Painted in Love (The Maverick Billionaires #10)

Prologue

P eople think the night is darkest at midnight.

They’re wrong. True dark comes just before dawn, when the temperature drops and the fog rolls in.

I pull my hoodie over my head to keep my ears warm.

A streetlight shines through the fog, giving me just enough light to work by.

This alley in San Francisco’s Mission District is perfect for my next masterpiece.

Night is when I work, with the foggy halos around the streetlights.

This isn’t commissioned work, but a piece for myself.

I’ve been dreaming about it for weeks now, but I’ve been too busy to get out here.

My best work is always the stuff I paint just for myself.

Don’t get me wrong—commissions are good, my bread and butter.

I’m not ashamed of that. But this work, it’s special.

The narrow, dingy, stinky alley—I’ve painted in places far worse than this—is off the beaten track, definitely not an attraction on the street art tours.

Most likely, no one will ever see what I’ve painted, let alone realize it’s my work, unless they look closely.

But no one will. Because it’s street art, and the next artist will paint right over it.

I don’t care. All I care about is getting the images out of my head and onto the wall.

That’s how I stay sane—by painting the pictures out of my head.

Until another one comes along from some deep secret place inside me.

Out here, no one tells me what to paint. No one judges it. Under the veil of night, that’s when I feel most creative.

As dawn breaks through the dark and the fog, I step away to survey what I’ve done. “Yeah,” I say aloud. “This is good.”

I’ve got to remember to get out here more often, to work in the middle of the night. Because these are my roots. This is where I came from—the dark, the cold, the loneliness of the middle of the night.

I look behind me. Yes, the street is lighter than before. The dawn is coming. I need to get away before the light hits me. I add my last flourish, then escape down the alley, leaving behind the tools of my trade. Some other street artist will need them.

By the time I make it back to the place where I sleep, the sky is lightening. Fog still shrouds the city by the bay, but in a little while, it’ll be gone, just as I’ll be gone.

Like a vampire, I climb into my bed as the sun spills its rays over the city.