Bring Me Fire (9 page)

Chapter
17

She woke up the next morning in a bad mood, which was not improved when the first pot of coffee she made came out too strong and the second too weak. Finally, she gave up and went out to get a cup before Conner came to pick her up. He kept up a constant stream of chatter, which only grated on her nerves, even though everything he was talking about she’d normally find humorous, or, at the very least, innocuous. As they cruised across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge, though, it took all her willpower not to look over at him and scream,
Shut up
! When they got to the house, she simply slid out of the car and walked inside, eager to immerse herself in work and try to let her agitation toward Ashley subside.

But being around all that artwork only reminded her of being at
Prelude
, and Aidan, with his open, trusting smile compared to Ashley with her vengeful rumors. Sky was walking out of the front sitting room, thinking about this, when her foot caught on the corner of one of the wooden-framed canvases that was stacked by the door. She tripped, but caught herself at the last minute, and also managed to keep the whole stack from toppling over.

"
Fuck!" she said shrilly, as she leaned the paintings back against the wall. She glanced up and saw that Josh had just come down the stairs and was looking at her. "I mean, um, sorry." She looked down at the ground.

"Is everything all right?" Josh asked. "You seem upset."

"
Oh yeah, everything’s fine," Sky said. For a moment she considered leaving it at that, but then she found herself talking without "Apparently, everyone in the entire art world thinks I’m a big whore, but yeah, everything is fine."

He gave her a confused look.
"Excuse me?"

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair.
"Again, I’m sorry. I just happened to run into an old schoolmate of mine yesterday and she acts like she doesn’t want to see me, and then the story comes out that my old boss is telling everyone I use sex to get what I want."

Josh smiled.
"Smart girl."

"
No!" Without thinking, she reached out and whacked him on the shoulder. His arm felt solid and smooth under the sleeve of his shirt. "I
haven’t
been doing that. Sorry for hitting you."

"
You’re full of apologies today."

"
I just find the whole thing infuriating. What is her problem? Why can’t she leave me alone? I’m not working for her anymore, so why does she feel the need to go out and start these rumors? Isn’t it enough that she doesn’t have to see me anymore? She can pretend I don’t exist."

"
It sounds like she’s jealous. Jealousy can make people do funny things."

"
She has nothing to be jealous of! She owns her own gallery. She’s got a great husband. I’m just some lowly college grad who will probably never get it together enough to have my own gallery. That’s the whole truth. And I hate that there are all these people now who think something about me that isn’t the truth!"

Josh turned her to face him and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Sky. You need to calm down."

"
Seriously? I should just not care about this?"

"
People are going to say and think whatever they want. Get used to it. It doesn’t really matter. You know you didn’t sleep with all those people." He gave her a coy look. "Or did you?"

"
No, I didn’t!"

"
I wouldn’t judge you if you did."

She was suddenly aware of the weight of his hands on her, as though he were anchoring her, holding her down. The warmth from his palms radiated from her shoulders down her arms, across her chest.

"I..." She looked at his face, less than a foot away from her own. Their bodies were not touching, but again, she was almost certain she could feel the energy in the space between them, tingling and vibrant.

"
Do you know why I brought you back," he asked in a low voice.

She swallowed.
"Because you didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of the interview process all over again?"

A faint smile touched the corners of his mouth.
"Because of your attitude. Because you’ve got this who-gives-a-fuck attitude that I find extremely attractive. And also because
you
are extremely attractive and that alone is enough for someone to be jealous of. So I want you to be a big girl and employ the attitude that I find so sexy and not care what anyone says about you. Got it?"

Sky nodded.
"Got it."

"
If someone is going to expend all that energy to say things about you that aren’t true, you’re clearly a threat to them. Don’t think that I didn’t deal with a whole bunch of that shit myself back when I was making movies. It’s tedious, yes, but it’s just one way of measuring how much power someone thinks you have. You have power, Ashley knows it, and she wants to take that away from you. Don’t let her."

"
I don’t feel like I have power. I feel like an untalented moron."

"
Shh." He picked one hand up off her shoulder and touched his forefinger to her lips. "Conner made it explicitly clear to you that I didn’t want anyone going into that room at the end of the hallway. To which you didn’t give a fuck and went anyway. Ashley is telling people things about you that aren’t true. I’d like you to continue not to care and just let it go. It might be the hot topic of the moment, but there will be something else tomorrow, or the next day, that everyone will be talking about." He pulled his finger away from her mouth. "Come with me."

She followed him up the stairs and down the hallway, stealing sideways glances at his profile as they walked. The rumors that Ashley had been spreading were now the farthest thing from her mind. What was going on? Was she imagining this? Had Josh just had his finger pressed again
st her lips? Had he really said that he found her attractive?

He took her down to the end of the hall and turned left. They stopped at the door.

"Go ahead and open it," he said after a pause, before smiling. "Don't worry, it's unlocked. You won't need a paperclip this time."

She turned the knob and the door opened. They went into the room and she was once again struck by the talent of the artists who had produced such wonderful images.

"Tell me which one is your favorite," he said.

She stood there and surveyed each wall, looked at each painting and sculpture. Her body felt electrified, and he was standing so close to her she could feel the heat coming off of him.

"That one," she said finally, pointing to the graphite painting of the two men and the woman.

"
Tell me what you like about."

She stared at the image.
"Well, it’s beautifully done. The artist has excellent technique. But more than that, it makes me want to be there. It makes me want to be that woman. Or either of the men. I want to feel what they’re feeling. I guess, in a way, I kind of do, just looking at the image."

"
It’s one of my favorites, too," Josh said. "It’s an original, done by Seamus McManus, the Scottish painter. This one was done in 1914, at a time when it wasn’t proper to depict situations like this. A woman being pleased by two men."

"
Seamus McManus?" Sky said. She vaguely remembered reading about him in her
Art, History, & Maps
class she’d taken freshman year. "The cartographer?"

"
That’s the one. I see you’ve done your homework."

"
I took a class on history and maps. I remember seeing a few of his 16
th
century map drawings. He was very good." She looked back at the painting. "But this is better."

"
He was a very talented artist. I was lucky to be able to get this piece; there aren’t many originals left of his work." He took a deep breath. "There are few things that make me happier than finding rare works of art. I love the thrill of initially finding the work, then making the bid on it if you’re at an auction. It's tense when you think that you might not actually get it, that you might never see it ever again. That it could be there, so close yet someone else might get it before you."

"
It sounds exhilarating."

"
Oh, it is."

"
But..." Sky frowned. "I mean, isn’t part of art sharing it? Letting other people also appreciate the beauty that you’ve found?"

"
That is some people’s interpretation of it. Not necessarily mine."

"
Like with this room. You’ve got all these amazing pieces and you keep it all locked away. No one else is ever going to see it."

"
I might like it better that way. And it’s also not true, because here you are, standing in this room, seeing it. It’s not a bad thing to keep parts of your life closed off to others."

"
I’d think it might get kind of lonely, though."

He looked at her sharply when she said this and she wondered if she’d hit a nerve.
Is he lonely
? It seemed impossible that someone like him could be - he’d been out of Hollywood for years now and still seemed to have legions of adoring fans - albeit, semi-maniacal ones such as her sister, but really, how difficult would it be for him to find people to hang out with?

"
Being alone is not the terrible thing that some people would like you to believe it is," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I spent many years of my life with absolutely no privacy. I couldn’t even go out and get a cup of coffee without someone wanting to take my picture or sign something or ask me all these really personal questions. Did I have a girlfriend? No? Was I looking for one? Or if I did - who was she? How long had we been together? Would she care if I slept with someone else? Just these inappropriate things that you would never say to someone, except people were saying them to me all the time. And then you’ve got people who want to know you either because they think you’re going to be exactly like the character you portrayed in the movie or because they want to have their own little brush with fame and it gets to the point where it’s really difficult to trust anyone, to know if what anyone says is genuine or just some way to try to get something from you."

"
Wow." Sky nodded slowly. "I never thought of it like that."

"
Why would you? It’s really only one of those things you think about if it’s actually happening to you. Some people love it. It makes them feel empowered, it makes them feel worthy. People want to be around you, to be liked by you, people are envious of what you might have. And then for others, like me, it is just really hard to deal with."

"
So that’s why you dropped off the radar?"

"
It was the only way I could get back any semblance of the sort of life I wanted for myself. I happen to come from a pretty well off family, and my mother decided that acting was something I should do because she thought I was a cute kid. And she didn’t have to work, so she had plenty of time to basically become my acting coach, my agent, my publicist. It was her thing, and then it ended up taking off more than even she expected. But she was thrilled, of course. She was living vicariously through me, and since she was the one who pushed me in that direction, got me started in it, kept me in it, it was, in a way, like a triumph for her as well. Not just because her son was famous, but because she had played such a big role in making it happen." He smiled a little, shaking his head. "She’d want to go out in public with me, like if I had an errand to do or something, just because she’d want someone to take our picture and hopefully end up in a magazine. And when that did happen, she’d obsess over the picture. For hours. I’m not exaggerating. She’d practically take a magnifying glass to the thing. So I’m sure you can imagine how thrilled she was when I told her I was giving it up."

Sky grimaced.
"Yeah, that’s a conversation I’m glad I didn’t have to hear."

"
We don’t speak anymore, actually, my mother and I."

"
You don’t?"

"
No. It’s been years. Which is too bad, I realize this, but that’s just kind of the way it has to be. She can’t accept the fact that I’m not interested in that way of life and she feels personally offended, like I’ve done something to her or rejected her in some way."

"
I’m really sorry, Josh. That sucks."

"
You might be wondering why I’m telling you all of this," he said, gazing at Seamus McManus’s painting in front of them. "I don’t usually disclose this type of information to people, but for some reason, I feel compelled to explain to you why I’m the way I am. I want you to know there’s a reason for all of this."

Sky turned so she was facing him, close enough that if she extended her arm slightly, she’d be touching him. She wanted to touch him, she realized, badly, but she didn’t. She wondered suddenly, when the last time was he’d been with someone. If he really had such a hard time trusting people, maybe he hadn’t been with anyone in
awhile. Maybe this was why he had this room, to satisfy that aspect of his life. This room, she realized, was about beauty, yes, but there was also pain, the pain that comes with being committed to living your life a certain way even if that meant closing yourself off to certain things.