The Mistress(24)

“Oh my God, what happened to you? You look like you’ve been shipwrecked. Are you sick?” Marc had flaming red hair and freckles all over his face. He was tall and thin, and still looked about sixteen years old, although he was thirty-one, a year older than Theo. He had a fatal weakness for needy women and was always giving them the little money he had, and was constantly broke, but didn’t seem to care.

“I think I am sick,” Theo said in response to his question. “Or maybe I just lost my mind.” Marc sat down at the kitchen table across from him, took a bite of the other half of the sandwich, and made a face.

“Where did they find that? In an archaeological dig? It must date back to King Tut. Do you have anything decent to eat here?” Theo shook his head with a grin.

“I haven’t stopped to eat.”

“No wonder you’re nuts. Are you out of money? Do you need a loan?” Although he needed it more than most, Marc was his only friend who never borrowed money from him. He made enough to just squeak by, and their friendship was based on the bonds of childhood, not on who Theo was, which made him a trusted friend. “What are you working on that has you looking like that?”

“A portrait of a woman. I can’t get her out of my head.”

“A new romance?” The fiery redhead was intrigued. “What happened to Chloe?”

“We broke up. She wants a guy to pay her bills, which is her interpretation of romance. It seems so depressing to me. She wants to trade her body for a guy to pay her rent.” Marc looked thoughtful for a minute, pondering what Theo had said.

“She has a hell of a great body. How high is her rent?”

“Never mind. You need a woman with a heart, not a human calculator to have sex with. She’s not a lot of fun, and she complains all the time.” He hadn’t missed her for a minute since he walked out of her house. And he’d been working on the portrait of Natasha ever since.

“So who’s the hot new romance?” He looked more intrigued.

“I don’t have one. She’s my fantasy life dragging me through hell.”

“No wonder you look like shit. A figment of your imagination?”

“Sort of. She exists, but belongs to someone else. She’s a Russian guy’s mistress I saw at my mother’s restaurant. Beautiful girl. She’s in slavery to the man she lives with, who’s twice her age and keeps her locked up on his yacht.”

“A rich Russian guy?” Marc asked with interest. He met all his women in local bars. Theo’s fantasy woman sounded far more exotic, and way out of his reach.

“A very rich Russian guy. Possibly the richest, or one of them. He owns Russia or something like that. He’s got seventy-five crew on his boat.” Marc whistled at the image Theo had created.

“Are you sleeping with her? A guy who owns Russia might kill you for something like that.” Theo laughed at the thought.

“I’m sure he would. I’ve seen her twice in my life, and may never lay eyes on her again. All I know is her name.”

“And you’re in love with her?”

“I don’t know what I am. I’m obsessed. I’m trying to paint her, and I can’t get it right.”

“Why do you need to? Just make it up.”

“I’ll probably never see her again, except in the portrait I paint. I feel driven to paint her. I can’t get her out of my head.”

“This sounds very bad. Is she obsessed with you too?”

“Of course not. She’s perfectly happy with her Russian. Why wouldn’t she be? She’s Russian too, by the way.”

“You’re screwed. It doesn’t sound like you have a chance. You could always kidnap her, or stow away on the boat.” They both laughed at that. “What got you so wound up about her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the fact that she’s completely unattainable. She’s so damn nice, and she looks like a prisoner when she’s with him. He owns her, like an object he uses to show off.”

“Does she look miserable with him?”

“No, she doesn’t,” Theo said honestly. “I guess I’m just crazy to be thinking about her. She’s completely inaccessible.”

“This doesn’t sound like a good situation. Can I look at the painting?”

“It’s a mess, and the eyes are all wrong, I’ve been working on them for two days.” Marc wandered into the studio, and glanced at the painting on the easel, and then stopped and stared at it for a long time. “See what I mean?” Theo had followed him in, and Marc turned to stare at him.

“This is your best painting ever. Something about it just reaches into my guts and turns my heart upside down. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” The portrait was unfinished, but the most important elements were already there. The woman in the painting had a soul, and Marc could see it too. “Are you sure there’s no way to get to her? Maybe she’s obsessed with you too.”

“Why would she be? She doesn’t know who I am, or even that I’m an artist. She knows nothing about me. She thinks I’m a headwaiter at my mother’s restaurant, or some kind of delivery boy. I dropped off a painting to her. We talked for two hours, and I left.”

“One of your paintings?” Marc asked with interest.