Undeniable: Reverse Harem Story #3 Read online

  That didn’t feel right. I knew this man. There were things we didn’t know about each other yet. But his heart? That I understood completely. He hadn’t gone out to go on a bender. Banyan liked alcohol to have fun.

  So where did he go when he needed to lose himself from reality? He painted. I knew just where he was. Why hadn’t I remembered earlier? He’d taken me downtown to the studio where he painted.

  I squared my shoulders and grabbed my phone. Enough with standing around. This wasn’t who I was. He hadn’t answered any texts. I might know exactly one place to go looking, but I was going to have to go there to find him.

  I had the address in my phone, and I entered it into my rideshare app. Chance paid for me to use it on his credit card. I didn’t know how any of this security was going to work, but unless Molly could hack my phone, she wouldn’t know where I had gone, even if she was watching. I sent a text to Maven and Chance, letting them know where I was headed. I’d be okay. The guys had set up security and it would keep me safe. I’d been scared all day, but I wasn’t anymore. An easy calm filled me.

  The car was nearby, and I went out the front door. The guys had crossed the world to find me. I would cross Manhattan for the chance that Banyan needed me. It was time to take back control of my life. That started with making sure my guys were okay.

  Chapter 7

  My driver wasn’t quiet. Not for a single minute of the twenty-six minute dash down Lexington Avenue did she stop chatting. I made a few noises here or there, but she didn’t seem to need a response, and I was happy not to have to give her one. The world looked quiet outside. I quickly thanked her, opening the door and stepping back into the real world that was still a bustling block in the East Village.

  Manhattan was still very much hopping here. I’d thought it looked like a different planet the dozen or so times I’d come here with Banyan during winter break. The buildings were a different size, the crowd on the street more roaring, and even the scent on the street was different. Someone must be smoking pot. The smell always made my eyes water.

  I walked to the building and typed in the code Banyan had told me gained entrance inside and took the elevator from hell upstairs to his loft. He’d bought this whole apartment purely for the sake of painting. He sketched at Chance’s but always painted here. His own personal space to create away from us if he needed it.

  I stopped outside the apartment. I knew this code, too. It was his private space, but we all had access to it. If it turned out he wasn’t here and was instead drunk in a bar somewhere, I was going to feel ridiculous.

  I twisted the handle and went inside, not at all surprised, but seriously relieved, to see him on a stepladder, painting on an easel so big it took up half the wall. He swirled the color blue around the top of a figure that took me a second to identify. Ultimately, it was the shift in hair colors that told me I was looking at the back of my head. Red and platinum blonde.

  Assuming that was in fact me, and I was pretty sure it was, I had my back to him. My hand was behind my back extended toward him, or whoever viewed it, like all they had to do was reach out and take my fingers.

  I walked toward him, expecting Banyan to turn at any time. When he didn’t, I saw the earbuds in his ear. Bluetooth, so they weren’t connected to anything I could see, but his phone had to be somewhere to blast the music into his ears. Damn, I didn’t want to scare him, but I was also invading his space, which he needed to know.

  The best thing to do was stop the music. It wouldn’t scare him like suddenly grabbing his leg might do, causing him to fall off the ladder. Another minute of looking and I found the phone sitting in the corner of the room. Banyan still hadn’t noticed me. I picked up his phone and paused the music. All my unread texts were glowing on it, along with some from Maven and Chance.

  A second later, he turned on the ladder to look. He jolted but didn’t fall when he saw me. “Baby? What are you doing here?” He jumped down. “You okay?”

  “Am I okay?” My voice shook. “Are you?”

  “It’s after three. What are you doing here?”

  He really was okay. Totally and completely unaware Banyan right in that moment. “I’ve been worried all night. You said you were getting a drink. I finally thought you might be here.”

  His face fell a second before he dragged me to him. “I got in the cab, and I really did mean to just go to a bar, but I came here. Just started painting. I… I didn’t think about it. I’m an ass.”

  “You can do whatever you want whenever you want. I just needed to see you were okay. I’ll let you get back to it.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t go. I freaked out, but I’m okay now. I want you here. Stay.” He pointed behind him. “Do you like it?”

  I swallowed. I’d backed him into a corner by showing up, but he did seem to want me to be here. “That’s me?”

  “It is.” He kissed my cheek. “So glad you’re here.”

  I stared at the painting. “I think it’s beautiful. I wish the back of my head looked that good.”

  “It does.” He tugged on the end of it. “I’m sorry I scared you. I can’t believe you came out here with how you’re feeling about things.”

  I turned to stare him straight in the eyes. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Banyan. I know I’ve been a lot to handle. I…”

  He kissed me, hard, and I wrapped my arms around him. His lips were cool like he’d recently taken a sip of cold water. I held onto him, just breathing the same air. Finally, he released my mouth. “It’s never too much. There’s no such thing as too much Giovanna.”

  “Do you want to show me more of your work?”

  His grin was infectious. “God, yes. Come on.” He wandered around the loft, showing me canvas after canvas. Banyan certainly preferred to draw people over places, but the occasional landscape caught my eye. Were these places he’d seen? The beach was a favorite location. Maven and Chance were often drawn. Usually Maven grinned and Chance didn’t. That was pretty accurate. Banyan painted Chance as all eyes. You had to look to see how he felt.

  I was in almost every canvas. Alone or with others. The more I looked the more my throat threatened to close with emotion. “Did you paint me while I was gone?”

  “In college, too, whenever I could. If you were with Chance or Maven, I was probably painting you.” He paused in his tour. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

  “Overwhelmed with how you see me. Banyan, this is not how I see myself.”

  The Giovanna he painted was dynamic, alert, laughing, happy, sometimes sad, interested. She was the center of every painting, even when she was surrounded by Chance and Maven. I was usually on the outside. I was part of this unique group we were forming but they were the center of my world. Not the other way around.

  “I know. You don’t see yourself correctly. You never have. But we all did, immediately. That day standing in the snow I knew you were it. The only one ever. And if that meant that Maven and Chance got a piece of your heart, too, then so be it. I love them like brothers. They can love you, too. But make no mistake, Giovanna, I knew right then. I saw you.”

  Tears I didn’t know I was shedding fell in droves down my cheek. “Then I have a question for you, my love.”

  His chin quivered. “What’s that?”

  “Where are you in the paintings?”

  His smile was fast. He looked away for a second before he rocked back on his heels. “Asking the artist to do a self-portrait? That’s hard. I mean, I might have to cut off my ear.”

  I sighed loudly. “Do not hand me your ear. I don’t want it. That is not a proper gift.”

  He leaned down to kiss me. “Do you mind if I finish here? Just what I was doing. Then we’ll go home.”

  I wiped at my face. “That’s fine.”

  He had a mattress in the corner but that was the only furniture. If that even counted. At some point he must have slept here because there was also one pillow and a quilt.

  “I’ll sit on your makeshift
bed and wait for you.”

  He kissed both my cheeks. “I’ll think about putting myself in one. And this is the problem with the idea of actually getting an agent. How do I part with any of them? They’re all you.”

  I touched my hand over his heart. “You’ll just have to make more, I guess.”

  “Keep my favorites, yeah, and do just that.” He backed away from me. “Just let me finish what’s in my head.”

  I knew that feeling. Stopping for the police officer had been like getting yanked into pain for a few minutes. Banyan had taken my intrusion downright well. He climbed up the step stool, giving me a view of his tight ass. I sat down on the mattress to watch. But soon my attention was off his rear end and watching his brush strokes.

  Truth was, my education about art came down to pretty much what I liked versus what I didn’t. Banyan was talented. There was an edge to what he did, as though the veil with which he watched the world was always slightly out of focus. His hands were all consuming. As the vehicle to create, the brushes moved over the canvas like his fingers did my body when we made love. He was all attentive. There was nothing that didn’t warrant his attention.

  I watched until my neck hurt, and then I lay back to watch some more. He’d lost track of time. That much was clear. I could bother him about it, but I really didn’t want to. Instead, I curled up on his pillow and closed my eyes. It didn’t smell like him. He really didn’t sleep here much. There was the slightest smell of paint in the air, but it didn’t bother me. The place was pretty well ventilated with high ceilings, and somewhere a fan blew, moving air around us. The sound was almost white noise. It lulled me into deep dreams quickly.

  Sometime later with the room dark, Banyan crawled in next to me, covering us both in his quilt. He kissed the back of my neck. He must have shut off the light in the room. I tried to open my lids to look at him but exhaustion, worry, and just the day itself caught up with me. The lights of the city glowed like a nightlight to the universe.

  “Love you. Sorry.” He whispered before he adjusted slightly. His arm was around me. There was one pillow and his head dipped onto it next to mine.

  I didn’t answer, just letting sleep and the knowledge that Banyan was there and fine follow me into oblivion.

  * * *

  Banyan snored lightly next to me when the sound of a door opening in the loft roused me. I jerked awake. We were totally exposed, and while that had felt fine at three a.m., the reality of Molly hit me square in the gut at… I grabbed my phone… holy shit… two in the afternoon.

  Maven stared down at us. He held in his hand two cups of coffee. He set them on the floor and without a word climbed in next to me. The mattress was big enough, but I had to roll back against Banyan, who muttered something but didn’t stir.

  “Thank you for the text or I would have panicked. Banyan sent one right before he went to sleep. You’re both fine.”

  My heart finally not racing, I pressed my head against his chest. “Afternoon, Maven.”

  “Afternoon, my love. Next time you want to run across the city, wake me up so I can come. I recognize all is well, but if Banyan isn’t going to check his phone to see that the security people are pinging him about your departure from the house then I need to be getting those messages, too. And I missed you last night.”

  That seemed reasonable. “Maybe we should all hook up onto some kind of family plan that shows us where we all are at all times. Or is that too much?”

  “I like it.” Maven sighed. “You’re all warm and rumpled. I love it.”

  Banyan finally stirred. “Do I smell coffee?”

  “I’d never dare walk in here after you binge painted all night without it.”

  Banyan reached over both of us to grab the coffee. “Is this your version of “I’m sorry I talked like a real douche even if I was right last night” apology? Bringing me the coffee.” He winked at me. “I lived with him. Big gestures. That’s how he says things.”

  “Actually, no.” Maven winked at me. “I have a bigger gesture.”

  He did? “Mave, what did you do?”

  “Do tell, brother.” Banyan sat all the way up now.

  “I don’t want you to go meet some agent your mother wants to fuck. I don’t care if she’s after the best art agent in the city. I meant what I said, and I understood why it made you upset once Giovanna and Chance explained it. So I made a call to a buddy I went to high school with. He was three years ahead of me. Anyway, I told him I had this new artist I knew. I used a fake name. Didn’t tell him it was you, just that while I would never consider myself an expert on anything, I thought it was pretty damned good.”

  Banyan’s mouth hung open. “He told me that anyone who caught my eye was worth looking at. I might have had a reputation as being hard to please.”

  I elbowed him. “You so aren’t.”

  He kissed my temple. “Anyway, I emailed him that portrait you did of Giovanna that you emailed me a while back.”

  I didn’t even know which one that was, but Banyan did. He sat forward. “You did?”

  “Sure. He wants to meet you. He’s not going to know who you are. Pen name. Authors do it. Why not you? Protect your identity. Let the art speak. Tell your mother to fuck off.”

  I loved them all so much. Banyan had a problem. Maven fixed it. If Chance could have, he would have. That’s what they did. And somehow they wanted me with them.

  Maven handed me my coffee, and I sipped it. Banyan finally grinned. “Okay, you’re forgiven. That’s a pretty good apology, Maven. Even if it doesn’t work out. I appreciate the effort.”

  “Yep.” Maven nodded. “I thought so, too.”

  * * *

  Chance arrived home with the announcement we were all going out to eat that night.

  “We need fun. I know Vonni doesn’t care for the clubs, but I have this idea how we can spend the night. It’ll be safe because I’ll get the security team watching. All I need is everyone getting a little done up. Including me. So go shower. We’re going out. And, Vonni, wear the black ones.”

  Chance did love to dictate my underwear choices. My cheeks heated up at the announcement. “Done up, how?”

  “Dressy dinner and somewhere fancy-ish after.”

  I sighed. “I pretty much have my gold dresses and my jeans.”

  Chance’s face lit up. “Well, I might have thought of that, too.”

  Maven laughed. “I knew you were late getting home tonight. You went shopping for Giovanna, didn’t you?”

  Chance swung open the door and pulled inside a large shopping bag. “I did. I bought you clothes.”

  There was this side to Chance that others never got to see. I loved it. Here he was, gorgeous, put together. He could dress like he was out of a men’s fashion catalog. But he had his ear pierced, and when he didn’t cover it, the slightest hint of a phoenix tattoo on his left arm. He always had it covered at work, but he’d rolled up his sleeves just now so it was visible. He loved picking out clothes for me, particularly my underwear, and I had to admit that I adored when he did it.

  My body buzzed with excitement. I’d never cared about fashion before Connie and Kay. These days it felt more like art than just getting dressed. “Thank you, Chance.”

  He handed me the bag, and I leaned over to kiss him. He grinned against my lips. “Go get dressed.”

  “Where are we eating? Since apparently I no longer know how to clothe myself, I might need you to direct me, Chance,” Banyan said. “And should I tell my mom we’re standing her up or just stand her up?”

  I didn’t wait to hear that answer. I had clothes to go through. Chance had picked a variety of clothing, and as I hung them all up in my closet or put them in drawers, I could see that he’d picked things I would actually like wearing. And he’d done more than just clothes for tonight. There were things for me to wear every day if I wanted to.

  He was so thoughtful.

  In the end, I put on a light pink sleeveless dress that was V-neck and also had a squa
re opening in the center of my back. It was shorter than I might have picked for myself, coming a little higher over my knees than I was usually comfortable with, but it was summer. I sent a text to Chance.

  Can’t wear the black with the dress. Pink or nude okay?

  It took him only a second to answer. Bet I know which dress you picked. Nude.

  He’d thrown in some shoes, too, which I hoped worked. Shoes were more complicated than purchasing clothes. Even ones that should fit, sometimes didn’t. But the small black heel that had lace I was to wrap around my ankles worked. I grinned at my appearance and not because I in any way felt gorgeous but because this felt like something Kay and Connie would have put me in. The only problem was the hair.

  I sighed at it. I needed to do something with it. I couldn’t continue to be half platinum blonde, half red. Maybe it would work if it was pink or something dramatic and fun. But this half platinum on the bottom, half natural red on top just looked messy. Or at least it did to me.

  It needed to be tamed tonight. I pulled it back and braided it. Maybe it would look more like I’d meant it to be this dual mess. Hopefully someone would think that rather than the truth which was I’d been dragged off to India and all but forgotten I needed to have it fixed since then.

  I smirked at myself. You’d think I’d been recovering from major surgery. I rubbed my stomach. Phantom pains sometimes caught my attention. I was pretty sure it was the scar tissue or the healing tissue or something like that. I didn’t know, but the scar looked pretty good, and I didn’t worry. It was just an occasional reminder that I’d been through something intense, lest I wanted to live in denial about it.

  I put on some lip gloss and made an attempt at smoky eyes. I’d not been allowed to play with makeup as a young girl. It was considered a frivolous waste of time for someone who struggled so much academically. I was expected to just study all the time.

  Ironically, it had been Molly who’d taught me how to put on eye makeup. My hand faltered at the thought. I took a deep breath. There were parts of my life she had been a big part of, and if I was being honest, she still was. The woman might be sitting on a beach across the world and I was setting up communication with security people because I wanted to go out.