The Muse (Interracial Mystery Romance) (Dark Art Mystery Series) (7 page)

And now Michael’s Archangel will be modeling for Hex. When I notify our publicist,
she’ll have a happy orgasm in selling this. It will be the top news in the art world for the whole
summer.

The only question remained was would Michael be a problem.
If he hurt her, then it
wouldn’t be wise for him to come here.
It wasn’t that I had a special feeling for her or anything. I just didn’t appreciate guys taking advantage of women. That was all. Nothing more.

“Schedule a meeting with Hex’s publicist. I want her to know about Elle posing for him.

It may get us some more backers.”

“Should I put together a small media package, too, on the art collection and what it will be about?” Reece scribbled the note.

“No.”

Hex remained hushed on what the subject matter of his collection would be about. If I focused too much on that tiny predicament, then I would have an aneurism. Anytime he kept his art secret, it meant that I would be pissed at the reveal. Discovering the focus of his collection would have to be dealt with soon, before he went too far with whatever he had planned.

Maybe I could ask Elle to tell me what they’re doing? No. I can’t hang around her
anymore. Besides, she’s already seen the crazy side of Hex, Grandma, and me, and was ready to
rush off. Having her spy on my brother would probably not sit right with her.

“The limo will be here at 6:30 p.m. to pick Hex and you up.” Reece interrupted my

thoughts. “Your tuxedo is in your bedroom. Should I make arrangements for Hex’s new model to come with us? I know Hex enjoys showing his new models off when he can.”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t enjoy the anticipation bubbling in my chest from the fact that I might see Elle again. It shouldn’t have even happened. She was only a beautiful woman. I’d seen many in my life.

But none who gave me an electric surge.

Chapter 5

~Elle

My phone read thirty-five missed calls from Michael.

Will there be a certain point when my phone stops counting missed calls?

Michael’s messages flooded the inbox to the point where I was sure no one else could leave a message. Not that anyone else called me. I never truly made friends with anybody and had chosen to stay to myself or dedicate all of my time to Michael.

Not anymore.

I shut my phone off and leaned my head against the window as the driver steered the limo toward South Beach. Hex sat silent in the far corner with his thumb in his mouth and his face toward his door. He hadn’t said anything the whole thirty minutes we’d been in the car.

“If I knew you weren’t going to talk, I would have never come.” It was my tenth attempt at starting conversation. My patience evaporated on my fifth try. Alvarez’s personal assistant, Reece, had organized this shopping trip and explained that Hex would be throwing a goodbye party for all of his friends. She’d handed me a credit card and told me to use it for my clothes and his.

“So how many people are going to be at the party?” I shifted in my seat. “Will it be a theme or simple dinner affair?”

He removed his thumb. Small bubbles and saliva saturated the fat finger. “Would you please shut up?”

“Excuse me?”

“Be quiet. You’ve been running your mouth the whole time.” He stuffed his thumb back into his mouth and leaned his head against the back of the seat.

“Well, I’m going to keep talking just on the principle that I don’t let guys who still suck their thumbs like a baby tell me what to do.” I showed him my middle finger.

“Is this how Michael taught you to be a model?” He didn’t even look my way, figuring the fact that he’d brought up my ex-boyfriend’s name would probably silence me. Hex was wrong. It only pissed me off.

“Do you realize how absurd your being rude to me is? The very fact that your finger is lodged in your mouth negates any barb you have to sling at me.”

“Have mercy. Now I know why Michael fired you.”

“He didn’t fire me. I left.”

That got his attention. He slid his thumb out an inch, yet the tip still remained between his lips. “Why?”

“I didn’t like working for him anymore.”

“Why?”

“Your turn. Why have you been sitting in the car this whole time, moping and suckling your finger like a newborn baby?”

“Did you really see a dead body leave the property?”

He’s still worried about the possibility of the dead girls. He should be.

“I didn’t see a dead girl.” It wasn’t a lie. I hadn’t seen her, just the body bag she lay in.

“There shouldn’t be anything to worry about. Is that why you’re worried? You’re scared you’re in danger?”

“No. Nothing would happen to me.” He pulled the thumb all the way out of his mouth. “I just don’t want the killing to start again.”

My heart stopped. My stomach knitted in pain. “Killing? Again?”

Hex raked his fingers through his hair. “Forget what I just said. It’s something that happened a long time ago. When I was young, a tragedy happened around me. I can’t deal with too many people dying.”

My body relaxed. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He shoved that thumb back into his mouth.

“Would you please stop with the freaking finger? It’s not only disgusting, but it will ruin your teeth and the skin on your thumb. Not to mention, I could go on and on about how ridiculous you look.”

“It’s how I soothe myself.”

“Goodness gracious. Why not get a freaking addiction that’s less embarrassing?” I

scooted over to the bar within the limo’s interior wall. “Have a drink with me like an adult.”

“I don’t drink much and when I do, it’s hard to stop, so I don’t.”

“Instead, you just suck your thumb?” I rolled my eyes. “As if that’s the most reasonable thing to do.”

He raised one eyebrow, opened his lips, and chuckled. “Are you ever going to let my thumb sucking go?”

“No.” I yanked out two small wine glasses and a long bottle of white wine. “In fact, I feel it’s my duty this summer to get you over that raunchy habit.”

“Raunchy?”

“Disgusting. Absurd. Insane. Name it whatever you want. It’s not normal.”

“What is?”

“Not sucking your thumb, for one.” I giggled.

A chuckle left his lips. I poured both of us a glass of wine and couldn’t care less if Hex drank or not. Having him shift from thumb sucking to alcohol might’ve been a bad idea, but at least he appeared less unusual. I handed his glass to him. “So back to this party for tomorrow night, what are we celebrating?”

“It’s more of a farewell.” He studied the glass and jiggled the gold colored liquid. A little spilled out at the edges. “Al wants everybody off the property to be safe. That makes me scared.”

“Why?”

“He thinks I can’t handle things so he’s always hiding stuff from me.”

“Well, you were just moping over there and sucking your thumb.”

“Stop bringing up my thumb sucking.”

“Never.” I sipped my wine. The sweet liquid slipped down my throat with ease and

reminded me of a sugary juice versus a typical white wine. He watched me and then took a pathetic sample of his drink.

“So this is a goodbye party for best friends?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t say that. We’re more like colleagues.” His next sip was bigger. “Every time I spot something inspiring on a television show, magazine, or an event, I discover who the creator of this magical thing is and then invite them to my place.”

“Just like that?”

He took a gulp. “Just like that. I love enchanting people around me. I love when so many creative people are under one roof. It’s like anything is possible.”

Michael and Hex truly were as different as I’d guessed. My ex hated other artists around him. The spotlight needed to be on him or a problem arose.

“Sometimes I do fun things like bring out a huge canvas. Imagine one that is bigger than the size of my studio. I drag it out to one of our gardens, call everyone around it, and just have everybody fill it with color. I must admit the result tends to be a mishmash of ideas and concepts, but none of that ever matters.”

“None of it matters?” I finished my wine. With all the weird things that had occurred around me today, a little liquid relaxation served as the perfect tool to soothe me. “What do you do with the finished pieces?”

“Throw them away.”

“What?” I opened my mouth in shock. “It could be worth something one day. You never know.”

“No.” He waved my declaration away. “None of that matters anyway. It’s never the end result that I’m looking for. I don’t ever care what the result will be from any of my crazy imaginations. I leave all of that stuff to Al. It’s how I’m able to do what I do--because Al gathers all those pieces of my artistic voyages and makes us money.”

“So let me get this straight.” I leaned forward. “When you and your friends do art

together you just throw it away because none of those works matter?”

“None of any of the works matter. Neither their stuff nor mine.”

“None of it?” I tossed him a mocking smirk. “I don’t believe you at all.”

“It’s the truth. For me, the paintings, pictures, sculptures or whatever else I make is insignificant to the voyage I took to make them. It’s always about the process and the experience I get from it. That’s why I do it all.”

“For the voyage? So there’s nothing that you’ve worked on with others that you’ll present to the public?”

He waited for a few seconds and nodded. “There is one thing, but that would be only if the public was ready.”

“You’re not sure we all are, huh?”

“No.” As if newly energized, he finished his wine, sat back in the car, and wagged his arms around in elaborate circles and twists. “Anyway. With every new collection, it’s like I’m living a new life. I get to embark on some crazy adventures into theories and concepts that I would’ve never considered before. I mean, it’s addictive. I get this one thing in my head, just one thing, and it keeps me up all night. I turn into a madman, exploring its origin, smelling and tasting the idea until I can touch the texture and lap it up with my tongue and consume it whole.

Surely, you must know how I feel.”

I sat there and hadn’t moved since he’d begun talking. “I’ve never felt that way before about anything.”

“Not even modeling?”

“Nothing.”

He frowned. “What about movies?”

“When I look at movies, it’s different. It’s almost like when you suck your thumb.

Movies soothe me. Anytime I’ve ever gotten sad or depressed, I would get some ice cream or chips, a huge comfy blanket, and a bunch of movies to just fall into another world for a while and not think of the things going on around me. I started watching movies a lot when I was in my teens.” I twirled the liquid in my glass, but made sure it didn’t spill out.

Hex gazed at me. His look seared into my skin. “What’s your passion?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to know.”

“Actually, I don’t, but my goal is to find out.” Now that I’d left Michael thousands of possibilities lay out in front of me. I planned to model for a while, but not forever. I wasn’t even sure if I’d ever liked modeling to begin with if it wasn’t for Michael convincing me to do it. “I guess my journey now will be to find my passion.”

“You have to give yourself freely in order to receive that knowledge. You can’t just be safe all the time. You’ll have to dive into the ocean of obscurity with no destination in your head and just swim until you get exhausted and drown.”

“But then I’ll be dead.”

“No.” He wagged his finger. “Then you’ll truly be alive.”

“Says the man who was just sucking his thumb a minute ago.”

“Yes. Says the man who was just sucking his thumb.” Hex clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I know what I want my collection to be about.”

I held my hand up. “Hold on. You had no idea before?”

“No.”

“I thought you were working on the concept all year.”

“No. More like brainstorming and preparing for something to grab a hold of me, but

nothing hooked me until now.”

“So what is it?”

“Do you promise not to tell my brother?”

“Really? Why would you hide it from him?”

“What I have planned, he may not like. I’ve pushed him before and sometimes he

threatens to leave. What I have planned will make him reconsider those thoughts again.”

“It’s that bad?”

“Probably. If the art world had an ethics committee, I would probably be pissing my pants about the collection.”

“You sound like you know exactly what you’re going to do.”

“Of course, I do. I just needed a name for it.”

“Okay. Fine. I swear I won’t tell your brother what the subject of your collection will be.”

He extended his hand and wiggled his pink finger. “Let’s make this official.”

“Oh my goodness.” I made sure the hand he offered wasn’t the one he had in his mouth and latched my pinky onto his. “I swear.”

“The subject is sacrifice. As I’ve been going through the process, I really wasn’t sure what this phenomenon would be, but I think sacrifice would bring it all together.” He winked at me. “I had no idea where you would fit into the collection. Michael made you an archangel. I considered having you end the entire collection as the angel of death to metaphorically welcome everyone to the gates of the afterlife. I’m not sure I like it. Instead, I’ll follow your journey.

You’ll sacrifice for me. And this way, we can go on this voyage together.”

“I’ll sacrifice for you?”

“Yes. You’re going to give up something to gain whatever it is you need.”

This was the art world and Hex represented a true artist who saw the world in many

layers of reality, so thick that a layer could be yanked away for a few seconds and analyzed like a book.

“Sacrifice.” I curled the word around my tongue and sucked in the bitter taste of it. “Why sacrifice?”

“Because in order to truly be free you’ll have to surrender it all. You’ll have to tear away all of the things that bind you to whatever is keeping you back from your passion.” He looked out the window and off into the distance. “I’ve been battling with something for a long time. I think it’s time for me to stop being scared and see if I can discover who I truly am for sure.”