dessert.”
His eyes narrow just slightly. “What’s your favorite kind of dessert?”
“I’m not terribly picky. If it’s sweet and delicious, I love it. Though I do think it’s hard to beat really good ice cream.”
“Gelato,” he guesses, though it’s more statement than question.
“Totally,” I smile, thinking of Sir. “Give me a pint of pistachio gelato, and there’s basically zero chance that I won’t finish the entire thing. By myself. In one sitting.”
He frowns. “That night in the park. We stopped at the ice cream truck, but you didn’t get ice cream. You got lemon sorbet.”
I smile, remembering. “A whim. A… friend of mine swears by it. I think it’s an affront to dessert, but I realized I couldn’t really say that when I hadn’t given it a chance.”
“What’s the verdict?”
“I still think it’s an affront to dessert,” I say with a grin.
Sebastian doesn’t grin back but studies me with a strange expression. Then I realize that he’d ordered lemon sorbet with me, and maybe I’d just insulted his dessert of choice. I shake my head. What is it with the men in my life liking frozen lemon nonsense?
Perhaps more important: When did I start counting Sebastian Andrews as a man in my life?
Cannoli grows bored and ambles off to my bedroom, and Sebastian nods toward the stack of finished paintings against the wall. “May I?”
“Um…” I hesitate, remembering the one of the man with the aqua eyes. It doesn’t look like Sebastian. It doesn’t look like anyone, really. It’s more shadow than features. Still, those eyes…
“Sure,” I say, because I can’t think of a way to say no that wouldn’t be rude.
I expect him to flip through them quickly, but he takes his time, holding each painting and studying it thoroughly before moving on to the next. I hold my breath when he gets to the one of the man.
He looks at it the same way he did the others, then sets it aside without a word and moves onto the next, seemingly without noticing the unusual eye color. I slowly exhale.
Finally, he gets to the last one—there are eleven in that stack, the ones I think are my best, though I’m still working to get twenty I feel are good enough to take to Mr. Wheeler.
Sebastian turns around to face me once more. “They’re charming, and no, I don’t mean that to be the least bit condescending. Hugh’s going to be thrilled.”
“Thank you,” I say, pleasure rushing over me. “I’ve been—wait… Hugh? Hugh Wheeler?”
He shrugs, then nods once.
I stare at him in confusion. “How did you know that a Chelsea art gallery was—”
Dismay settles low in my stomach as I realize there’s only one way he’d know about Hugh Wheeler approaching me. “It was you.”
Sebastian blinks, looking taken aback by the sharpness in my tone.
“You were his source,” I say. “You were the one who told him how to find me.”
“Yes, I went to school with his brother. He’s a friend. I thought—”
“Oh my God.” I dig my fingers into my hair and tug. “I’m one of your projects.”
“My what?”
“Another Jesse. Another Avis. You all but told me that this is what you do—push people out of business and then fix them up with some other venture so you don’t have to feel guilty. The new restaurant with Jesse. Setting Avis up in Florida. With me, it’s buying me lamb gyros, sucking up to my cat, and calling in a favor with a friend to get my art displayed. It’s pity.”
His eyes flash in anger. “That’s not what’s going on here.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and press my thumbs against my eyelids as it all clicks into place. Every kind gesture, every moment, was merely him trying to assuage his conscience for his role in the failure of Bubbles.
I nod toward the kitchen table. “Did you bring Jesse and Avis their checks in person too?”
He says nothing.
“Did you?” I’m shouting now.
“Yes.”
He says it calmly, and all of my shock and hurt fade into the background, replaced by aching disappointment. No, something a lot worse than disappointment.
Hurt. A hurt so deep it feels awfully close to heartbreak.
I let out a shaky laugh. “I can’t believe I actually thought…” I shake my head.
He steps closer. “You thought what?” His voice is rough, his eyes seeming to plead with mine, and for an insane moment, I want to tell him.
I want to tell him to choose me, to feel about me the way I feel about him.
“Gracie—”
His use of my first name sends