Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
C lay had caught the proverbial forty winks, but that was about it. He could think of nothing but Saskia—her touch, her luscious kiss, her sweet scent, her beautiful eyes, her luxurious hair he loved to run his fingers through.
But then he’d think of her lies. She hadn’t told him who she was, the first lie.
When he’d outright asked her more than once if she was an artist, she’d lied again.
She could have helped Dylan immensely if he’d known who she was.
His mind brushed over how much she’d helped Dylan even wearing her Saskia persona.
More than just think it through, Clay needed to talk it through.
It was early. But Fernsby was an early riser even on a Saturday.
The moment the man answered, Clay unloaded on him. “Where are you? I need to talk.”
In his cultured British drawl, Fernsby said, “I’m wherever you need me to be, sir, as always.” Then he added, “I’m walking Lord Rexford by the marina.”
Clay got there pronto. Despite the early hour—just past eight—the path along the bay was filled with joggers, bikers, and dog walkers. Ducks paddled in the pond, bobbing for their morning meal.
Clay got right to it the moment he reached Fernsby’s side. “She said you already guessed who she was, even before Hugo Lewis’s press conference.” He’d sent the link to Dane, which meant, naturally, that Fernsby would have seen it too.
The dog stretched his flexible lead to its max, running here, sniffing there, piddling his scent in different spots. But as soon as Fernsby clucked his tongue and said in a stern voice, “Lord Rexford,” the dog was back at his heel. Fernsby had a way with animals and people.
Then he answered Clay’s implied question. “It was in the way she described Charlene Ballard’s sculpture. It’s what an artist would say. When the two of you had your tiff over how to handle criticism of an artist’s work, again, the things she said didn’t come from an assistant but an artist.”
Clay smacked his forehead and muttered under his breath, “I should’ve seen it. I’m an idiot.”
“You were falling in love, sir. Lovers see only what they want to see.”
Maybe he should have argued, insisted he wasn’t falling in love. But why bother? It was the truth. “But she lied to me.” He couldn’t help feeling the betrayal yet again.
Fernsby sidestepped a bicycle ridden by an older lady. “I’m sure that’s the way you—and even the lovely Saskia—see it. But I believe it’s more of a gray area. She omitted .”
Clay dug in. “She lied when she said she wasn’t an artist. That her art wasn’t good enough. That she gave it up to be an assistant.”
“That’s because Saskia Oliver doesn’t paint. Only San Holo paints. San Holo is the artist, not Saskia.”
“It’s not like she has a split personality,” Clay scoffed.
Fernsby turned the tables. “Have you shared absolutely everything with her?” Fernsby paused only a beat, not giving Clay a chance to say that of course he had.
Especially when he hadn’t. “Have you told her about your parents? Have you told her they are why you’ve never had a long-term love affair?
Why you date only arm candy? Because your parents’ exclusive kind of love was too much for you to handle? ”
Clay stopped in the middle of the path, a bike’s bell clanging as the rider veered around him. He could only stare wide-eyed at Fernsby. “How do you know that?”
Fernsby flapped an airy hand. “I am Fernsby. I know everything.”
Of course he did. That’s why Clay had called him.
“Allow me to tell you a story, sir.”
“Is this anything like the mille-feuille story?”
“No,” he said. “This is a love story.”
A love story? Fernsby? Impossible. Then again, Fernsby did love his mille-feuille.
“I once knew a woman when I was a very young man.”
Clay tried not to gape. Fernsby had never been young. He’d hatched just as he was.
“She didn’t lie to me.” The staid man walked on as he spoke. “But she held back an important bit of information. When I learned of this omission —” He used the word purposefully. “—I couldn’t forgive her. Like you, I was young, and I thought it was a lie. That omission broke me.”
Clay recognized the pain in the man’s voice, even after thirty or forty or fifty years.
“At the time, I believed I would never forgive her. It was only later, after many, many years to ponder, that I forgave her in my heart. I finally accepted why she hadn’t told me.
” He put a hand to his heart. “I hold no animosity. If she were here today, I would tell her that.” He paused for another long moment.
“If she were here today…” He trailed off.
Clay heard the unspoken words. If this mystery woman were here today, Fernsby would have been on her like San Holo’s paint on an empty wall. “You’re saying I shouldn’t waste years? I should forgive Saskia now?”
Fernsby’s touch of melancholy fluttered off into the breezy day. “Exactly, sir. Get over yourself and don’t waste precious time.”
Clay knew what he had to do. Right now. Without wasting another minute.
As she turned onto her block, Saskia saw Clay pacing outside her cute Victorian in Haight-Ashbury. She didn’t even question how he’d discovered where she lived.
After her night out, spray paint covered her clothes. All she wanted to do was run into his arms, not caring whether anything got on him.
But her feet seemed planted in concrete, her Doc Martens nailed to the ground. All she could say was, “You’re here.”
That gave her such hope.
Until he said, “I canceled the mural.”
Everything in her—the guilt, the fear, the love, the hope—all fell to the sidewalk, smashing to pieces as though they were made of glass.
“Of course you did.” A shudder ran through her entire body. “I’ve already thought over my list of good—” She air-quoted. “—reasons for what I did. But there’s another thing I should have said.”
A pair of lovers skirted around them, releasing their hands only to entwine them again once they’d passed. Clay stared at her, waited.
That made it all the harder. But she had to tell him. “I love you.” Her heart crumpled like a piece of paper balled in her fist when he remained silent. But she went on. “Not just a little. All the love there is in the world—that’s what I feel for you.”
Was that the slightest uptick of his lips? Or her imagination? “True love?” he murmured. “Is that what you’re talking about?”
Everything inside her came back to life because he hadn’t walked away. He’d come looking for her.
Now, as he looked at her, waiting, she felt they might fall into place, despite all the things that were still a mess. “The truest love there is,” she whispered.
Suddenly, though it seemed as if neither of them had moved, they were in each other’s arms, kissing with lips and tongues and their whole bodies. It was unlike any kiss that had ever come before. Because this one was honest and pure and sexy all at the same time.
She heard clapping and stepped back to see the lovers applauding and smiling for them. Then the two men wrapped their arms around each other’s shoulders and strolled off down the road, renewed by that brief display of love.
Clay drew her to the front stoop of her Victorian and pulled her down beside him.
She smelled so damn good. She tasted even better.
Better than his memories of everything they’d done together.
“I came down on you for what you didn’t tell me, but I played just as big a part in nearly destroying everything between us. ”
“No, you didn’t,” she said immediately, taking the blame when Clay knew it lay equally with him.
He squeezed her hand. “You told me all along you wouldn’t reveal San Holo’s identity.
I just wouldn’t accept it. But what I’m talking about goes back to my family.
I never told you about my parents.” He’d told her Gareth’s history, Dylan’s history, but he’d never talked about his own.
“They died when I was a freshman in high school. They were trapped in an avalanche while skiing.”
She stroked his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
He kissed her knuckles in gratitude. “They left behind a lot of debt, and Dane and Ava had to take care of the rest of us.” He smiled, thinking of all they’d done.
“But in a way, my brother and sister were like helicopter parents, sacrificing themselves to do everything for us. They did all they could to help us reach our goals. If we hurt, they wanted to fix it. Ultimately, I did the same thing with my artists, needing to fix everything for them. Not that what Dane and Ava did was bad. They were the best, and I’ll always be grateful to them.
But I wanted to emulate them. Until you showed me how wrong that was, that I had to let people grow.
Ava and Dane, even though they looked out for us, they still let us grow. ”
Saskia gazed up at him with all her love in her eyes. “You did the very best for your artists. You weren’t bad for them. You provided workspace, materials, sales support.”
He shook his head gently. “I don’t think what I did was bad.
But you taught me a better way, and I’m grateful for that.
But let me get back to my parents. Dane and Ava made sure we had everything we needed because our parents never did.
” His chest felt suddenly constricted. “Their love was so exclusive that it could contain no one else, not even us. I thought that’s what love was supposed to be like.
Exclusive. Consuming. And totally transparent about everything.
That’s why I’ve always avoided it. I had so many goals that I couldn’t let love get in the way. Then I met you.”
She looked at him with tears brimming in her eyes. “And I met you.”