Chapter 34
IRIS
Time does its thing whether you’re ready for it or not.
Weeks pass, then months. The studio fills again. New canvases lean against old walls, paint returns under my nails, and music loops until it seeps into me. I don’t talk about the tank, and I don’t talk about Marcus. I just work.
The collection comes together of its own accord.
I named it After Us.
Keller didn’t question it. He looked at the half-finished canvas, then at me, and nodded as if the title had arrived before I did. He said the work told him first.
Artistically, it made sense. The gold and crimson were still there, but they’d changed. They sat farther back now, layered thinly, like something remembered rather than lived. The palette carried an aftermath. Not of loss exactly, just time doing what it does best.
The preview drew a crowd I didn’t recognize anymore. Curators, collectors, and people who tilted their heads and said words like brave and necessary. Interest spiked fast enough to make Evan Yani giddy. He didn’t try to hide it.
And now it’s auction day.
Reggie paces the private viewing room like he’s the one about to be sold.
“I don’t like this,” he mutters for the fifth time. “I hate auctions. They’re savage.”
“They force decisions,” I say, watching the feed from the auction floor on the wall-mounted screen.
“You’re not nervous?”
I consider it. Honestly. Then say, “No.”
That surprises him. And it surprises me too.
The first piece goes up. Then the second.
Hands rise, bids stack fast, and the phone banks glow along the back wall. One caller keeps coming back in and outlasting everyone else. I lean closer to the screen without realizing it.
Could it be him?
I don’t know why that thought still has power. I don’t know why I’m still measuring absence by his shape.
Another piece sells. Then another. Prices climb past what anyone expected. Reggie’s gone pale.
“Iris,” he whispers. “This is insane.”
I nod. It is.
But I can’t seem to feel any of it. My mind is already elsewhere.
I never expected this. But with Wolf gone, there’s a hollow place in my life I don’t know how to seal. And no matter how hard I resist it, Marcus keeps pressing into that space by simply being what’s left.
Our last moment together won’t leave me. His face when he said he wanted me to love him back. There was no pleading. It was just open in a way that scared me. And then my answer, telling him I didn’t want him.
Wolf was heat and recklessness and the terrifying rush of being fully alive. I could give myself to him because he lived in the shadow. Because he belonged to a space I never had to carry into daylight. A construct. Someone I could want without consequence.
And yet it felt more real than anything I’d ever claimed as mine.
Because behind the mask, there was always a man.
Could I have handled it better?
Probably. Not by surrendering to him, but by walking away without letting anger define the moment.
Now that time has put distance between us, I find myself wanting Marcus to own After Us. The intensity of it surprises me. He would understand every stroke, every pause, and every place where I held back.
When he said he bought Between Us because he loved it, I knew it was the truth.
He loved it because he was there. With me.
With paint slick beneath us, our skin stained gold and crimson. No distance, no games. Just us, raw and unguarded in a way I never let myself think about for long.
The painting he bought wasn’t the one we made that night. I kept that one. God help me, it’s the only thing I did right after everything fell apart. I still have a piece of him. But it doesn’t change the truth that I don’t have him.
He was within reach. He wanted me. He asked for a beginning that didn’t require hiding.
And yet I turned away.
“Eye? You okay?” Reggie asks.
“I’m fine.” The lie leaves my mouth easily.
If only I’d stopped to consider it longer.
The shower at the barn comes back to me, the steam curling around us, his mask gone for a handful of breaths. I didn’t turn around. Not because I couldn’t.
But because I promised. Because I trusted myself not to want more. And now I don’t know which part of that was the lie.
Could I look now?
Could I reconcile Marcus Lockwood’s face behind me, knowing what it would mean if I did?
The thought twists something low in my chest.
But the answer terrifies me more than anything else.
When the final hammer falls, applause ripples through the room. Respectful. Professional.
I exhale.
Keller hugs me first, then Evan follows, like the win was never in doubt.
“Welcome back, Ivy,” Evan says.
I straighten. “Actually, it’s Iris Vaughn.”
They both blink, then laugh, like I’ve told a good joke.
The truth is more complicated. I wanted to sign the collection as Iris Vaughn. I almost did. But Ivy is the name the buyers came for. The name that Keller and Evan risked their reputations on.
Let the paintings be Ivy.
My heart knows better.
Keller guides me onto the auction floor, and I keep my fingers laced through Reggie’s.
He stays close, every bit the social butterfly, gliding through the crowd with ease while keeping watch.
He steps in when he needs to, deflects when things get too close, and only lets me stay in the spotlight when the questions are harmless.
Before I realize it, I’m moving with the room, smiling at the right moments, accepting compliments, and letting a flute of champagne rest in my hand while the noise and light fold around me.
Effortless. At least on the surface.
A woman approaches me, and I recognize her instantly. She came with Marcus to my first exhibition.
“Congratulations, Ivy,” she says, her body already turned away toward the exit.
“We’ve met,” I say, matching her step. “But I never caught your name.”
“Sabine. I work for Dr. Lockwood.”
My pulse stutters. “Was that him? On the phone?”
She smiles gently. “No. He’s not even in the country.”
The room suddenly feels too warm. “Where is he?”
“You can’t see him.”
“Please,” I say. “Just tell him I’m thinking of him.”
Her expression changes, but it’s not unkind. Just honest.
“He made a mistake,” she says. “He shouldn’t have let that game go that far. But harming you was never his intention.”
“I know. I forgave him for that a long time ago,” I say.
“He cared about you deeply. But you never gave him a chance.”
The words sting because they’re true. Whatever my reasons were, they don’t change the outcome. I made my choice. I just waited too long to question it.
“I need to see him. I need to say I’m sorry for what I said when we parted,” I insist.
“I wish I could make that happen, but no.”
I look at her properly then. How could I have missed it? The fall of her golden hair, her impossibly small waist…
“You’re—” I begin.
But she’s already turning away.
“Good night, Miss Vaughn,” she says.
I stop her.
“Please, Sabine,” I say, careful not to use the name from the other world.
She studies me for a moment, weighing something I can’t see.
“I’m sorry,” she replies. The pause that follows tells me this isn’t a discussion.
I step back and let her go.
I don’t stay for the celebration. I’m halfway to the door when Reggie catches up with me.
“Hey,” he says, his eyes scanning my face. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
His eyes sharpen. “Did she say something?” He tilts his head, already triangulating who I was last seen with. “Because I will absolutely put her in her place. I don’t care if she’s Lockwood’s plus one. Or minus one. Wherever he is!”
“She didn’t say anything.”
The lines of his face harden. “Don’t tell me this has something to do with him.”
I twitch. And instead of pouncing, he lets it go.
“No, I’m just—” I sigh. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful. Tonight was incredible. Better than I ever imagined. I’m just…tired, Reg. Really tired.”
He doesn’t tease me. He steps in and pulls me close.
“Come home with me,” he says. “We’ll order something greasy and watch something dumb.”
I shake my head. “Not tonight.”
“Eye—”
“I need to be alone,” I say. “Please.”
He looks like he wants to argue. To insist. To wrap me up in his coat and drag me away from myself. Instead, the fight drains out of him.
“Artist complex,” he mutters with a theatrical eye-roll.
I giggle.
“Text me when you get home,” he says. “Or don’t. But don’t disappear.”
“I won’t,” I promise, even though I don’t know what that means yet.
He watches me walk away like he’s filing the moment for later, then lets me go.
I drive myself to the Hudson River Park and sit on the same bench as I usually do. I look around and tell myself I’m ridiculous.
Just as I decide to leave, I see him.
“Blanket. Hey, old soldier,” I whisper, already crouching, my arms opening.
He comes straight to me and presses in close. I rest my hand against his chest, my fingers sinking into fur. He feels healthy and happy. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to know that.
“I guess he was right,” I murmur. “You just know when someone needs that much more love.”
It never feels good to be hurt, but I’m learning it’s worse to be the one who does the hurting. Worse still is when you can’t even find the person you owe the apology to.
And now I can’t get him out of my head.
The man never said anything outright. He didn’t have to. I saw it in his eyes every time I kept my distance and every time I pushed him away, even when he was kind.
Billionaire. Surgeon. Women everywhere. None of it shielded him. He was untouchable on paper, but pain still reached him.
“Where is he, Blanky?” I sigh.
The mutt nuzzles my hand like there might be something in it for him. I smile. “Sorry, I came straight from a party of champagne and caviar. No treats.”
He tilts his head.
“Though I probably should’ve sneaked some, shouldn’t I?”
Blanket shifts as if he’s done asking, then settles at my feet, curling in on himself. Almost like a cat, a very large one.
A chuckle escapes me.
I take off my heels and rub him with my toes. I fix my attention on the park, looking for smaller thoughts, safer ones. Like how well tonight went, how this—all of it—is what I worked toward, and how my dreams didn’t stall or shrink. They came true.
The money means security. Not just for me, but for my parents. No more careful budgeting, no more choosing which worry gets handled first. And when things settle, I can give back. Real donations to animal charities around New York that make a difference.
A couple passes by along the riverwalk. Barely more than teenagers, their hands linked, stopping every few steps to kiss.
It’s heartwarming, and I hope they last. I hope they don’t end up like Bobby Derring and me.
“Ugh.” I shake my head, as if I can knock the thought loose.
Which I do, only to circle back to Marcus.
The conversation from my first exhibition replays itself like a midnight film I never meant to watch again. And like any second viewing, the details surface more clearly. I’d been so consumed by Wolf back then that rejecting Marcus felt…easy. Necessary, even.
You’re not what I’m interested in.
He didn’t falter, not publicly. He was far too composed to do that in a room full of New York’s elite.
But his eyes—
They didn’t accuse or argue. They did something worse.
His gaze shut me out, like he’d taken the blow and decided it wasn’t worth showing.
And I still found it in myself to repeat it, even knowing Wolf was already history, as if I wanted to be sure Marcus felt it this time.
Heartless.
“Gah!” I sigh loud enough that Blanket stirs.
That was what hurt him most. I don’t think my frustration over his intruding on my parents’ renovation ever affected him. But that sentence did.
Yes, I was angry. At the time, he looked like a brute to me, someone who’d interfered with my career and life. But anger doesn’t excuse aiming for the one place I knew would do real damage.
He was a good man.
Wolf or Marcus, it didn’t matter. He was generous and genuine, and he took the hit without passing it on.
I draw in a breath, aware of an ache that isn’t mine but sits close enough that I feel responsible for it. For once, I don’t push that feeling aside. I let it stay.
I still don’t know whether Keller and Yani took me on because of him. And if they did, right or wrong, that choice set everything in motion. The success. The money. The life I’m standing in now.
I should’ve looked Sabine in the eye and asked her outright. She would’ve told me the truth. But she’s shut me out now, and whatever answers she had left with her. I guess I’ll never know.
Except maybe that isn’t true.
Blanket drops onto his side at my feet and rolls until his paws stick up at the sky. I rub his belly.
Maybe there’s someone else who can tell me where Marcus is.