Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits #1.5)(72)

My world stops then collides into itself. The opportunity he’s about to offer her...

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you’re interested in her talent.”

He accepts the challenge and goes for full-fledged eye contact. “She’s possibly one of the most talented young women I’ve come across. She’s green, is sloppy in some areas, but her work has soul.”

It’s there, the truth. He believes in Echo and possesses the answers to her dream.

“Now tell me you aren’t interested in getting into her pants.”

“She fits here. Seamlessly. Have you seen that happen anywhere else?”

He’s struck blood, and it’s hard to mask the wound. “I didn’t ask you that. I asked if in that f*cked-up head of yours, you’ve undressed my girl.”

The dickhead avoids looking at me and angles his body in the direction of his gallery. I’ve got my answer. “Don’t screw with Echo unless you’re interested in her art.”

“I am interested in her art. If you care for her, you’ll let her stay where she belongs. This is her world. Ask yourself if she honestly belongs in yours.”

In the world I live in now, Echo doesn’t belong. I know it, he knows it, and it’s a matter of time before Echo figures it out.

With the keys digging into my hand, I force one foot in front of the other. I promised Echo simple; I promised her we’d never change; I promised to take care of the gift she gave to me, and I’ve got no f*cking clue how to keep any of those promises.

Echo

I sit on a stool and tap the paint brush repeatedly against my face. I’ll regret it later, but somehow it helps me think. It encourages me to see beyond the canvas and beyond what’s in the front of my mind. Somehow I go deeper and sneak past locked doors, delve into secrets and play in the blackness. The colors, the lines, the shades—it’s all there in the darkness, but there’s a wall preventing me from placing the brush to canvas.

“That’s not enough room for nine stars.” Hunter eases beside me and draws me out of my haze.

Standing with a stretch, I scan the room. Except for another girl packing up her things, the attic has emptied out. “Does everyone keep bankers’ hours?”

“They have keys,” he says. “They enter through the back and come and go as they please. You should know that inspiration can’t be dictated by a schedule.”

So true.

“You didn’t answer about the room and the number of stars.”

I didn’t. “I have all the room I need.”

His eyes narrow into slits. “Are you creating a smaller scale of the constellation? Is the entire focal point going to be the blank sky surrounding it?”

“No,” I answer, then raise an eyebrow as I consider it. I like the idea. Having something small in the middle and the main focus being the nothing surrounding it, but it’s too late to do that with this painting and he knows it, hence why he’s being a jerk. The entire space on the outside is wrong for such an idea.

“Then there’s not enough room for nine stars.”

For the love of God. I slam my paint brush down with a snap that vibrates across the room. “And that would be where you made your original mistake when you painted Aires.”

Oh, crap. Hunter turns a strange shade of purple when he’s angry. “You said I forgot a star and I had eight.”

“Yes, you forgot a star and yes, you had eight,” I rush out. Desperate, my head whips around like a cartoon character’s. Not locating what I need, I dip my finger into the blue and drop three dots onto my arm. “Technically, Aires can have more than four stars, but the root of it is four. Only four.”

I gesture to the blank stretch of skin between the dots. “And you just didn’t forget one star. You forgot the biggest and brightest. You forgot the important one.”

He forgot Hamal, but an aching tug on my heart prevents me from speaking the name.

Hunter rests his fingers over his closed mouth and stares at my arm like it’s Michelangelo’s David. My heart beats hard twice. I painted on my arm—I forgot about my scars, and I’m drawing attention to them...

“That’s why you didn’t think I purposely left out the star,” Hunter says as if paint on extremely scarred arms is normal. “Why you said if I had meant for it to be missing I would have somehow let that missing piece be known.”

I wince. Freak of nature! “I promise this whole speaking-out thing is unusual for me.”

“I hope it’s not,” he says. “It’s what I like about you. You’ve got fire, Echo. Don’t apologize for it.”

I’ve got fire. My lips lift a little. “Noah’s the one that’s lit it.”

“Fire is there or it’s not. If anything, he probably showed you where to look. Don’t give him any more credit than that.” He cuts off any response by directing me to the canvas. “Tell me, are you painting four or three?”

It’s like he poured a bucket of water over my blaze. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve got plenty of time to figure it out. I’m not asking you to finish it in days.”

“I only have days,” I mutter, though I guess I could finish it from home, but the only reason I’m doing this is to impress him. I’d rather have the people of Munchkinland toss me into a tornado than do this painting for kicks.