Page 96 of Pining for Pierce
“By his own father?”
“Yes. The artist who was gonna be exhibiting has accused Kaiden of some kind of sexual misconduct.”
“Oh, my God. Are the cops involved?”
“No. The woman said she didn’t wanna take it that far, but Mr. Bowman’s deputy is looking into it.”
“Do you know what she’s accused him of?”
“Not exactly. Mr. Bowman didn’t say. I guess it must have been fairly bad, though… or she wouldn’t have withdrawn from the exhibition, would she?”
“No.” I shuddered then, and Pierce put his arm around me. “To think… that could have been me.”
“I know, but it wasn’t. You got out in time.”
“You got me out in time,” I said, looking up and kissing him. “If it hadn’t been for you…” I let my voice fade, trying not to think of what might have happened if Pierce hadn’t been there.
He must have read my mind, because he leaned in even closer, and whispered, “You’re safe, babe. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“I know.”
“It explains why he’s been here so much,” Pierce said. “We don’t normally see him around the town, but he’s been here a lot more, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah. I asked him about that, but he told me he’d been in meetings, and that his dad had insisted he should take some time off, because he’d been working really hard.”
“Which just goes to show, you can’t believe a word the guy says.”
“It seems not.”
We finished our meal and Pierce cleared away, coming back from the kitchen with two cups of coffee.
“Mr. Bowman needs me to let him have six paintings by tomorrow,” he said, sitting down again.
“What for?”
“They’re going to run a social media campaign, and they need to photograph them.”
“Can’t you take the photographs and send him the images?”
He shook his head. “They want to take the pictures themselves. It’s something they do all the time, evidently, and they have a certain style and format they like to follow.”
“I see. In that case, shall we take our coffee up to the studio? I could help you choose the paintings, if you like?”
“Would you?”
“Of course. I wanna help, if I can.”
He smiled, taking my hand, and pulled me from my seat. “I’m sure you can, even if it’s only by keeping me sane.”
“And fed?”
He smiled “And loved.”
“You’re always loved,” I said, and he kissed me, both of us grabbing our coffees and going up the stairs. When we got to the top, he pulled me back, looking into my eyes.
“I can do this, can’t I? I mean… I’m not kidding myself.”
I smiled at him. “Of course you can do this. With your eyes closed.”
