Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
He laughed, soft yet full of derision. “Maybe I encouraged him even more because of how much they discouraged him. I wanted him to sell and be a great success. I knew his art was worth that.”
“You gave him what his parents couldn’t.”
He shook his head. “I pushed him too hard. I helped get that show together for him.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “But the critics absolutely trashed him, said his work was just a copy of much better artists. That if he wanted to be like van Gogh, he should just cut off his ear and be done with it. It was excruciating.”
She leaned into him, rubbed her cheek against his. “I’m so sorry. That must have been so horrible for him. And for you.”
She felt him swallow, how hard it was going down, and his voice choked as he said, “I found him in his room with some pill bottles lined up. He hadn’t taken anything. I just saw those bottles all in a row. I don’t know where he got them or what the pills actually were.”
“But he didn’t take them. You stopped him.”
Again, he shook his head. “Maybe he never intended to. But it hit me like a gut punch. I kept thinking how I’d pushed him to put his stuff out there. I allowed him to be subjected to what they threw at him.”
She felt everything right along with him. She understood Gareth’s despair, how badly it hurt when you weren’t allowed to be what you needed to be. She’d gone the starving artist route, while Gareth had left his art behind. That must have ripped him in half. It had ripped Clay apart too.
Then she saw the truth. She pulled back enough for him to see her face as she spoke. “That’s why you built your warehouses for artists. To give them space, to help them find their own place. Because of Gareth.”
He let out a breath. “I saw him totally trashed, and his parents adding fuel to the fire, telling him that if he’d listened to them, he’d never have been so hurt.” Something glimmered in his eyes—not tears, maybe just the pain he’d felt all those years ago. “If I could have given a spot to Gareth, I would have. But he never considered it. He threw out all his art supplies long ago. That’s why I thought he’d destroyed all his paintings.” He stroked her face. “I never would have known if you hadn’t talked to him.”
He’d begun the conversation by saying she was amazing. But in the circle of his arms, hearing his story, she knew he was the amazing one. He had loved his friend so much that he’d built warehouses all over the country for artists. He’d used the money he received for his nutrition app to start his platform for them. Even though he’d thought his friend would never use a studio, he’d built them anyway.
Her first impression of a man using artists for his own gain had been completely and totally wrong. He’d created all of this with the purest of hearts. Out of friendship. He wasn’t a user. He was a giver.
Her mind raced. How could she incorporate that into the mural? How could she show this community of artists? It wasn’t just the artists themselves, it was all the people who believed in them too. It was friends like Clay.
In that moment, she so badly wanted to reveal herself as San Holo. She’d hated lying to him when she was sleeping with him. She hated it even more after seeing the kind of man he truly was.
Yet she’d trapped herself in this web. Her anonymity was San Holo’s trademark. It was the artist’s mystique. It also protected her from men like Hugo Lewis. But Clay was nothing like Hugo. He wouldn’t steal from her. But her secret had tied her up with no way out. She couldn’t tell Clay without Clay telling Dylan. From there, it would grow, the way releasing that image of her latest work on social media had grown.
She wouldn’t be able to control it.
And Clay would hate her for her lies.
Maybe he felt some of her inner turmoil, because he reached up to caress her cheek. “In some ways, you and Gareth are alike. He didn’t think his art was good enough. Neither do you.”
She saw the similarities—their unacceptable art, parents who didn’t believe in them. But there was a bigger difference. She had believed in her art. Her parents had disowned her for it. She wanted to laugh, an incredibly sad laugh. Not only had they disowned her, they’d never wanted her in the first place. She’d been an accident. They’d even thought about getting rid of her—then had the nerve to tell her how grateful she should be that they hadn’t.