Page 104 of This Bitter Sweet Temptation
After we’ve walked the whole house to make sure there are no cupboards leading to Narnia, secret doors, or slowly decaying roses, we head back down to find her father. He’s in the study, working on his laptop.
The man never stops.
“There’s a monster loose in the west wing,” I inform him blandly as we enter the room. “Big, bad-tempered, and prone to locking helpless ladies up until they start to like him.”
His eyes narrow at me as Kit giggles.
“Do I even want to know?”
“Beauty and the Beast,” I tell him. “Uncultured swine.”
He just grunts and looks back at his screen, but his lips turn up. “I take it you girls had a good time wandering around?”
“Yes. This place ishuge. It doesn’t even need any secret passages to be all mysterious. You’re so lucky you get to work here, Dad.” Kit climbs into one of the leather chairs on the other side of the desk. “But Cleo said she couldn’t show me the egg without your permission.”
Holden glances back up at me quickly. “It’s not there for you to gawk at, Kit.”
“Yeah, but this is, like, historically significant.Culturallysignificant. You shouldn’t keep it from the masses. That’s what Miss Cleo said she wants to do with it.”
“Once we’ve found a museum, I promise I’ll get you a VIP pass.” I shake my head at her fondly.
“Anyway, I’m starving. Couldn’t finish the grilled cheese Grammy made for lunch. She burned it really bad,” she says.
“Soon. Give me a minute,” he grumbles, closing his laptop.
“Don’t pretend like you didn’t see that coming,” I say. “It’sdefinitelydinnertime.”
“Not you, too? When I brought my daughter, I didn’t expect you’d both gang up on me so fast.”
I grin. “Then I guess you better stop working and feed us.”
“Women,” he mutters, leaving the room as Kit and I laugh.
While he gets prepped in the kitchen, I grab my sketchbook and head for the great room.
Kit follows me. She brought along a backpack stuffed with books she stacks up on the table, but when she sees my sketchbook, she stops cold.
“Whoa, that’s legit. When you said you drew, I didn’t know you meant serious drawing.”
“I’m an artist,” I say shyly. My pride conflicts with my self-consciousness.
No matter how true that statement might be, I feel like I’m barely one step above true obscure starving artist status.
I’ve had my pieces in exhibitions. I’ve even sold custom creations to line the homes of McMansions, sure, but it still feelswrongto claim the title when I’m a tiny minnow in a great big pool of better talent.
Honestly, though, branding might be half the battle in this field.
“Can I see some of your stuff?”
“Sure.” I glance into the kitchen, where Holden sets ingredients neatly on the counter. Like always, when he cooks, he’s in his own little world.
Not that I care about his opinion or even if he knows I’m showing his daughter my art.
I open my sketch pad to the first page, a few random objects drawn when I was back at home, and hand it to her.
“They’re just ideas. Silly little sketches, whatever comes to mind to help spark bigger projects,” I say. “It’s a lot of practice. That’s why it looks like a jumbled mess.”
One page is just several sets of hands, reaching around, drawn with as much detail as I could manage. Another has eyes, noses, ears. All a bit random, almost resembling an abstract art scene.
