Chapter 37 Iris
IRIS
Brushes soak in a bucket by the utility sink while I drag a canvas into better light. I mop around it, swear at the draft, and wedge a strip of foam into the gap between the boards. Spring keeps finding ways inside.
Javier Zamora insisted on seeing the work in progress. When someone who’s bought half of your collection insists, you listen. Still, “in progress” has limits. Drying and minor corrections are acceptable, but anything unready stays out of sight.
Though there’s one clear difference from my earlier work. I will sign them all as Iris Vaughn.
My phone rings. If it weren’t Reggie, I wouldn’t answer.
“Hey, bestie.”
“Eye,” he says. “Are you sitting down?”
“No.”
“Eye.”
“I’m mopping. If you make me sit, you’re paying for the chiropractor. What is it?”
“Look, I’m telling you this because I love you. And because I don’t want you hearing it from anyone else.”
I sigh. “That sentence has never ended well.”
“Serious, Eye. It’s about Marcus.”
I stop moving. “You know where he is?”
“Unfortunately—” He clears his throat. “I mean, yes.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“I saw him on Page Six.”
I wait.
“He’s somewhere damp and leafy,” Reggie says. “His linen shirt is clinging in all the wrong places. That tan? It’s not relaxation. It’s survival.”
“Huh,” I scoff. “Maybe he was photo bombed by a monkey or chased through the foliage by an angry toucan.”
Reggie cracks. “Oh, Eye. You’re vicious.”
I was. “Anyway, that’s not why you called.”
A pause ensues, then a bracing inhale. “He’s with someone.”
I press my lips together before I speak. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
“An entrepreneur,” Reggie says. “Her name is Mary Peters. And listen, she’s nothing like you. She doesn’t look right with him.”
On the contrary. They sound like they make sense together. I picture her decisive and unburdened by second-guessing. Someone who doesn’t split a man into versions and wonder which one is real.
“Damn,” I say to no one, keeping the mop moving as I press the phone tighter to my ear.
“Eye,” Reggie says, softer now. “They could just be friends.”
“They’re on Page Six.”
“Yes,” he admits. “That was…optimistic of me.”
A car pulls in outside before I can sit with it any longer.
“Reg, I have to go. Zamora and Evan are here.”
“Oh no,” he says. “It’s today?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, shit,” he groans. “I shouldn’t have opened my mouth!”
“It’s fine,” I say, and I mean it enough to survive the next fifteen minutes. “I’m okay. I’ll call you later.”
“I love you,” he says quickly. “And I regret everything.”
I hang up and run to the door, hauling the barn panel all the way open.
Evan arrives first, smooth as ever, and Zamora follows, dark, assured, and impeccably put together. He studies the barn, his eyes sweeping over the stool, the worktable, and the brushes laid out for a single hand.
“Isolation suits artists,” he says.
“Only if they like their own company,” I reply, opening the space for him.
He’s charming and complimentary. He comments on one piece, then another, but his questions keep circling back to me. How long have I worked here, whether I ever leave, and whether it gets lonely. I answer by putting the next canvas between us and talking about materials and drying times instead.
His mouth curves. “You know, I have space in the city that would make a suitable studio. It has fans, dehumidifiers, and proper airflow.” He lifts his hands when I start to speak. “Another time, of course. Perhaps over dinner. I’m only saying.”
“I’m happy here, Mr. Zamora,” I reply. “It needs work, but it takes care of me.”
He nods and follows my lead, his attention settling where I keep directing it. On the work.
He studies a canvas where I’ve left sections bare, the weave visible, the paint ending abruptly instead of being resolved. The crimson holds the structure, but the gold interrupts it in places that feel almost accidental. Evan watches him closely.
“Is there more?” Zamora asks eagerly.
“Yes,” I say, already moving, leading him to two other pieces from the same collection. It’s less complete, but worth showing.
He takes them in quickly, then again with care. “You’ve outdone yourself, Miss Vaughn. I’ll take all three.”
“Thank you, Mr. Zamora,” I say.
“Well, you make me a happy man.” He draws me into a formal hug, though the kiss he presses to my cheek lingers. “Sorry, I’m Spanish,” he adds lightly when I pull away.
I nod. Meanwhile, Evan adjusts his glasses and checks his phone as if confirming something mundane, then pockets it again. “I’ll let you know when the work’s complete, Mr. Zamora,” he says evenly.
As Zamora steps back, his attention roams past a section behind my workbench. His brow creases, and I know what he’s looking at before he speaks.
“There,” he says. “What’s behind those?”
The unstretched canvas, half-hidden behind a stack of black-wrapped pieces.
“Can I see it?”
My answer comes too late. “That’s…not for sale.”
Evan meets my eye.
Because if Javier Zamora asks, you show him.
I step forward and pull the canvas free. Evan helps me spread it on the floor. My eyes go straight to the lower center, just left of true.
God bless me. It’s still there.
A tiny thing. Easy to miss. Impossible to forget if you know. I feel heat rise as Zamora leans closer, studying the texture and depth. Evan watches me now, puzzled by my sudden hesitation.
“This piece,” Zamora says slowly, “is remarkable. Unexpected.”
He studies it with the composure of a seasoned collector, while I fight the urge to roll it back.
Then he adds, “And strangely…it just won’t let me go.”
Words stall on my tongue, flustered by what he can’t see, by what the canvas remembers.
Marcus’s hair is soft on his head, and he is clean-shaven everywhere else. Everywhere except—
I clear my throat, forcing myself back into the room.
Zamora blinks, then lets out a short laugh. “I’ll take it. Everything’s for sale, right?”
“Not that.”
He turns to Evan, disbelief edging his voice. “You’re joking.”
Evan looks at me. It’s half warning, half frustration. “Iris—”
“I said no.”
Zamora exhales through his nose, clearly unused to hearing it. “Name a price.”
“I won’t.”
“Five hundred,” he says immediately.
I don’t react.
“Seven-fifty.”
Evan tries again. “Iris, you should—”
Zamora lifts a hand, a small gesture that silences my boss. Then he turns fully toward me, his back to the painting. “Maybe we can talk about this over dinner. I can get us a table tonight at Eleven Madison Park.”
It sounds impressive, but it means nothing.
“No.” I return my attention to the painting, letting it block him out, my gaze snagging on that stubborn strand again.
Zamora’s mouth tightens. “One million.”
Evan makes a sound he probably regrets.
This time, I meet Zamora’s eyes. “It’s still not for sale.”
Something in him hardens. “You’re being irrational.”
“No,” I say. “I’m being certain.”
Whatever this is, I’m not putting a price on what’s left of both Wolf and Marcus.
A voice comes from behind us. “Two.”
We all turn.
Marcus stands just inside the studio doorway, his coat still on.
My heart kicks hard. I haven’t seen him in months, and the sight of him hits.
That solid, unmistakable presence I brushed aside because it didn’t belong to the fantasy I chose instead.
He’s a bit thinner now, his face drawn, and his eyes heavy with fatigue, but there’s still that pull I never managed to outrun.
I don’t know why he’s here. To reopen a wound I never let heal? Or to remind me that I walked away without understanding what I was doing?
“Two million,” he clarifies, his eyes never leaving the canvas. “If we’re pretending it’s an auction.”
Evan goes very still.
Zamora scoffs. “Excuse me?”
Marcus finally looks at him. “She said no. You’re the one who kept pushing.”
Evan blinks between us. “Dr. Lockwood, are you serious?”
“Yes.”
Zamora’s jaw works. “Three.”
“Four,” Marcus says without pause.
This is absurd. Egos colliding, two men measuring reach.
I step toward him. “Marcus—”
He smiles, still watching the other man. “I’m not buying it,” he says. “I’m ending this.”
Zamora studies him, searching for hesitation, leverage, anything.
There’s none.
“You’re insane,” Zamora says at last.
Marcus shrugs. “Maybe.” Then, to me, he says, “It stays with you.”
Zamora walks away.
Evan finally exhales. “I cannot believe you turned that down,” he tells me, then looks at Marcus. “And I can’t believe you matched it.”
Marcus glances at the canvas once more.
“I didn’t,” he says. “I protected it.”
Zamora pauses at the door, irritation riding his tone. “Those three are still mine.” He gestures back to his earlier selections.
Marcus doesn’t look at him. “They are,” he says. “As long as she agrees.”
I nod.
And this time, no one argues.
Except my head and the rest of me.
I stay where I am, which takes effort. I don’t trust what would happen if I moved too fast, or at all. I let my eyes trace him instead, his shoulders squared, like he hasn’t decided whether this is a visit or a mistake. I have a dozen things to say, but I choose none of them.
“Did he ask something inappropriate?” Marcus says plainly.
“No,” I reply.
“Not even dinner?” he drawls, and I hear the echo of the night I’d shut him down for the same offer.
“Madison Park, somewhere. Number Twelve?”
“Eleven Madison Park?” he scoffs. “I’ll admit that’s ambitious.”
“I don’t even know the place,” I say. “For all I know, it’s a new competitor of Carl’s Jr.”
He shakes his head, a laugh escaping him, but it fades almost as soon as it appears.
“Sabine said you were overseas,” I say.
“Yes, I was.”
The space between us stretches. Then he closes a fraction of it.
“How are you?” I ask.
“Terrible,” he answers.
I guess he has nowhere to hide with that tired look, his hair combed in a rush, and dressed down in a black shirt and jeans. He could’ve blamed jetlag, but instead, he looks straight at me. And it gives me hope.
My feet move a small step, just enough to admit that I’ve missed him.