Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alex and Greer stayed at the event for another couple of hours, giving him time to glad-hand as many of the townspeople as he could corner after Holcombe’s bounce house surprise attack.
Now, in Greer’s car headed back toward Wild Card, he slumped against the passenger side door. “That was fucking brutal.”
What was even more brutal was what he needed to tell Greer.
That he was out there trying like hell to pretend he belonged in this community when he already knew he couldn’t stay.
All that BS was just that—a bunch of bullshit so he could win the competition and get the cash he needed.
Only now, the money wouldn’t go for new tools and quality leathers.
It would hopefully be the payoff for his brother’s future.
And to string Greer along, thinking he was on board with her vision of the village, was shitty of him.
“I’m sorry Chad kinda rained on your parade.
” She reached over the console and laced her fingers with his.
As much as he loved being skin to skin with her, he felt like a fucking traitor sitting here as if they were a real couple.
Had some kind of real future—either business or personal—together.
Alex had fucked that up way before he met this woman.
He laughed, but the sound had little humor attached to it. “It was just flan, not a miracle.”
She must’ve caught the sour note in his tone because she shot a narrow-eyed glance his way. “Sometimes the smallest things mean the most to people. People saw you were willing to participate in a community event, to act like one of them. That goes a long way around here.”
Jesus, it didn’t go nearly far enough. And it just made him feel like a failure because he knew the truth.
But walking away from his life this time would hurt ten times as much as it had years ago.
Yes, he loved his mamá and younger brother, but the way he felt for Greer?
It was something else completely. Which was exactly the reason that winning the competition, taking the cash, and getting the hell out of here was the best thing he could do for her.
Because money wasn’t always enough to satisfy the Tejanos Pintados’ sense of loyalty.
And if Alex had to sacrifice himself to pull Nicolás back from the edge, that was exactly what he would do.
Greer parked her car at the back of the barn and started to get out.
Alex caught her hand. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”
She looked back at him, her face tight with either confusion or hurt. “Maybe I shouldn’t what? Don’t you want me to stay tonight?”
More than he wanted anything, even though they needed to clear the air.
If she knew his plan, she wouldn’t want to be in his bed tonight.
But as she stood there, backlit by the weak porch light illuminating the staircase up to his tiny apartment, something inside him gave way.
If he could steal just a little more time with this generous, passionate woman, he couldn’t say no. Couldn’t turn away.
One more night.
One more time with Greer.
Then he would tell her the truth and let her go.
“Only if you can stand to be with a complete social dumbass.”
Her smile lit up her face, so damn beautiful it carved a permanent hole in Alex’s heart. “My very favorite kind of man.”
“You’re disturbed,” he said, leading her toward the stairs. “You know that, right?”
She paused on the bottom step. “Because I care about you?”
“Don’t…” His voice cracked. Could he lay himself out anymore in front of her? Allow her to see all the ways he was vulnerable?
“It’s too late. Whether or not you approve. I care about you more than I’ve ever cared for another man.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
Now, she tugged on his hand to urge him upward.
“See, that’s the thing. You don’t get to say what you deserve and what you don’t.
Plus, if you don’t think you deserve me, you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to prove you do and…
” She trailed off as though suddenly realizing she’d mentioned a time frame much, much longer than right now.
“I told you early on that I wasn’t a good bet.”
She turned on the staircase landing, wrapped a hand around his neck, and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. “I’m just talking about tonight.”
One more night before he made her hate him.
He would take it.
Decision made, he led her into his apartment, didn’t bother to turn on the light, just drew her to him in the fading daylight creeping in through the blinds. He cupped her face in his hands, looked into her eyes, her beautiful soul. “Do you have any idea how amazing you are?”
A spot of pink bloomed on each of her cheeks, and she tried to pull away. Wasn’t happening. “I’m just a flake who does whatever strikes my fancy. That’s not amazing, it’s self-indulgent.”
“You think this—” he dipped his head to indicate the barn’s first floor, “—is self-indulgent?”
“Well—”
“You do realize that along with the general public, you’ve attracted gallery owners and managers from all over the state, right? They want a piece of what you’re doing here.”
When she looked up at him, her eyes were clouded. “I should miss my own work. Should miss creating.”
“You’re building something incredible here.”
“You know it’s not the same.”
No, it wasn’t. Because having the vision to conceive and create something like this was a gift most artists didn’t have. It was the reason so many talented people labored long and hard but rarely received the kind of money or accolades their work deserved. “Do you want to go back to blowing glass?”
“I should.” The misery in her voice sliced Alex’s heart in half. “Maybe once I can afford to hire someone to run Wild Card for me, I can—”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I’ll need to move on to the next thing.” She wrenched from his hold and paced in a U-shape around his bed until they were staring at each other across the quilt. “That’s what I do.”
“You act like learning all these different arts and crafts has been a bad thing. Like it makes you a failure.”
“When you quit, you give up. And when you give up, you fail.”
“Bullshit.”
“Do you have any idea how many art types I’ve blown through?” She flung out a hand as though erasing him. “So many I can’t count them all. I still have a set of rifflers and drawknives from a three-week flirtation with Appalachian woodcarving.”
“Have you ever heard of the Renaissance?”
“I do have a degree in art.”
“You’re way ahead of me then.” Alex kicked off his boots and sat on the bed with his back to the iron headboard rails. “Think about what they valued back in those days. Think about people like Leonardo da Vinci.”
“He was a freak of nature,” she said. “Incredibly talented, but still a freak.”
“But he didn’t let anyone tell him what he couldn’t do.
He invented things. He painted. He sculpted.
” Alex reached for Greer’s hand, pulled her down on the bed.
She flopped onto her stomach and lay her head across his thigh.
Having her close to him was the most pleasurable kind of pain he’d ever felt.
“Do you think he beat himself up when he was finished drawing his idea for a flying machine and moved on to painting Mona Lisa?”
“Again, he was da Vinci. No one can compare to him.” Greer shook her head, rubbing her cheek along his jeans. Her breath penetrated the fabric and warmed his skin. The heat crept up and wrapped around his dick. Jesus, not now.
“But lots of other artists…hell, not just artists, but scholars of all types dabbled in everything from playing an instrument to writing poetry. They were revered for it.”
She glanced up at him. “This may have escaped your attention, but we live in the twenty-first century, not the fifteenth.”
“Just because other people don’t always appreciate that you’re a Renaissance woman doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
” He stroked a hand down her hair, enjoying the way it curled around and clung to his fingers.
He wanted to touch her hair, her skin, her heart every day for the rest of his life.
And knowing that he couldn’t settled in his chest like a piece of cast iron.
“Who says you can’t pursue both business and art?
Few people have the courage to try new things.
You don’t just try them. You kick ass at them.
Why is doing more than one thing so wrong? ”
“Because…because…I don’t know.”
“What if there was only one way to make love?” He scooted down on the bed to lie beside her. “Just the plain old vanilla missionary position. And you could never do anything else, try anything else. Wouldn’t that get boring?”
Finally, she smiled. A cheeky little grin that lightened the dark places inside him. “I wouldn’t know anything about your plain old vanilla missionary work, Villanueva, so that’s a little hard to judge.”
He aligned his body with hers, the rub of fabric on fabric strangely erotic. “Well, I’ll see what I can do to make it boring as hell.”
“Good luck with that.” Her laugh was low and seductive as he moved in to touch his lips to hers.
He smoothed his mouth across hers, an innocent slide of lips only. God, she tasted of Kahlua and…flan. He pulled away. “You did not pay three hundred dollars for that damn flan.”
She fluttered her lashes in a dramatic sweep. “No, I just told a few people the platter was an antique, worth a hundred by itself.”
“You, Greer Maddox, are something else,” he said, and took her mouth again.
“So I’ve been told,” she murmured against his lips.
Alex couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent this much time just concentrating on a woman’s mouth. Greer’s lips were so soft. So sweet. So warm. They were the fucking center of his universe tonight.