply, shooting a glare at his dad. “He’s not normally so rude.”
I knew I should have been a little offended, but more than anything, I envied the courage. I hardly ever had the guts to be that flippant with my parents, and when I was, it didn’t end well.
“Yes.” His dad cleared his throat. “You’ll have to excuse me, my wife is the social—”
“Your wife is considering a divorce,” Conrad interrupted with a satisfied smile. He put a supportive hand on his dad’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m here as emotional support.”
My jaw hung open. This would be the part of the movie where I got smacked.
“Oh. Good for her,” was what popped out of my mouth. My eyes went wide and I brought my fingers up to brush my lips.
While I did my best to stay away from it, I had a general sense of campus gossip. And I’d read the newspaper every day since I was a kid. When a media magnate had a public affair, it tended to make waves.
“Good for everyone,” I corrected, my pulse thrumming. I wasn’t Conrad Hastings; I wasn’t allowed to be flippant.
Mr. Hastings’s face remained stone-cold serious, but Conrad chuckled under his breath.
I didn’t know what it was about Conrad, but I kept forgetting to put up the appropriate facade around him.
Mr. Hastings smiled tightly at me then nodded at his son before walking away with a tense “We’ll talk later.”
“I should apologize.” I looked to Conrad when it was just the two of us again. “You should apologize.”
“Nah. My mom kicked him out, so I’ve got a few weeks of him trying to be half decent before she inevitably takes him back.” He gave me an appraising look. “Besides, that was awesome. Some people need to hear the bitter truth, so let’s consider it a public service and move on.”
“Well, I meant it. Good for your mom.” My mind snagged on that, reminding me that he hadn’t actually told me anything about his family’s situation. The last thing I needed was Conrad thinking I kept tabs on him. “Not that I know your mom, but like, good for both of them.”
Heat scalded my cheeks, and I cleared my throat. What the hell was happening?
He blinked a couple of times.
“I mean…” I faltered. Get a grip, Mal. “Two people who don’t want to be together shouldn’t be.” My voice jumped an octave, but I ran with the pivot. “Like my parents. They’d be better off without each other.”
He tilted his head and watched me for a beat. “Huh. I thought rooting for your own parents’ divorce was strictly an Upper East Side thing.”
The nervous energy evaporated, like walking in to air conditioning after being out in the hot sun.
“Trust me, it’s not.” I was sure there were plenty of first-generation kids like me whose parents’ social mores were stuck in the year they left their home country. For my parents, that was 1980s India. “They won’t get divorced because of how it would look. They’re white-knuckling it to the grave.”
“Impressive,” he noted lightly.
It illustrated what they wanted for me: the stability and social check mark that came with marriage, not the happiness that came with love. I tried not to dwell on it—the fact that my happiness never really factored into the equation for them.
“Oh definitely. Their screaming matches are the stuff of legend.” Oddly, it felt like telling a story.
It felt easy, like talking to Cora or Sabrina.
I found myself relaxing, and I didn’t bother questioning the revelation before I continued.
“I used to have to do my schoolwork in my closet, tucked away with a little lamp plugged into an extension cord. The clothes did a pretty good job of muffling the yelling.”
Before I invested in a pair of noise-canceling headphones, it was my go-to spot. Eventually, I retreated in there when I needed some quiet, even if it wasn’t to study.
“My parents aren’t really the yelling kind,” he stated, eyeing a platter or hors d’oeuvres as a waiter passed us by. “Dad cheated. Mom ignored it. It was all very civil.”
“Lucky bastard,” I said through a laugh, unsure when this conversation had turned so dark. “Quiet is hard to come by.”
“Wait.” He turned completely to face me. “Is that why you have that little cave under your desk in the newsroom?”
I stood up straighter. “No.”
“Oh my God, it is,” he reeled. “Do you study under the desk?”
“It’s surprisingly effective,” I argued. “And I have a perfect GPA, so maybe trust the process instead of making fun?”
He chuckled and smiled so warmly my stomach did pirouettes. “You’re a little weird, Holmes.”
I tilted my head and studied him, my lips quirking up at the sides despite my best efforts.
I learned long ago that being myself was only safe around select people, so to be standing here in a thousand-dollar dress I borrowed from Sabrina’s closet, surrounded by influential people and feeling at ease?
Not feeling that reflexive need to cover my identity in half-truths? Well, that was rare.
I told myself that it was because Conrad was low-stakes. He didn’t expect me to be anything, so there was no need to be anyone other than myself.
And, God, that felt good.