strong, he fisted his hands.
“My mom does that, you know.”
Expecting something totally different from her, he frowned and peered over at her. “Does what?”
“Tells me she isn’t upset when I know she is. Especially when I’m home for a holiday and I want to go somewhere without her. It’s not really passive-aggressive behavior. It’s more like she sees I’m an adult, and, though it’s hard, she has to give me some space. So she says she’s not mad and lets me go alone.” She caught his gaze. “Sometimes it makes me feel guilty. But I know it’s her choice. Almost like a gift.”
He frowned. If Laura Beth had picked up on his exchange with Constanzo, maybe it hadn’t been so innocent after all. “A gift?”
“Yes. Time alone with my friends is a gift.”
He scrunched his face in confusion. “Why would Constanzo think we needed alone time when we just spent several days together?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Well, whatever he’s doing, it’s weird, because until today Constanzo’s never dropped back.”
“Maybe this morning he finally got the message that you don’t want him around so much?”
The guilt rolled back. It tightened his chest and clenched his stomach. He looked out over the hood of the car, then faced her. “It’s not like that. The only time I freak is when he meddles.”
She shook her head. “No. You’re pretty much always grouchy with him. But I get it.” She put her hand on his forearm, as if what she had to say was supremely important and she wanted him to listen. “You’re an adult who lives twenty minutes away from a retired wealthy man who adores you and has nothing to do but dote on you.”
He laughed.
“When he first found you, all this attention was probably fun. Now you want to be yourself.”
“I suppose.” Except without painting he had no idea who he was. And maybe that’s what made him the most angry with Constanzo’s meddling. He wanted to be able to say, Let me alone so I can paint, or feed the hungry, or gamble, or read, or sit on the beach. But he couldn’t. He had no interest in anything. And having Constanzo around always reminded him of that.
Not wanting to think about that anymore, he hit the gas and propelled them into the street, ending the discussion.
The wind ruffled through their hair, and Laura Beth laughed with glee. “This is great!”
He hit the clutch and shifted into the next gear, working up some speed before he shifted again, and again, each time sending the little car faster as he wove in and out of lanes, dodging traffic.
She laughed merrily, shoving her hands above her head to feel the air.
Something about her laugh soothed him. She hadn’t been right about Constanzo giving him space. Never in their history together had his dad ever dropped back, unless Antonio pushed him. But suddenly it didn’t matter. With the wind in his face and the sun beating down on him, it was just nice to be outside. To be away from his dad. To be away from two years’ worth of requests for paintings. To be away from the studio that reminded him he couldn’t create.
He sucked in the spring air, let her laugh echo around him and felt the tightness of his muscles loosen as he drove to the Picasso Museum.
* * *
Laura Beth followed Antonio to a back entrance of the pale stone museum. Glancing around, she said, “So, are you a friend of the curator or is your dad a donor?”
He said, “Both,” then pulled his cell phone from his jeans pocket. “Carmen, we’re here.”
They waited only a few seconds before a short dark-haired woman opened the door for them. Antonio said something to her in Spanish, then she smiled and disappeared down a hallway.
The power of a billionaire would never cease to amaze Laura Beth. “Nice.”
“It is nice. I don’t like having to work my way through crowds or wait in lines.”
“Nobody likes to work their way through a crowd or wait in a line.”
“Which makes me lucky that I can come in through a back door.”
She shook her head. “Right.”
He led her through a maze of corridors until they entered the museum proper. Paintings dominated the space. Color and light flowed like honey. A true fan, Antonio stopped, closed his eyes and inhaled.
Laura Beth stifled a laugh. Not because it wasn’t funny, but because he was home. This was where he loved to be.
He didn’t say anything, just walked up to a painting and stood in front of it. She ambled over, sidling up to him to see the picture. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the odd shapes, the out-of-proportion dimensions, the unexpected colors.
“Isn’t that something?”
She fought not to grimace. “Yeah, it’s something, all right.”
It took only ten minutes and two more paintings for her to realize she didn’t just dislike the first piece of art. She didn’t like Picasso. Still, she smiled and nodded in all the right places, if only because she didn’t want to look like a bumpkin.
Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry, but these paintings are weird.”
He spared her a glance and said simply, “You don’t like abstracts.”
She winced. “I don’t.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I thought you liked this museum.”
“I do.” He glanced around, as if the ten minutes had filled his desire and now he was fidgety. “But today I feel odd being here—”
She didn’t think that was it. As casual and calm as he tried to be about his dad backing out of their plans, she knew it had upset him. Or maybe it nagged at him. If it really was the first time Constanzo had canceled plans with him, there was a reason. And Antonio was too smart of a guy not to know that.
So why did he keep pretending he didn’t care?
He looked around. “Maybe I just don’t want to be inside a building?”
“Maybe.” And maybe he needed a little time in the good, old-fashioned outdoors to think things through. “We’ve got a pretty fancy car out there. If you wanna take a ride through the city, I’m game.”
Antonio cast a longing look at a painting and another thought suddenly struck her. What if his edginess wasn’t about his dad but about the paintings? Picasso might be his favorite artist and he might have visited this museum every time he came to Barcelona, but she’d bet he hadn’t been here since he stopped painting.
He definitely needed to get out of here.
So
