“Let’s tell Jamie we’re here,” Hayden whispered.
Jamie had left for the showcase over an hour before them to prepare. Liz wondered if it was just jitters.
“Liz! Hayden!” Jamie cried as soon as they made it through her welcome line. “It’s so good to see you!”
The best part about Hayden’s sister was that she was completely and entirely genuine. It didn’t matter that they were staying at her apartment and she had seen them an hour ago, Jamie was just as excited to have them here. Maybe even more excited, since this really meant something to her.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Liz told her.
“Feel free to mingle around. I have so many new pieces that you haven’t seen,” Jamie told them.
“My sister, the artist,” Hayden said with a shake of his head.
“Don’t listen to Hayden when you go through the displays,” Jamie said, smacking him on the arm. “He doesn’t appreciate art. He once told me it all looked the same. How exactly can a portrait and a landscape look the same?”
Liz chuckled softy. That sounded like the Hayden she knew. He was so . . . square. Everything had a place and an order. His world was ruled by that. Art was ruled by no one, and it explained why he didn’t understand it.
“I’ll just get us some alcohol to dull the pain of staring at Jamie’s vision of the world on every wall,” Hayden joked. “Go ahead and look around.” He kissed her cheek before giving his sister a bemused look and walking over to the bar.
“Don’t listen to his condescension any more than I do,” Jamie said in an incredibly upbeat tone. “We’ve been having these discussions since we were kids and he preferred to count blocks while I liked to finger paint the ones he was using and call it art.”
“I can totally see that happening,” Liz said, covering her mouth with her hand to try to hold back the laughter bubbling up in her.
“Now go! Go have a good time. I’ll see you later,” Jamie said, ushering her into the exhibit.
Liz followed the crowd into the first room and a huge smile broke out on her face. In a way, Hayden was right: Jamie’s vision of the world was artfully reflected back to them in every single picture. She was such an exhilarating person to be around. So different from her brother, yet they were more similar than either would admit. Both could hold an audience with just a smile, and wow a crowd with their unique abilities.
She wanted to see the other two rooms before taking a closer look, so she squeezed past the crowd and into the next section. Liz couldn’t pretend to know much about art, but she did know that these paintings were beautiful.
Jamie used color and light to create the tone and mood in her paintings. Some were landscapes, others portraits; but each one of them was more awe-inspiring than the next, until Liz found that she couldn’t even compare the splendor of one to another. Liz could write, and the written word could move people to tears or cause them to go to war. But if a picture was worth a thousand words, than Jamie’s were worth ten times that. No wonder she was being thrust into such prominent circles.
As she walked into the last room, what struck Liz wasn’t the brilliant paintings, though they certainly were incredible, but rather the person standing at the center of the room. She had met the woman only once, but she had made an impression that Liz would surely never forget. From her perfectly coifed platinum-blond hair, to the diamonds in her ears and around her throat, to the excessively expensive dress on her fragile frame, there was no doubt in Liz’s mind that she was staring at Clay Maxwell’s girlfriend, Andrea.
Liz had met her briefly at Hilton Head while staying at a resort on the coast right before Brady’s primary victory. She had left the resort only long enough to get lunch and had run smack-dab into Brady’s younger brother.
If Andrea was here, did that mean that Clay would be here? They had first met over the Fourth of July weekend, when he had helped her during her panic attack over Brady—though he hadn’t known the cause—and then he had tried to take her home at Brady’s gala event later that same summer. His charming cocky personality and incredible good looks made him both appealing and irritating. Liz’s heart fluttered, and she wasn’t sure if it was his connection to Brady or fear of him being in the same vicinity as Hayden, who knew nothing about Brady.
But when she turned to flee, because the thought of encountering Andrea ever again made her a bit nauseous, she ran right into Clay. And Christ, he looked handsome. She was sure her imagination had contrived how attractive he was, but no, definitely not. If anything, she hadn’t done him justice. He wore a navy-blue suit coat, khaki pants, and a blue button-down that made his baby blues pop. His blond hair was styled, and man, those dimples when he smiled. The waves of arrogance that radiated off of him sure knocked him down a few pegs, though.
“Liz Carmichael,” Clay drawled.
Oh, shit! Sandy Carmichael had been the fake name that she had used with Brady when they had been hiding their relationship, and Clay was the only person who knew that Carmichael was associated with her, even if he had no idea what it referred to.
Liz sighed heavily, not even able to hold it in. “Clay Maxwell.”
His smile only brightened. Was she smiling? No way. She wasn’t happy to see him. He was just another reminder—
Liz stopped herself and focused on the present . . . like how to get far away from this situation.
“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” he said.
“If you missed me, Clay, you could have just called,” she said with a nonchalant shrug. Clay had never used the number he had begged her for back at Brady’s fund-raising gala late last summer. For some reason, besides the blonde bimbo he called his girlfriend standing behind her, it wasn’t a surprise.
Clay chuckled at her comment, and opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. Her last thought had made her painfully aware of exactly where she was. Andrea could come over any second, and Liz didn’t want to deal with her. Not to mention Hayden could walk up. How was she supposed to explain all of this?
“We’re in the way,” Liz said, walking into a corner on the other side of a wall from Andrea. She didn’t know what to do about Hayden, but she had to eliminate her problems one at a time.
“Already hauling me off to a corner alone.”
Liz shook her head. “What are you doing here? I wouldn’t have guessed that you were into art.”