Nope. They weren’t lovers. Lovers stayed the night. Friends with benefits didn’t cuddle or sleep over, no matter how mind-blowing the sex had been or how much they genuinely liked each other’s company. He gazed at her beautiful face for a few seconds longer, then got out of bed and went to get dressed.
Chapter Eighteen
Tess put down her brush and stepped back to better survey the canvas. Painting was both her love and her infinite frustration. She could never quite get onto the canvas the exact vision she had in her head, no matter how hard she tried. It seemed elusive. But she loved the process, the actual painting itself... She always lost herself in it.
She went to add some more cobalt blue to her palette when her cell phone rang behind her. She didn’t answer it; she never answered it when she was painting, letting the call go to voice mail. Her head tipped to the side as she studied her work, trying to decide what to do next. She was so close to being finished with this painting, and it meant a lot to her. It wasn’t often she gave away her artwork as a gift, but she had a feeling—hoped—this one would be appreciated. Her heart was in it.
The phone rang again two minutes later. And again two minutes after that. Annoyed, she finally stomped over to look at the screen. It was her father. “Hello?”
“Finally!” Charles II bellowed. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Why aren’t you leaving me a message when I don’t?” she shot back.
He paused. “Well. Having a good morning, are we?”
“I was, until this.” She so wasn’t in the mood for him today.
“My, my. You sound a bit testy.”
“I’m painting. You’re interrupting. You know how I get.”
“I do. So I apologize for interrupting.” Her father almost sounded earnest. “But I’m tired of leaving voice mails and not getting a return phone call. I deserve better. I don’t like being ignored.”
“Sorry,” she said. With a sigh, she sank into the armchair in the corner. She wouldn’t be able to paint now, her concentration had been broken. “But what if I was on the slopes? Would you have kept calling for hours? Just leave me a voice mail, Dad.”
“I told you, I’m tired of your not answering them.” His tone gained a steely edge. “You’ve been away for six weeks. This is ludicrous already. It’s time for you to come home, don’t you think?” Ah, that was the Charles Harrison II they all knew. Demanding, surly, arrogant, expecting the world to stop on a dime at his command.
“No, I don’t think,” she said. “In fact, I’ll definitely be staying here through March, possibly April too.”
“What?” he shouted. “Why?”
“Because I have some things going on here,” she said mildly, unfazed by his anger. “And until I see them through to completion, I’m staying here. I can do my work for the foundation from here, I’m not slacking. I’m just not physically in New York.”
“What the hell’s so important there that you’re staying?”
“That’s . . . my business. Sorry.”
Blistering silence from him. She could almost feel him thinking, trying to work out an angle, trying to figure out how to find out what she was doing in Aspen. God knew he had the connections and wherewithal; if he dug hard enough, he could probably find out. He certainly had in the past. Her personal life was rarely her own; he’d dug into her business more times than she could count. Being his only daughter hadn’t been easy, ever. The sense of ownership and entitlement where she was concerned hadn’t been clear to her until her college years, but once she’d realized it, it’d been an eye-opening game changer.
“A secret lover? Good for you.”
“It’s no one’s business but mine.”
“Aha! Struck a nerve. Must be a yes.”
“Stop,” Tess snapped. “Now.”
“I’ll come out there myself if I have to,” he finally warned in a low voice.
“Oh my God. Seriously? I’m turning thirty-eight in a few weeks,” she said, fighting not to lose her cool. “What are you going to do, force me onto your private jet and take me home? Been there, done that. It’ll never happen again.”