An Irresistible Bachelor(91)

She glanced up. Outside, the sun was bright in a clear New England sky.

She couldn't stop thinking about the night before. They'd made love and Jack had held her long afterward. They hadn't talked very much, but it had been enough just to be with him, to close the distance between them even if it was only physically. And she'd been relieved that he'd allowed her to be with him at a vulnerable time and that she'd had the opportunity to console him.

In the morning, as he'd left her room, he'd promised her they would talk tonight.



She was hoping that he was going to tell her he wasn't going to run in the election and that they could go back to the way things had been. In her heart, she knew that both were unlikely and she tried, once more, to reconsider the ramifications if he did get into the race.

The outcome wasn't any better than it had been all the other times she'd thought about the situation. He was right; if her father had been a private citizen, the papers would have no real cause to follow the story. Unfortunately, Cornelius Woodward Hall's infidelity was going to be huge news.

If Jack ran, she had to back out of his life. That was the only way to keep the past from coming to light. But the idea that she wouldn't end up in Boston, by his side, was intolerable. Whenever she pictured herself going back to New York and never being with him again, her heart just about shattered.

Callie took a deep breath, looked back down at the painting, and shot up in a panic, knocking her chair over. She barely heard the slamming noise of the thing hitting the floor or Artie's terrified yelp and scatter.

"Oh, no, no, no..."

She threw the swab down and grabbed a rag though it wasn't like she could do anything with the damn thing.

Suspended with horror over the painting, she stared in disbelief at what she'd done. She'd burned a hole right through the varnish and into the paint layer. She bent down further, hoping that closer proximity would reveal it was just superficial damage. It wasn't.



Across the face of the mirror, in a swath about an inch square, Copley's original paint had been eaten up.

Callie cursed as she quickly looked at the jar she'd opened. By mistake, she'd picked out the strongest solvent she'd brought with her and had compounded the error by leaving the damn stuff on as she'd stared out the window. The chemical had had plenty of time to seep in, infecting a larger area than just the part she'd applied it to as it spread outward.

A hot flash ran through her body, bringing sweat to her palms and her underarms and her forehead.

She'd marred a great work of art. She'd never work again. Jack was going to kill her.

And all because she'd let herself get distracted.

Of all the stupid, neophyte—

But now was not the time to beat herself up. God knew, there would be plenty of opportunity for that as she waited in line to collect unemployment.

She needed to focus. Focus and assess the situation and the remedies. Then she would call Gerard Beauvais.

She hovered above the painting, her eyes moving desperately around from the damaged area to all the work she'd done so well.

Screw it. She needed to call Beauvais now.

Callie reached into her tool kit for his card and dialed the number on the back, praying her voice would work if he answered. And God help her if she burst into tears. Looking weak as well as incompetent would just about put the finishing touch on a total nightmare.

She got his voice mail and left him a message to call her as soon as he could.



After a couple of deep breaths, and with a resolve not to keep picturing herself career-less and tossing pizzas for a living, she bent over the painting again. The solvent's appetite hadn't waned. The damaged part was getting bigger. : It was like watching an evil tide.

Yeah, and that path of destruction was wiping out her professional future as well as all that paint, she thought.

She propped her head on her hands and told herself that Beauvais's shop could do a repaint on the mirror, just as he'd done for the Fra Filippo Lippi. They'd match the paint tones and brushstrokes with as much precision as possible so that it would be virtually impossible to tell that anything had gone wrong.

Which was a cold comfort, she thought. Even if the damage was hidden masterfully, she had still irrevocably diminished the value of the painting.

Abruptly, Callie frowned. Blinking her eyes a few times, she told herself she was seeing things.


It couldn't be.

She bent down so low she felt the heat of the chemical reaction and her eyes burned.