Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(35)

Barefoot, I started down the hall to my studio with her following behind me. “You do realize it’s eleven a.m. and we’re going to brunch? You might literally catch flies rather than men with your honey.”

“You can never be too prepared.” She stopped at the doorway and gasped at the dozens of canvases lining the walls and four others drying on easels. “Oh my God. Did you do all this?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, gathering my brushes.

While it wasn’t Puerto Rico, there was still beauty to be found in Leary, New Jersey. I’d taken hundreds of pictures over the last week, desperate to keep my mind busy and off Rosalee. Caven hadn’t called or reached out, and it would be an understatement to say I was going crazy waiting. I’d lie in bed at night, scrolling through our texts from the week before, waiting for one more to suddenly appear at the bottom. It never did, and as the days passed, I was starting to lose my patience. Caven’s house was only a fifteen-minute drive from mine and it was all I could do to stay away.

Beth hated the waiting too. Not surprisingly, my DNA had come back a match and she was chomping at the bit to get the proceedings underway. Since the prosecutor had dropped the child endangerment charges against me, there wasn’t much else standing in our way.

But I’d promised him time. I owed him that and so much more. Even if it was slowly killing me to know she was so close yet so far away.

Beth kicked her shoes off and walked across the rainbow-splattered drop cloth to inspect my work. “These are incredible. Have you sold them already?”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “I haven’t even listed them. I’m worried nothing will ever sell again without her.”

“Oh, come on,” she breathed, tracing her finger over the thick waves of oil paint applied with a palette knife over the blades of grass in my photo. “These are fantastic.”

Three years earlier, my sister and I had started our own art company. It was therapeutic and something we could do together. She loved to paint and I loved photography, so we merged the two into our own unique style of art. At first, it was just something fun, but within months of opening our virtual gallery, we were slammed with orders.

We sold our first piece for thirty-six dollars with free shipping that actually cost me eighty-five dollars via FedEx.

We sold our last for one-point-two million, not including the seventy-five thousand dollars the buyer paid for it to be delivered escorted by an armed guard.

We’d become something of a phenomenon in the art world. Most of the people believed we were a fifty-five-year-old man who had once been a street painter in Italy before retiring to Puerto Rico to follow his dreams of becoming a photographer. We’d giggled ourselves sick writing that bio.

We’d worked hard to keep our identities hidden, and together, we were known as R.K. Banks, a pseudonym we’d chosen to honor our parents.

But now, I was just Hadley, lost in a business I loved but unsure if it’d ever be the same without Willow.

I walked past Beth as I carried my paint knives to the bathroom. The studio and dark room I was having built out back would have an oversized sink just for this task, but for now, I was using my downstairs bathroom.

“Why don’t you let me update the website? I bet the one of the blooming Silver Bells would be gone before we had time to refresh the page.”

“Silver Bells don’t grow in Puerto Rico,” I replied, dropping everything into the sink with a loud clatter.

“So you moved. People are allowed to do that.”

“I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be ready in fifteen.” I headed to my bedroom, hoping she’d give me my space, but I should have known better. Beth would have stood in the shower with me if she had a point to be made.

She stepped in front of me, blocking my path. “You know my legal fees aren’t cheap. You’re eventually going to need the money.”

I rolled my eyes. “I have plenty of money and you aren’t charging me.”

“I could though. And then I’d be the crazy-rich one and you’d be the poor, starving artist who needs to sell a picture.”

“You’re already crazy rich, and you wouldn’t even let me buy dinner last time we went out. I’ll take my chances on you sending me a ten-million-dollar bill that will break me.”

“Fine. Then my rates just went up to eleven million an hour.”

“In that case, you’re fired. But I still need a shower if you want to get out of here anytime soon to show your honey off to the flies.” I tried to dodge her, but the pushy wench once again blocked my way.

“What are you scared of?”

I shot her a pointed glare, and she waved me off.

“Right. Okay. Fine. Besides all of that, what are you scared of?”

Sighing, I gave up on my quest to my bedroom. “People will know it’s not her. They’ll see the strokes and they’ll know.”

“So tell them you’re changing things up. We’ll advertise it as a new collection. Oh! Oh! Oh!” She snapped her fingers and then tapped her nose. “Actually, we should start teasing the release now, and in a few weeks, bam! Put everything up auction-style and watch the all-out free-for-all that ensues.”

I stared at her. God, she was crazy. Maybe having my best friend thirty minutes away had its downfalls too. “Look, if you want to go to brunch, you need to let me—” The ring of my doorbell interrupted me.