The Muse (Interracial Mystery Romance) (Dark Art Mystery Series) (6 page)

Michael would never think that I would be bold enough to model for anyone else,
especially not his arch nemesis.

That’s what Michael called Hex all the time, his arch nemesis. Michael avoided him as much as possible, so Hex’s castle would be the last place he would look for me as long as Alvarez didn’t call.

“How much did my brother promise you?” Alvarez asked.

“Five thousand a month as well as my food and lodging paid for.”

“I’ll pay you ten thousand a month and give you a weekly allowance of five hundred

dollars.”

“And a bodyguard?”

“Of course.”

“If someone else is killed and I’m scared, then I leave with whatever I earned.”

“Understood.” He extended his hand out to me. “Do we have a deal?”

I gave him my hand. “I want the truth and no more lies.”

“No problem.” He wrapped his fingers around mine. His coarse skin rubbed against the pads of my fingers and delivered a shock of heat that drummed into me. My legs wobbled a little.

My pattern of breathing increased. Where his grandmother’s hands froze me cold, his melted my core. The urge to tighten my hold surged within me. I’d never been that warm before, not even when I lay on the beach in the direct rays of sunlight or rested near the roar of a fireplace. I was comforted by his heat and didn’t even know I’d been so cold. I heard an intake of breath from him as he stared at our linked hands.

Did he feel the same thing I felt, this weird electric charge between us? Was I imagining
this, like his grandma’s weird eyes when she touched me?

“Who is the guy that my grandma saw in her vision?” He gazed into my eyes and I

looked away.

“That’s not something I would like to discuss.”

He traced his finger along the inner part of my wrist. I shivered in response. This was so inappropriate on so many levels, but I relished his touch anyway. It had been so long since anyone had placed their fingers on my skin for more than just to pose me for a painting.

“Should I have two guards watching you?” He stopped moving his finger, but didn’t

release me.

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t want you to be hurt.”

“This guy has already hurt me as much as he can. He can’t do any more.”

He raised the right side of his lip into a sneer. “Is it Michael? Did he do something to you?”

Rage blazed in his eyes. If I hadn’t seen it for myself and someone just told me that Alvarez could look that angry, I would’ve thought they were liars. Fury radiated from him. I let go of his hands and inched back. There was no way I would tell him about how Michael treated me. I got the feeling that if I did, then Alvarez would do something bad.

I forced an awkward smile. “You’re a protector type, huh?”

“At times.” He stared at my hand, the one he’d been holding. “I don’t like it when

someone hurts another. Now don’t lie, was it Michael?”

“No.” The lie came out so simple.

“Will you ever tell me who?”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s hope this guy is far away from me when you do.”

Chapter 4

~Alvarez

That can’t happen again. Whatever that was when I grabbed her hand, it can’t happen.

Pain throbbed at the front of my head. I popped two aspirin in my mouth, took the glass from my assistant’s hand, and swallowed it all down as I climbed the stairs to my office. A long list of things to do ran in my head.

“Okay. Catch me up on what you’ve done today.” Reece took the glass back. Her blonde curls bounced with the speed of our pace. She opened her mouth and panted a little, desperately trying to hold onto the glass, notepad in her arms, and phone in her other hand. I stopped. “Am I walking too fast?”

“Just a little.” She gasped.

I took the glass away from her and set it on the floor. Our cleaning staff was on point with their tasks. I knew the glass would be there no more than a minute or so. The head chief of cleaning ordered her servants to do four to five patrols of the estate each hour.

“Remember. When I push you too far, you have to tell me.” I wiped the little beads of sweat off her forehead with my hand and regretted it immediately.

She blushed. “I’m sorry, sir.”

I hated when she apologized. She never did anything wrong, and the few times she made a mistake it was never really significant enough to warrant a “sorry.” But that wasn’t really the biggest problem between us.

Last week, she left a voice mail message and declared in a stutter of drunken slurring that she loved me. For all these years of us working together, I would’ve never thought that would’ve happened. She wasn’t ugly in any way. In fact, any man would’ve found her captivating. I just didn’t feel that way about her, and if I had to be truly honest with myself, she was just too damn good of a personal assistant to mess up with a sexual relationship. Because that’s all it would’ve been, sex a few nights and then a conclusion after a few weeks. I never had time for serious dating. My family kept me busy and emotionally drained. I didn’t possess much to give to anybody else, not time or love, not compassion nor the motivation for anything more. I’d explained that to Reece the next morning in the most uncomfortable meeting in our business relationship. Things had been unsteady ever since.

I shouldn’t have touched her. Why in the hell did I do that? Because she’s like a little
sister at times and I would’ve wiped her head like that if she was my sister.

“No, Reece. I’m sorry. That was entirely inappropriate of me just now.”

“I don’t mind that.” Again, the blush appeared.

Dang it.

I cleared my throat and started walking. “Okay. Let’s continue. You were going to tell me about the earlier meeting.”

“When you didn’t show up an hour ago, I carried on the meeting with Detective White for you. Was that okay?”

“Yes. Feel free to work with him on your own any time when I’m caught up in other

things. What did you discuss?”

“I gave him the address for the morgue the body was taken to and all of the model’s information. He’s walking around on the second level asking the few artists left if they’ve seen anything.”

“He won’t tell them what happened, right?”

“No.” Reece pushed her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose. “I made sure to tell him that discretion was necessary.”

“That’s good, but there’s going to be a point when you and I will have to reveal a lot of my family’s private information to the police. That’s fine. I just want our lawyers receiving the reports of what we say before the police get it.” I made it to the second flight with that steady drumming in my head and the scent of Elle on my hand.
What type of fragrance did she wear?
I sniffed my fingers, and oranges and flowers came to my mind.

Orange blossoms, maybe. Were there any such things as orange blossoms? It had to be
that.

“I also booked flights for all of the remaining artists and writers on the property. I notified Hex like you asked. He approved most and they will be leaving in two days. There is a small group that will remain until the end of the summer to help Hex finish his collection.”

“How small?”

“Twenty people.”

I would need even more guards to guarantee their safety. “That’s too many. I’ll have to talk to Hex about getting rid of them. Put it on my to-do list for this week.”

My assistant tried to hand me the sheet of paper of what she’d written so far. I motioned for her to keep it. Reece had been efficient since the first day I hired her ten years ago. There was no need to check her work anymore. She was about the only person who listened to me and followed every order accordingly.

“As to not cause any concern, I had the chefs create a big five course meal and prepare a sort of goodbye party for tomorrow night. Hex heard about what I planned and decided to go bigger with the celebration. Melody has the staff decorating the dining area and main living room. Musicians were invited as well as magicians.”

Musicians and Magicians?

I gritted my teeth. “So he’s excited?”

“Yes. You wouldn’t believe half of the things he wants me to get on this list.”

Good. I couldn’t deal with him breaking down anymore.

“Did he go alone?”

“No. His new model left with him. Elle, I think.”

My brother roams Miami in a limo with a beautiful woman while I rush around this
gaudy property, trying to keep all of our heads above water.

“Is security following them both?”

“Yes. There are four guys. One is in the limo in front with the driver. The other three are following them in cars and were told to blend in and not scare Hex.”

“Good. Let me know when they return. Maybe I can sit down and have a dinner with

him or something. Do I have time in my schedule?”

“Actually, you and Hex are supposed to be at the opening for X-Lab tonight.”

I hit my forehead. “Oh God. How could I forget that?”

“Well, you did see a dead body today.”

“True, but Hex has been obsessed with this gallery for years.”

It must’ve taken Hex two to three years to get the investors interested in the idea. Many of the people who helped with the production were edgy art enthusiasts like himself. We found an old shoe factory in North Miami, had the construction workers gut it, build on it more, and construct a massive building that provided two levels with lots of space.

Hex dreamed that X-Lab would be the first art gallery in the United States focused solely on performance, video, and installation art exhibits. There would be no paintings, drawings, sculptures or any of the other traditional works many anticipated in a typical gallery or museum.

X-Lab would present experimental works as well, things that were too controversial or graphic for other curators. That fact pushed me on edge. Once an artist became obsessed with a particular idea, social norms, concepts of humanity, and ethics fell to the side.

We held an application approval process for the new artists who longed for their works to be in the opening. The installation art deemed the easiest to pick through. The artists submitted mini models of their work, which tended to be small enough to put on my desk and analyze. The installation genre consisted of three-dimensional works that were usually designed to transform the perception of a space. Most of the applicants sought to use natural elements to speak about global warming and recycling. Others longed to create interactive installations where the audience acted on the piece and/or the work responded to the audience’s activities. Picking the installations served as the easiest part of the task.

Unlike the other artistic genres, which gave me a headache as I read them. More than fifty percent of the video and performance ideas shocked the crap out of me. The other fifty put me at unease. One female artist sought to have a corner in the gallery where she could sit in a lawn chair naked, hold a holy cross made of two dildos, and masturbate to it. She claimed the performance would trigger the viewers to think about sex and religion. Hex considered her a genius. I kept my words to myself and ripped up the application. Some of the video artists involved a lot of shock in their works—most did awkward things with razors and knives, some explored sexuality in the most profane ways, and then the truly morbid studied the notion of death by dissecting corpses with children’s toys. Hex and I battled those days and compromised on allowing some of the less offensive to trickle through.

“I should get down to X-Lab and make sure everything is on schedule.”
And not liable to
get us locked up for presenting it.

Reece shook her head. “You already delegated a pretty efficient team for that project.

I’ve gone down there and confirmed that ninety-five percent of the installations are set up. The video art works with no problem and all people doing performances know what they are doing and where.”

“Thank you. What time is the opening again?”

“Eight.”

I checked my watch and realized I had a few hours. I’m not sure why but I sniffed my hand again. “Is there such thing as an orange blossom? I’ve heard of cherry ones.”

“Orange blossoms, sir?” She raised her blonde eyebrows.

“Do they exist?”

“Why, yes. They definitely are real. It’s our state flower.”

“So people make perfume out of it.”

“Sure. Lots of them. My mother used to add them to wedding bouquets when she worked at a big florist in Ocala. On Valentine’s Day people would mix them with rose arrangements since they’re believed to be an aphrodisiac.”

“Get me some orange blossom candles for my office and bedroom.”

Without asking me why, Reece wrote it down. It was why I paid her so much. She knew when to speak up and the right moment to keep her mouth closed. I didn’t need her inquiries on why I longed for that fragrance. Not that I had an answer myself. I just needed her to get the scent to my private space as soon as she could because I didn’t plan on being around Elle anymore, even though I craved to touch her skin again and inhale her sweet perfume. Too much surged between us. It was sizzling and sparked something inside of me. I could have wet my finger, stuck it into a wall socket, and not gotten the shock I’d received from just one touch of Elle’s hand.

Not again. She is here to keep Hex busy, not me. Elle will serve her purpose this summer
and then be gone. Besides, she has her own drama trailing behind her.

Grandma envisioned a man after her, a bad one who called her Ellie. I’d bet that bastard Michael was the guy. Who else could it be? I didn’t follow his career, but everyone recognized his Archangel series. It must’ve been twenty massive paintings of Elle nude, her hair flying high in the air and separated like wings. I’d gotten a hard-on at the premiere. Galleries enjoyed showcasing artists with a lot of drama. Displaying Michael and Hex’s collections together, two artists who made it a point to publicly ridicule each other, was a no brainer. The press went crazy. Critics, fans, and enthusiasts packed the place. All compared their work throughout the night, running from room to room. Michael’s stuff was on the west side of the building, Hex on the east. By the end of the evening, hoardes of baffled art lovers congregated in the center of the building, unsure of which one was the best.