Villa Blue (20 page)

“Need to figure out the other pieces of the puzzle first, otherwise Villa Blue won’t hold value,” Aiden explained. “Then we’ll figure out a way to either get our father to drop the offer to Donatella, or to use it to our advantage and let him—and his money—in on the promenade deal.”

“Sneaky.” Her mind spun, trying to keep up with the moving pieces. “Is this the way you guys usually operate? It sounds like a chess game. I’d be nervous, but none of you seem nervous, you seem…” She scanned them again. “Eager.”

“It’s chess and high stakes poker all rolled into one,” Logan said then swallowed his last sip. “Let the wild ride begin.”

She let out a breath. “I don’t usually like wild rides but since I met this guy, I’ve been jumping off cliffs and flying through trees at night. I generally prefer to paint cliffs and trees from afar, with my feet firmly on the ground.”

Aiden planted a teasing kiss on her lips. “You better buckle your seatbelt then. This could get bumpy.”

“You say that like it appeals to you.”

“The bumpy roads are the fun ones.”

Chapter Fifteen

The following week gave Ivy a painter’s view into how the James boys worked. Appropriately armed with a paintbrush, she studied them from her favorite perch as they ran business from the shaded arches of the veranda.

Aiden placed calls and had what Ivy considered a fun habit of standing in the middle of an archway, staring out to the sea while he talked. Emmett held court from behind the outdoor table he’d turned into his desk, and Logan chatted away on his phone with his feet propped up on a nearby table.

The three of them made quite the picture, and Ivy painted that picture, capturing three businessmen in the thick of it.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help, but business, specifically the chess/poker part of things, wasn’t her area of expertise and she had her own business to tend to anyway.

She’d updated her website with photos of her latest work, answered questions via email with a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle for a piece about her show, and she’d responded to an email from The California Sunday Magazine letting them know she’d be honored to provide an interview for a feature story touting her as an up-and-coming California-based artist.

Of course, the idea of doing an in-person interview made her pulse palpitate.

She knew interviews and public relations in general were necessary, but for Ivy, they were a necessary evil. They relied upon words—verbal communications—and her more comfortable medium was that of the visual variety. If she could speak only through her art and leave the words for others, she’d be a happy camper.

Though, she thought idly as she saturated her brush with Cobalt Blue paint, the jittery palpitations were somewhat calmed by the blissful fact that she could conduct business from a hill high above a harbor, complete with salty breezes, swooping birds, and a sexy man who, even with the slightest of grins, made her heart thump eagerly.

As she was working on a new style, a vivid combination of rhythmic brush strokes, her head tilted to view the current experiment from a different angle. While her paintings generally bled over into abstract expressionism, this movement of paint—bright and translucent—gave life to not just what
she saw, but expressed how she saw it in a living, breathing way.

Her subjects—Aiden, Emmett, and Logan—were each handsome in their own way. Sturdy, focused, thoughtful. As a pack, they were easily comfortable in their surroundings, but they also managed to thrust forward, out into the world. Strength and vitality filled the painting, along with a buzz of mischief that rode through like a gust of wind an outsider couldn’t help but lean into.

Ivy was filling in the final impulsive lines of shadows, popping the colors even further, as she wondered what she’d call the painting.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Donatella’s white dishtowel waving through the air.

“
Bella
!
Bella
! I come in peace!”

Laughing, Ivy took one more glance at the painting and motioned for Donatella to approach.

“I get to look? Sex has turned you into someone else!”

“Sex has done no such thing. Well, maybe. I’ll have to think about that. But for now, I’m almost finished with this so yes, come look. What do you think?”

Donatella slapped a hand against her bosom and sucked in a slow gasp. “Oh, this is… Villa Blue has never been more beautiful. There is life in here, life all throughout. You can feel it pulsing.
Vivo.
”

“Yes,” Ivy said, eyes brightening. “That’s what I’ll call it.
Vivo
. Perfect.”

“It is perfect. Your work, it has changed from when you arrived here.”

“It has, hasn’t it? I was looking through pictures on my website that I posted of paintings I did when I first moved here and I saw it too. It’s like I’ve become more of me, and my paintings have become more of me too.” Ivy looked at Donatella. “Thank you for noticing. It means the world to me.”

“You’ve found your heart, your paintings show it. It’s
evidente
.”

Ivy beamed, speechless, then cleared her throat before she was swamped by any more emotion. The fallout with her mother had provided enough of that. And it struck her that being understood—by Aiden, by Donatella—warmed her from the inside out and in ways she’d never expected.

“So what brings you out here? The view of those three? And yes, I know you well enough to know what view you prefer,” Ivy told her conspiratorially, shifting gears to keep from letting loose a tear or two. Or three, she thought, wondering how she’d gotten lucky enough to know and adore Donatella.

“The view of their backsides, preferably.” Donatella let out a luscious sigh. “And those three have backsides that would send any woman’s lashes aflutter. But no, I’m out here because I can’t sit still. I have a check in my pocket worth more money than I’ve ever held in my hands. And I have three handsome men on my veranda working to save Parpadeo even though a week ago I barely knew it needed saving. Fast rumors, big money, and contracts constructed to be confusing.” She waved the white towel through the air in surrender. “I give up. It’s my time to retire,
bella
. And I’m ready for it.

“But I worry, I do, that if their father is part of it, that he will turn this place into something
opulento
and unfriendly. I’m sure it would be beautiful, but it’s been my home for decades. Maybe it’s selfish of me to want it to be home for people who care for it with their heart as I have.

“Ivy, I want so much for you to have it. You love it like I do, more than my niece and nephews, but I can’t afford to just give it to you. Know that I wish that I could.”

“Oh,” Ivy took a small step back to get perspective. “I’m…flattered. No, that’s wrong. I’m stunned. You mean everything to me, Donatella. You were here for me from the beginning when I arrived. But I can’t run this place. I don’t have it in me to run an Inn.”

“You have art in you.”

Ivy wanted to kiss Donatella so she did, a quick peck on the cheek.

“What was that for,
bellissima
?”

“For understanding so easily. For understanding me.”

“Then help me understand something else,” Donatella said as she heartily rubbed her hand on Ivy’s back. “Why haven’t you told me how you feel about him?”

“About Aiden?”

“Unless you’re having sex with the other brothers as well—in which case, I bow to you—yes, Aiden.”

Ivy chuckled as she glanced over to where Aiden leaned against the side of an archway, looking out in the distance as he talked on his phone.

“Aiden and I haven’t discussed anything like that. We also haven’t discussed what would happen to me and my studio if he and his brothers buy Villa Blue. We haven’t really discussed us. If there is an
us
. I don’t really know. Plus, you were the one who told me to just have sex with him and not get involved.”

“Women get messy when they’re in love. But you, you’re not messy. I see you two together everyday, see the way you are together. Why would there not be an
us
?”

“I don’t know.” Ivy pinched her shoulders up in a shrug. “I suppose I’ve been so focused in the moment, so focused on my gallery show, that I haven’t really wanted to worry about anything beyond that. And…” She let out a terse breath. “To be honest, I don’t want to lose myself in anything other than my art right now. This sounds crazy, but it scares me a little, thinking about making plans with a man. I feel so good being just me.”

Ivy wanted to add that she didn’t want to be like her mother, setting aside her desires because of a man, a family, but the words didn’t come because they would’ve been false. She was the opposite of her mother in some ways, but exactly like her mother in others. As she’d painted her way through her feelings, she’d come to understand that their commonality was their courage and drive to do what they knew to be right.

“You know what I say?” Donatella tossed the towel over her shoulder.

“What do you say?”

“I say this: If it feels good to make plans, then make plans. If it feels
more
good to
not
make plans, then make no plans.” Donatella’s face moved through a multitude of gestures as she spoke.

“That’s what you say, huh?”

“It applies to anything, really.” Now she motioned with her hands to a rhythm as she spoke. “If it feels good to make fettuccine, make fettuccine. If it feels
more
good
not
to make fettuccine, make no fettuccine. Find what feels good and do that. And if those around you are hungry because you didn’t feel like making fettuccine, then oh well. They make toast. Everyone knows how to make toast.”

Ivy watched Donatella’s motions and mannerisms then laughed, full and round. “You’re one of my favorite people in the world.”

“Same goes. Want some fettuccine for dinner? Suddenly it’s sounding good.”

“Sounds great. I’ll let the boys know.”

“You’re busy.” Donatella fluttered her hand through the air. “I’ll tell them,” she said as she sauntered off, leaving Ivy laughing in the breeze.

“Ivy?”

“Shower! Come on in!”

Aiden decided that was the best thing he’d heard all day.

“Stop right there,” Ivy announced, seeing his shadow through the shower curtain. “I told Donatella I’d help her with dinner. We’ll play later.”

“You’re going to make me watch you take a shower? You know that’s a certified form of torture, right?” Aiden told her as he leaned against the pedestal sink and watched the silhouette of her body move through a myriad of motions under a stream of water.

She slid the curtain aside just enough to poke out her soapy, smiling face. “That’s just a side benefit.”

Gliding the curtain back into place and standing under the spray of warmth, she kept talking. “How’d it go today?”

“Pretty well,” he told her, imagining sudsy bubbles slinking down her petite figure. “Pretty damn well, actually. Our offer on the last piece of real estate in the center of town was accepted.”

She pulled the curtain back again, peeked out. “You’re kidding. The three of you are buying almost a whole town. Who does such a thing? I’m excited for you. And the town.” She closed the curtain and, as she thought about what it all meant, she lathered up her right leg to shave. “What about Villa Blue?”

While he hadn’t been terribly happy about the curtain between them when he’d arrived, he was glad for it now. “Don’t know yet. My father won’t take my calls but since he can’t fire all three of us at the same time without making a mess of things, he’s still talking to Emmett and Logan. He said he’d hear us out. We’re going to propose we all go in together on the properties in town. As much as I was hoping we could do this on our own without him, his participation could alleviate some of the pressure. We’re going to ask him to put the money he offered Donatella toward the town project. Then Logan, Emmett, and I will make an offer on Villa Blue with money we would otherwise have to put toward the town.”

“What if your father says no?”

“We’ll figure out a way to get a yes.”

“Of course you will. Well, that really is quite a day. You guys move fast. The three of you have that much money?”

“Is there any other speed? And we have our inheritances from when we each turned eighteen. None of us have really spent much of it except for school and some income properties in New York, but nothing major.”

She finished shaving the first leg, moved on to the next. “You have a funny sense of what makes for a major expense. When will you meet with your father?”

“We got a meeting set for Friday.”

“Friday. You’re flying to New York then?”

“Yeah,” he said as she turned off the water with a squeak of the spigot. “I’m going to miss your show. I’m sorry.”

She poked her arm out and reached for the nearby towel but didn’t slide the curtain back. “It’s okay. I mean, I’d like you to be there of course, but getting the money for town and Villa Blue is important.”

He took a generously deep breath. She was so damn calm and understanding, it was almost maddening. “I really am sorry, Ivy. I want to be there for you.”

Finally she drew open the curtain and was wrapped in a towel with her hair dripping, her eyes wonderfully wide and smiling. “Hearing that is nice. And I know. It’s all right.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

Her eyebrows raised as she stepped out of the tub. “Oh yeah? That sounds fun.”

Aiden pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her.

“You’ll get wet.”

“Oh yeah? That sounds fun,” he said, echoing her words with a grin.

She put a palm on his chest and nudged him away. “I have to get ready and help make fettuccine.”

“You sure you’re not mad?”

Ivy reached for her lotion, squirted a few pumps in her hand and began spreading it on her arms. “If you asked me to go to New York, I’d say no because I have a gallery show. And I wouldn’t expect you to get mad. I have a show, you have a meeting.”