Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(12)

“Usually Mondays. They appear with a whole truck of workers but do nothing. I swear it’s like a parade. They all march in at seven a.m. Then they all march out thirty minutes later. It’s entirely possible they come over just to have their weekly company meeting. I’m not really sure.”

“Okay, then on Monday, I’ll be here at seven.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’m almost to the point of going nuclear on them.” She twisted her lips. “Almost. If not this week, definitely sometime in the next seven years.”

“Right. Which is why I’m coming over. This contractor thinking he can pull this shit over on you, when he should have finished the damn job months ago, is unacceptable. He shouldn’t have taken the money from you upfront, much less billed you for it. I’ll be here Monday. He and I will talk and that talk will either end with a refund for shit he hasn’t accomplished or a realistic end date I find acceptable for when they’ll finish the project. That’s supposed to be your studio, right?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, her face filled with sweet surprise as she looked up at me.

She had no family. No man in her life. Shit. How long had it been since anyone had actually taken care of this woman? I didn’t want to think about it because, in one way or another, all of those factors were my fault.

“Then it’s not something you should have to wait on. Is your guest room ventilated properly for you to be painting in there? The fumes can’t be good for your body.”

That got me more warmth. More adoration. And she added a grin. “It has a window.”

“Is your studio going to have a ventilation system?”

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Right. Then you know that a window isn’t good enough. So I’ll be here on Monday to talk to this contractor and get things worked out so you don’t have to listen to his bullshit for seven years or however long it would take you to go nuclear on him.”

“You’re a really sweet guy during non-naked time, Caven Hunt.” Her hand drifted up my abs and my chest to my neck, where she curled her fingers around the back of it and pulled me down for a lip touch.

Teasing her waistband, I spoke against her mouth. “I can be sweet during naked time too. Here, let me show you.”

She playfully slapped my hand away.

I lifted my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’ll stop. But if you truly want to talk, I’m going to need you to crawl out of my lap and back up a few feet, possibly a few states.”

Laughing, she pushed to her feet and extended a hand down to me. “I want to show you something.”

“Is it your bedroom?”

Her glare made me chuckle. I took her proffered hand and allowed her to pull me to my feet, purposely stumbling into her to steal another lip touch. She laughed against my mouth, forcing me away with some seriously half-assed effort.

“You’re terrible.”

“The worst,” I agreed with her, slinging my arm around her shoulders. Together, we walked down the hall to her makeshift studio.

We’d barely rounded the corner when I stopped dead in my tracks.

I’d seen Hadley’s art before. It was hard to miss since the images of trees and tropical flowers hung all over her house. But this… This was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

On the easel in the middle of the room was the picture of Rosalee I’d given her months earlier. That small pocket-size image had been blown up and cropped so it was just her face, and it was no longer a picture. She’d applied paint over the lines. Thick waves of various shades of red curled over her hair like highlights while her lips were the perfect shade of pink to match her cheeks. My girl’s smile was bright and white, and the green of her eyes popped from the canvas, bringing it to life.

Rosalee was gorgeous, but this… This was stunning.

“How much?” I asked as I walked over to it, fighting the urge to trace the curve of my daughter’s jaw because I was fearful I’d mess it up.

She moved a cup filled with paintbrushes to the table on the other side of the room. “Oh, it’s not for sale.”

“Bullshit. Everything’s for sale.”

“Not that one. Though I took some really cute pictures at her awards ceremony. If you’re nice, I might be willing to make you an R.K. Banks of one of those.”

I didn’t need it to be an R.K. Banks original.

And I didn’t want one of the others.

I wanted this one.

“Five hundred thousand dollars.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, and her lips tipped up in a crooked smile. “It’s not for sale, Caven.”

“Six hundred.”

“Not for sale.”

“Eight.”

“Not for sale.”

“A million dollars. Cash. I’ll have it wired to you first thing in the morning.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Not. For. Sale.”

And then I made her the one offer I knew for certain she would never be able to refuse. “Mondays.”

Her smile fell, and her back shot straight. “What?”

“Mondays. You come over. No art. Just hang out. Eat dinner. Paint her nails. Chase her around the backyard. Whatever the hell you want to do. I get that painting and you get Mondays.”