Page 86 of Flirting with Forever

“Ugh. Yes.”

“Worse than the guy from the Planning Commission who was so thrilled when he realized you both wore the same size jeans?”

“Oh God! Yes, yes, okay. I make bad decisions when it comes to men. That’s why I haven’t dated in six months. That’s why I’ve been holding off on giving Jacket an answer. Only Peter seemed different. Peter seemed… Oh, Jeanne, you should have been there. There was this woman whose married lover had broken up with her, and the married lover told Peter privately he was canceling the painting he’d commissioned of her, but when the woman arrived, Peter carried on as if nothing had changed. He told her that even though she and her paramour had parted ways, the man said he still wanted to remember her just as she was.”

“Wow.”

“Exactly. And when he heard that Jacket had never done a portrait of me, he was so careful not to say anything that might make me think that was odd, but I could tell by the look on his face he was angry with Jacket.”

“He’s your Jake Ryan.”

“Yes! That’s what I thought. But I was so wrong. Oh, Jeanne, I was so wrong.” Cam collapsed against the back of her chair. “He had to have known I was coming. I don’t know how. Mertons—the second cross-century FedEx package—said they’d been watching me. Not that Peter let on, of course. And then he let me…” Cam shook her head as if trying to shake the horrible memory out of her brain. “Cripes, you saw how I was dressed when I got back. That’s how I was posing. So, the whole time I think I’m pumping him for information—”

“He’s actually pumping you.”

“Bingo. And it turns out he fed me a load of crap, which is why the Van Dyck book was withdrawn. And now I find out he’s married. And look at this. Came in my email this morning.”

Cam turned her monitor and showed Jeanne a bucolic painting of a man, clearly Lely, surrounded by four women. He had a large cello between his knees and was fingering it.

“Symbolic,” Jeanne almost said, but swallowed the jest at the sight of Cam’s face. Closer inspection showed the women to be four versions of the same person—a woman with downcast eyes in a simple gown; a woman in a frock almost religious in its plainness whose hair was tucked under a head scarf; a graceful, barebacked model, gazing at the painter from over her shoulder; and a seductress with breasts bared, daring the man to possess her.

“Well.”

“Exactly,” Cam said.

“They’re all, uh…”

“Ursula, yes.”

“He was apparently quite taken with her.”

“Apparently. Look, he even added cherubim, so much the goddess she was.”

Jeanne squinted. The image was blurred and only about four inches by four inches on the screen, but there they were, two child angels, one with a flute, keeping time with Lely and his muse. “What’s the title?”

“Dunno. It’s just a picture from the catalog. That’s all the guy was willing to scan. He’s overnighting the actual print.”

Jeanne rolled her eyes. If Cam ever made a profit on her writing, she’d be dumbfounded.

“So he’s married?”

“Yep.”

“To Ursula?”

“Lady Lely,” Cam said archly.

“That shit.” A lady, huh? Jeanne remembered all of the princess gear she’d had as a kid. “Just think. You could have been like Lady Diana.”

“I think you’re missing the point here.”

“Oh no, I’m getting the point. Your Van Dyck lark has turned into a Lely vendetta.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Then why was I researching premature ejaculation for you?”

Cam took on a prim, magisterial pose. “Characters can’t be two-dimensional, you know. They need…texture.”