Still, I agreed to this scheme. Actions, meet consequences.
“Right. That.” My face, already warm,burns.
Iverson grins.
I shake my head, bid him a quick goodbye, and make my escape.
Tomorrow, I will deal with…that.
Today, I will go up to my suite and have a major girlie pop freak out, because Iverson Swallow is in love with me. Iverson Swallow, love of my life, isinlovewith me.
I press my hands to my cheeks and find a smile in the plumpness there.
If this is war, I hate to say it, but…
I think I’m losing.
Chapter Eleven
?
Maple
Iverson texts me the morning of our date with a time and a dress code for dinner: 7:00 pm, casual dress.
At 6:45 pm, I dab a miniscule amount of paint onto my canvas, changing the tilt of the man’s mouth, then step back to see if I’ve fixed my problem.
I have not.
I groan and swipe my wrist across my forehead, sliding loose waves out of my eyes and hopefully wiping away my newfound inability to art correctly.
“It’s not that hard,” I mutter to myself. “You’ve painted people a thousand times. You’ve painted scenes a million. You can figure this out.”
Despite my pep talk, the solution does not present itself with a lightbulb and a pretty bow.
I sigh.
The room phone rings at the same time as my cell phone goes off, and the cacophony of tones grates against my talentless skull.
I stride to the suite’s living room and pick up the phone there, ignoring my cell phone. It’s in the depths of… somewhere, and I’m pretty sure I know who’s calling, anyway. He can wait. “Hello?” I say into the hotel phone.
“Your husband is here,” Etta greets. “Pacing the lobby, muttering things about howhiscredit card is paying for your rooms and how our hotel policies are trash and blah, blah, blah. It’s rather melodramatic for a full-grown man. Personally,I think you should make him wait a little while before you come down.”
I like Etta, I remember quite acutely. Sure, she can be a little prickly, but she’s got a certain quality to her that I can really appreciate. Pettiness.
“I just might do that,” I tell her. “Can you let him know I’ll be right down?”
“Of course, Mrs. Swallow,” she replies, all things prim and proper. “I’ll make sure he knows your appearance is imminent.”
I grin. “Perfect. See you in twenty.”
We hang up, and a second later my cell phone’s caterwauling cuts off.
I spend the next twenty minutes meticulously cleaning up my makeshift studio and scrubbing flecks of blue, gold, brown, and white from the skin of my hands and forearms. I briefly consider changing out of my paint-splattered dress, but Iverson did say to dress casually, so I decide to leave it. Chances are high that whatever food we eat will join the colorful drops, and there’s no use in dirtying a second dress when my access to a washer and dryer is nil at the moment. Besides, it’sIvy. If I can wear clothes dirtied by paint around anyone, it’s him.
With nothing else to delay me, I sigh and slip my feet into a pair of brown leather boots. Charms dangle from the laces as I tie them, souvenirs from trips or particularly good days I wanted to take with me everywhere for the rest of my life. A crow, a bolt of lightning, and a little mouse tangle together in my bow, and I give them a good luck flick before rising to face the door.
My stomach imitates the charms, tying itself in a knot.