The canvas was large, six foot by four, and was executed in her signature style, so highly detailed it looked almost as real as a photograph but with a magical quality. Sienna was posed like Botticelli’s Venus, draped in royal-blue cloth to set off her Titian hair, which cascaded over her shoulders in abundant loose curls. Her clear grey-green eyes gazed out above a narrow nose very faintly dusted with freckles.
Lexie was satisfied she’d gotten the face right, was pleased she’d captured an expression of alert curiosity. Every hair was painted with attention to texture and color. Along with the creamy skin of Sienna’s shoulder and one exposed breast. Sienna looked…alive.
Yet the painting didn’t feel complete. Something was missing, Lexie knew it instinctively. She just couldn’t put her finger on what. She’d done six versions and this was the best. If she started mucking about again she might ruin what she’d already done.
She tried instead to concentrate on the theme. Sienna by the bay. The unseen half seashell. Borne on the waves. Born of the sea…
It was no use. Lexie glanced toward the house, wondering what Rafe was up to. Should she have allowed him to look through her things? He was a stranger, after all. He might be going through her underwear. Wouldn’t that be… Exciting.
Stop it. Why was she thinking like that? He was way too young for her, practically a boy in short pants. It must be because she was blocked. She always got antsy under pressure.
Sliding off the stool, she walked over to the tall cupboards at the back of the studio. She flung them open, hoping the tax envelopes would jump out at her. Nothing but painting supplies. Crouching lower, she looked through brushes, turpentine, old palettes, sketchbooks, flattened and twisted tubes of used oil paints.
From the doorway, Rafe cleared his throat. “Excuse me. I need to calculate the percentage of household expenses accounted for by your studio.”
Lexie stood up, shutting the cupboard. Rafe had walked across the lawn in his socks and a tuft of grass had caught between his bare toe and the torn sock edge.
“This space is roughly a quarter of the square footage of the house. I paint out here and do my framing,” she said, gesturing to the trestle table along the side wall piled with off cuts of mat board and empty frames. “But I also use the house to research things on the internet, read art books and magazines.”
“Since those are all deductible I’ll adjust the percentage upward.” He moved into the studio, glancing at Sienna’s portrait. “Is this your Archibald Prize entry?”
“It’s supposed to be. I can’t seem to finish it.”
He walked over to the canvas, peered up at Sienna’s face. “It looks finished.”
Picking a brush out of the jar of turpentine, Lexie cleaned it on a rag. “Something’s missing.”
Rafe adopted the classic pose of someone looking at a painting, arm across the waist, the other palm cupping the jaw, the studious frown. His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his white shirt. Lexie’s gaze drifted lower. His cocked hip emphasized his butt muscles and the length of his extended leg.
“It’s very romantic,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t actually mean that as a compliment.”
“Why not?” she asked, frowning. With her brother Jack and Sienna falling in love it had been impossible to paint Sienna without an air of romance.
“It needs something to counteract all the beauty. To raise it above sentimentality.”
She tossed the brush onto the table with a clatter. He dared to give her advice? “Sentimental!”
He shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
Lexie forced herself to study the painting again. She worked hard at being objective about her own work and she had a pretty thick skin. But she’d never thought her interpretation of Sienna was sentimental. The very word conjured paint-by-number kits and kitschy paintings of doe-eyed children holding floppy sunflowers.
“The hair, the skin, the robe…all lush. The expression in her eyes is very emotional,” Rafe explained.
“I know,” she said through gritted teeth. “It’s what I was trying to achieve. It’s supposed to be emotional.”
In a series of sittings spanning several months, she and Sienna had talked about many things. A recurring theme had been Sienna’s yearning for another child besides Oliver, her teenage son from her first marriage. Now that Sienna was marrying Lexie’s brother, Jack, she probably would have a baby. Naturally, there’d been emotion involved. “There’s nothing wrong with portraying feelings.”
“I didn’t say there was.”
“It’s not sentimental.”
“No need to get defensive. I think it’s wonderful. I’m just trying to help.”
“It’s not your cup of tea, that’s all.”
“You’re wrong. I like it a lot,” he insisted. “I just think it needs a contrasting note.”
That stopped her dead. He turned to her, one eyebrow lifted. Damn. Her silence was starting to look like agreement. He was cocky enough as it was. She couldn’t let him think he’d solved her problem. Not that he had solved it. It was one thing to toss off the phrase “contrasting note” like he knew what he was talking about and quite another to figure out what form the contrast should take.
“It has occurred to me that it needs more interior depth,” Lexie mused aloud, trying to baffle him with bullshit. “Perhaps a smidgeon more archetypal mystery in her smile. The goddess within, juxtaposed with the beast, as manifested by the exposed breast.”
Rafe seemed skeptical at this display of gobbledygook. He studied her a moment then finally laughed.
Lexie lifted her chin, holding his gaze rather than admit she was full of it. Damn. He’d seen right through her.
His laughter faded, his amusement replaced by something intent, almost…hungry. Lexie felt herself growing warm, her breathing shallow.
What was happening here?
Rafe blinked. “I’ve got to get back to number crunching. I, uh…” He shook his head. “What did I come in here for? Oh, yeah. Would you say you spend eighty percent of your work time in the studio and twenty percent in the house? Less? More?”
Lexie thought for a moment. She’d never considered this before. “Make it seventy percent studio.”
“Okay.” He started to leave then paused at the door. “I’ll need copies of your utility bills for the past five years. Would they also be in the envelopes?”
“Er, probably.”
He nodded and left. Through the window, Lexie watched him walk back across the lawn to the kitchen door and disappear inside the house. He had a great ass. And great shoulders. Long legs. Narrow hips. Really, he was perfectly proportioned. She wouldn’t mind painting him nude….
Stop
