The poster he was currently fascinated with was a print I’d picked up at a flea market. It showed a young woman in a garden at nighttime, her brow crowned with flowers. She was bent over, surveying the party of fairies and other wee folk surrounding her, amidst glowing balls of colorful light. I loved it for its whimsical feel.
“It is the industry standard,” he answered, and it took me a few seconds to realize he was responding to my comment about his artist’s salary. “I wasn’t always paid in money, though. At the start, when there wasn’t a lot of money, Adam paid me with stock in the company.”
My brows shot up. “Holy crap…for real? That must be worth a fortune now.”
He was still staring at the print. I couldn’t tell whether he liked it or was horrified by it. “It changes depending on the day and the value of the stock. I don’t pay much attention to it. The last I heard from my accountant, my portfolio was worth a little more than fifty-six million dollars,” he said as if he were talking hockey scores.
I almost fell off the chair. I knew his cousin had gone from millionaire to billionaire, having started the company on his own, but I had no idea that William himself was a millionaire.
“Uh…wow. Why are you still working?”
He finally pulled his eyes away from the poster and looked at my right shoulder. “What else would I do?”
I laughed. “I don’t know…travel all year round? Sit on a different beach every week and read books? I could think of a lot of things.”
“The colors in that print are extremely faded from what they should be.” Clearly, talking money didn’t interest William, given the way he blew off what I’d just said. “That is a famous painting by E. R. Hughes, an English painter of the pre-Raphaelite tradition,” he said without looking at it again.
“It’s an old poster I bought a few years back. I’m going to give it away when I move.”
“When you leave with the Renaissance Faire?”
I shifted in my chair and crossed my legs. William’s gaze followed the movement, his eyes settling on my exposed calves. I sat there for a moment, watching him watch me. He wasn’t ogling. He was just…studying. Maybe he was memorizing how my legs looked in the shorts so he could draw them on his sketchpad later.
I remembered the drawing he’d shown me at the hockey game—the one of my hand. It was excellent…so realistic. And detailed. Almost lovingly so. I’d never really thought my hand was particularly beautiful, but he’d rendered it beautifully. He’d made it beautiful.
I blinked, wondering where that weird thought had come from.
“I’ve never really lived in one place for a long time. My friend says I have what she calls želja za putovanjem—wanderlust. Nothing can nail me down.”
“Nails? Wouldn’t that hurt?”
I laughed. “Sorry, no. I mean…it’s hard for me to stay in one place. Nothing can keep me still.”
“Nothing? And…no one?”
I frowned, thinking about that for a moment. I considered the hurt in Alex’s eyes when I’d told her I was leaving. And Mia. In fact, most of my friends didn’t understand. The people at the Faire got it though. A lot of them were like me. “I’m going to work the Faire for a while, reading Tarot cards.”
His expression didn’t change. “You believe in that? Fortune-telling?”
“I believe the cards can teach people to follow their own intuition. I’m just there to…help it along. My aunt used to read cards a lot. She taught me before she went back to Bosnia.”
He spoke after some hesitation. “I would like you to do that for me sometime. I don’t believe in it, though,” he added quickly.
I nodded. “I’ll read for you. But right now, we need to work on visualization and breathing. We can’t have what happened at the hockey game happen at your next duel, right?”
He looked up at me briefly, caught my gaze and then yanked his eyes away. He looked almost…guilty.
“What’s up, Wil?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t leave because of the crowd.”
I blinked. Well, this was news to me. “You picked me up and carried me out of the arena like the place was on fire. If I recall correctly, you seemed pretty darned determined to get out of there.”
A smile hovered on his lips, and then his eyes flicked to my chest before shifting away just as quickly. Then he colored beautifully. Though William had dark hair and eyes, his skin was pale and it flushed a deep shade of red.
“You gonna tell me why you’re blushing, or am I going to have to guess?”
William’s jaw clenched and he looked off into the distance, over my shoulder.
“Hmm.” I folded my arms. “I was sitting on your lap and…” I remembered the feel of his body underneath mine, the hardness of his chest against my back. It had been pretty darn pleasant for me, and maybe—“Oh, I get it. You got turned on.”
“Turned on what?”
I mentally groaned. This language thing was a bit of a pain in the ass. “You got…aroused?”
His color deepened. He’d probably been worried what my reaction would be if I knew he’d gotten an erection.
It was both adorable and incredibly arousing. And funny. Because I’d been turned on, too. Feeling his strong arms under mine, his warm breath on the back of my neck. It had been almost impossible to concentrate on the game.
Suddenly, I started laughing.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because it’s funny. Did you think I was going to slap you?”
He frowned. “No. I just thought you’d call me a pervert.”
“It was a natural reaction, Wil. I can’t fault you for that. I was the one who volunteered to sit on your lap, remember? And I know how male anatomy works.”
His eyes narrowed. “How well do you know?”
My eyes flicked meaningfully to his crotch. “I know enough. So that’s why you bailed—I mean, left?”
He rubbed a hand down his thigh. “Yes.”
“Well, next time just tell me. We’re adults here. Don’t be silly, okay?”
“I’m never silly.”
I cleared my throat. “How about we work on visualization now before everyone gets here…”