Sienna swallowed. Her stomach churned. Her eyes prickled, hot and stinging with tears.
Thomas shrugged. “Just something to think about.”
Standing at her side, Zach shuffled his feet.
Thomas sighed. “I’ll send shipping details to you for the drawing later today.” He leaned forward, brushing his lips over her cheek. “It was wonderful to meet you, goddess. I hope I can again soon.”
“Thank you,” she croaked. Was that scratchy whisper really her voice?
“Zach.” Thomas smiled at Zach. “I’ll send you a copy of my complete works. Signed. Be nice to your sister, okay?”
“Okay.”
She looked at Zach, heart pounding fast. She’d never seen him so shell-shocked. She wanted to hug him. So she did. She slipped her arm around him as Thomas walked to a black Audi parked at the curb, climbed into it, and drove away.
Zach didn’t shrug her off. Instead, he wrapped his arm around her waist. “I have no freaking clue what to say right now.”
She snorted. “That makes two of us.”
He cast her a sideways look, his eyebrows dipped in a frown. And then wrapped his other arm around her and hugged her tighter than he ever had.
James reappeared—dressed completely—as she rested her cheek on Zach’s shoulder.
His gaze found hers, his expression unreadable, and then, with a smile that tore at something deep within her, he walked to his car.
She closed her eyes, hugging Zach tighter. She couldn’t watch him drive away.
She hated him. And yet she didn’t.
Not at all.
Talk about being messed up.
“He’s gone now.”
Lifting her head at Zach’s gentle statement, she couldn’t stop the stab of pain at the empty road.
“I said before living with you was too weird.” Zach released her, his chuckle wry. “But I’ve got to say, I think I’m getting used to it.”
A melancholy happiness swept through her at his compliment. “Thank you. I think.”
“So?” He gave the road stretching past their home his own long gaze. “Who are you going to paint for that portrait thingy now?”
She caught her bottom lip with her teeth. Who indeed?
“I think…” she began, letting her mind skim and skip over the inner well of her creativity she couldn’t function without. Shadows of ideas came to her. Forms and shapes and colors… “I think I’ll paint Dad. In his cell. In all his convicted-criminal, scoundrel glory.”
Zach chewed over the idea, his gaze distant as he no doubt tried to picture it. “Y’know what?” He nodded. “I like that idea.”
…
Glaring at the canvas, Sienna threw the number five sable brush into the jar of linseed oil. Why the hell couldn’t she get her father’s nose right?
“Zach?”
He didn’t answer. Not surprising really. He’d been up the whole night reading. A week after promising to send Zach signed copies of his entire backlist, a box had arrived from Thomas. In it were not only his already available books, but a copy of his next release, not due to hit the stores for another month.
Zach had damn near deafened her with his excited shout.
She’d hardly seen him since, lost as he was to the American author’s words.
Pulling a face at the silence, she made her way to the kitchen. If she couldn’t use Zach’s nose as a reference—shaped so like their father’s it was almost uncanny—she’d make a cup of tea and study the sketches she’d made when she’d last visited their dad in jail.
The nose bugged her. It was the only thing left to tackle. Once the nose was right, the painting was complete. She’d give it a couple of days to dry, and then wrap it up and have it delivered to the art gallery where the Barton was being held. After that, she’d get back to work on some of her other paintings.
Pouring water into the kettle, she stared out the window, cataloguing those other paintings in her mind.
Since the newspaper article about her and James appeared in the tabloid six weeks ago, she’d been inundated with offers for her work.
It seemed the exposure of the article had helped her career. Whether it was the hints she was the supposed girlfriend of James Dyson or not, she’d yet to lose a sale whenever she pointed out to every new buyer she wasn’t.