His Black Pearl by Colette Howard Read Free Book Online Page A

as much.”
    “I’d be painting other pieces at my home studio.”
    Approaching the piece Hallie had finished that afternoon, Aaron gave her a side glance. “And your point is, what?”
    She opened her mouth then quickly shut it. She didn’t have a point and sure as hell didn’t want to be back in her home studio -- or her old bedroom. She was the most productive she’d been since her mother had passed. Even with the freakishly invisible staff, the accommodations were amazing, and the entertainment…
    That was to die for.
    “No point,” she admitted.
    He put his hand near the canvas, his fingertips a few centimeters from the top layer of paint. “Dry?”
    She nodded. “Acrylics.”
    His touch light, he outlined the painting’s foreground. “How do you know what it looks like?”
    She frowned. “Google images. You stocked the room with a Mac Pro.”
    He shook his head, his eyes flicking to her again before he bent down for a closer look at the oyster shell. “You didn’t see one that looked like this.”
    He was right. She had looked at resource photos online but all the shells were too razor-edged or spiky along their lips. She’d made the edges as softly rolling curves, just like --
    She tried to shake the image out of her head. The image of the oyster shell that could have held Aaron’s black pearl was meant to be dark, not sensuous. But the instant his fingertip had touched the canvas, the picture was transformed.
    His face an inch from the canvas, he murmured something like, “Closer than I thought.”
    “What?”
    His head snapped back, his blue gaze narrowing. “I didn’t say anything.”
    The hell you didn’t ran through her head but she only shrugged.
    Aaron turned to the next canvas and Hallie thought she detected a slight jerk.
    “Hired hands,” she offered. It was something of a self-portrait -- her sitting in front of a vanity mirror while disembodied, skeletal hands ran a brush through her hair, placed heavy baroque rings on her fingers and applied mascara to her lashes. While she had stopped teasing him about his invisible staff, the painting played on that theme, only the skeleton hands were freakier than the voices over the intercom, or their owners, who always managed to show up and clean the room when she had just left it.
    Not looking at the other images, Aaron walked to the couch and sat down with his hands in front of his face. Hallie joined him on the couch, her fingertips gently resting on the back of his neck. She curled her other hand around his biceps and waited for him to stop hiding.
    It was confusing as hell. His main collection was full of life, including the four canvases he’d already bought from her. But his room, the dark corners of the house, his office -- all of the truly personal spaces were filled with somber, foreboding pieces. The pieces in front of him were nothing like her usual work, but she had thought he would like them.
    “Aaron, what’s wrong?”
    He lifted his head from his hands, his gaze going back to the paintings. “You need to finish the commi --” Staring at the blank canvas, he stopped and pointed. “And that one?”
    That one she didn’t want to talk about.
    He looked around the studio again, his gaze seeming to unerringly track the progression of her themes. “You were going to paint your mother?”
    Lying in Aaron’s arms one night, Hallie had told him about the cancer, the surgery followed by months of chemo, and then the last few days when her mother had demanded to be released from the hospital so she could die at home.
    “That first visit to the doctor…” Hallie stopped and brushed a tear from her cheek. “I showed up at the house to start her portrait to find that she couldn’t even get out of bed.”
    She brushed a second tear away and then slammed her fist on her knee. “I had twenty fucking months --”
    Aaron wrapped his arms around her. Cradling her head against his chest, he stroked her hair and shushed her. “Do your