I don’t know if I’ve ever seen something so beautiful that it took my breath away. I’m speechless, allowing my finger to gently run over the carved curves of the statue.
It’s of a couple, but only from their waist up. They clutch one another so delicately, so fiercely, that it’s obvious they’re in love. You look at them and it seems like something is trying to keep them apart, but they’re clinging to each other so tightly, like they won’t let anything come between them. The way her back arches, it appears as if some outside force you can’t see is pulling her from him.
“This is stunning,” I whisper, running my finger along their outstretched arms.
“You think?” Camden keeps his voice poised, but I can feel his gaze hot on me.
“Why isn’t it on display out there? It would sell immediately.”
“The artist doesn’t want to sell it.”
I look at him in shock. Who wouldn’t want to sell this masterpiece? I don’t know anything about art, but it’s so intricate I have to imagine so many people would want it. “Do you know why?”
Camden swallows, his eyes staying locked with mine. I don’t know what’s more perfect to look at, the slopes and planes of the statue or the slopes and planes of his face. His features are so perfect that they deserve to be forever carved in stone.
I forgot I’d even asked him a question, too focused on tracing his cheekbones with my gaze, when he speaks up. “No.” He sighs, looking away from me to the statue in front of me. “I don’t know why.”
“Well, I think you should get them to change their mind.”
His shoulder brushes against mine as he takes a step next to me. He smells different than any other man I’ve been around. It’s expensive but earthy and warm. It’s a smell that I don’t think I could ever grow tired of. It’s overpowering but in a good way. A way that slowly overwhelms your senses but not in the way where you’d get a headache.
“What about this makes you think it should be sold?”
I feel disarmed having him this close to me. Every other time he’s been near, we’ve been in the middle of fighting. It feels off to have him so close and things be civil between us. At least as civil as things could ever be between me and him.
I look back at the statue, welcoming the reprieve of getting lost in the perfect proportions that are his face.
“The moment I saw this, I could feel the emotion between the two of them. I think the little details of the statue add up to depict this beautiful and tragic love story. At least that’s what I gathered from it.” I shrug, trying to act nonchalant. “But what do I know about art?”
He looks at me—and I mean really looks at me. He stares at me so intently that it makes me shift uncomfortably on my feet. It seems like time stops around us as we stare at one another. “That’s exactly what I got from it.”
I rip my gaze from his because it feels wrong to be so close to him, to not be fighting—for me to want to inch even closer to him. “From far away, you’d think the two of them are in love and are happy, but that doesn’t seem to be the whole story once you get closer and start taking in all of the details.”
I look at where, somehow on such a small scale, you can see the way the fingertips dig into skin. I marvel at the attention to detail of the artist. The way you can tell they cling to each other like their lives depend on it.
Camden is silent. So silent that my cheeks begin to flush because I wonder if I’m making any kind of sense at all. My skin feels hot as I push stray pieces of hair from my face, needing to give my body something to do once I realize I’ve been rambling.
“Sorry,” I mumble, feeling embarrassed for the first time in my life. “I’m probably not making any sense.”
“No.” I wish I knew how he kept his voice so cool and collected. It’s smooth like velvet, wrapping around me. “You make perfect sense. What makes you think that?”
“It’s the desperate way they cling together. They grasp at one another too tightly to be fully happy. Something is ripping them apart. I wish I knew what…”
“What if the sculptor didn’t want you to know what it was? Maybe they wanted you to come up with the answers yourself. Maybe they wanted to make you think about what things in life could rip you apart from someone you love so deeply.”
An uninvited thought creeps into my mind. Has Camden ever loved somebody like this? Has anybody ever loved him? He doesn’t seem like the type to get involved. He seems too selfish to love someone, but he’s so breathtaking I could see why women could fall for him before he ever uttered a word to them—then they’d learn about his horrid personality, and hopefully, they’d run for the hills.
But has anyone gotten through his rough exterior?
“Tell me this isn’t the time that you shut your mouth for once.” His verbal jab brings me back to my senses. I’m thankful for the snarky tone to his voice, for things to go back to normal between us. I was too far deep in wondering why Camden is the way he is.
“Just when I think you might not be the biggest asshole I’ve ever met, you prove me wrong.”
He gives me a wolfish grin. “Come to New York. You’ll meet men far worse than me, shortcake.”
“Yeah, I’ll pass. You’re a dick for no reason. I have no desire to meet anyone worse than you.”
“What if I apologized?” His words come as a shock. I can’t imagine him apologizing. I don’t know if I want him apologizing. It’s easier to hate him, to remind myself that even through the charm he sometimes shows me, deep down he’s an asshole. At least, that’s what I choose to believe.
“I wouldn’t believe it.”
He nods, looking back at the sculpture in front of us. “It’s time I get back to my opening.”
My eyes go wide because I’d totally forgotten why we were here in the first place. I’m supposed to be serving food. He’s supposed to be selling art—even though the most stunning piece I’ve seen tonight is the one not for sale in front of us.
“Right.” I rush to get out. In my attempts to scurry out of the office, I almost run right into him. We both move to the left at the same moment, our bodies narrowly colliding with one another.
Camden grabs me by the arms to steady me. He opens his mouth to say something, but I beat him to it.
“Before you say anything, that was your fault, not mine.”
A chuckle rumbles deep in his chest. “I was going to say thank you for saving me tonight. People might be talking about the food more than the art.”
The fact that he’s not being a total jerk disarms me. “Yeah, of course.” I fumble on my words, not knowing how to respond to him. I was expecting an insult, for him to comment on how I ran into him again.
I don’t say anything else. I book it out of the room as my mind races about what just happened.
Did Camden Hunter just say something nice to me?
