Читать книгу The Complete Boardroom Collection - Джанис Мейнард, Yvonne Lindsay - Страница 34
ОглавлениеScott strolled into the boardroom at Elstrom in the bright March sunlight and was immediately leapt on by Freya, who gave him such a warm hug that all of his fears and apprehensions for this day instantly vanished.
Holding her at arm’s length, Scott moved his head slowly from side to side to check that they were the only two people in the room.
‘I know that Dad is still in Italy because I spoke to him this morning. But where have you hidden Travis? I thought his ugly face was bound to turn up at any boardroom meeting where money would be involved. Do I need to look under the table? That’s the only place he would be out of reach of my fist.’
‘Now don’t be like that,’ Freya scolded and wagged a finger at him. ‘Travis sent me a very sweet email yesterday, telling me that he had decided to leave Elstrom behind for good and move on to pastures new.’
Freya must have caught the look in his eyes because she gave him a quick nod. ‘Yes. That’s right. Travis has sold all of his shares. And no, before you ask, I don’t know who he sold them to. It certainly wasn’t anyone in the family because I asked around. So don’t give me that look. Who knows? It might be someone who has a real interest in the business. Think positive for once!’
‘Positive! Right. Well, I can’t say that I’m sorry to see him go. But I don’t like the idea that we have an unknown investor. That makes me nervous.’
Freya hooked her arm through the crook of Scott’s elbow and tugged him towards the back of the room.
‘Then here is something to put a smile on your face.’ She nervously licked her lips and Scott saw it.
‘What’s going on? I thought that you’d called me here for a board meeting?’
‘I have.’ Freya nodded. ‘With my office manager hat on, I can tell you that everything is going splendidly, the building is booked for the next two years with more enquiries coming in every day and the finances have never looked rosier. The full report is on your desk. There. Done. Now, on to much more exciting stuff.’
She stepped back and slowly angled her head towards the wall behind the head of the table. ‘Notice anything different?’
Scott rolled his shoulders back and followed her gaze, then blinked.
The full-length portrait of his uncle had been moved to the left, creating a gap which was occupied by a tall gold frame which matched the other portraits perfectly. What was inside the frame was covered by a plain grey dust sheet held up by a piece of tape, hiding the painting below.
It took a second for his brain to register what he was looking at.
‘Toni finished my painting. Wow. I wondered about that.’
‘Wonder no longer. That girl works fast! I have already seen it and paid the rest of her fee,’ Freya whispered, then stepped to one side and kissed him on the cheek. ‘This is your very own personal unveiling. Call me later. Love ya.’
With that, Freya swung her handbag over her shoulder and strolled casually out of the room, leaving him standing there with his back against the table, staring up at the dust sheet.
Something close to nerves ran across his shoulders. This was so ridiculous! This was only paint on canvas. Why did he need a personal viewing?
He took a couple of calming breaths. Who was he kidding? This was paint brushed on to one of her father’s canvases by the same clever fingers which had stroked his face and made him feel alive only a few weeks earlier. Until he blew it.
She had probably made him look like his grandfather. Complete with morning dress, sideburns and a handlebar moustache.
He deserved the worst.
Forcing the air from his lungs in one short blast, Scott tugged on the dust sheet and then gathered it up on to the floor.
Only then did he stand up, lift his chin and focus on the painting hanging on the wall in front of him.
What he saw took his breath away and Scott quickly pulled out a chair and collapsed down into it. Suddenly his legs were not quite as steady as they should be.
His portrait was astonishing.
Toni had painted him standing at the mullioned window of the office. His legs were braced and he was wearing cold weather gear and the fur-lined boots he had arrived in from Alaska. It was a side view and his left hand was resting on a wide decorated chart spread out on the mapping table in front of the window. Survey equipment and a dog sled harness were right there, on top of the map.
But that was not where the eye was drawn to. Scott’s gaze was riveted by the expression on his face. He looked tanned, unshaven, with swept back hair but, with his chin up and his back straight, he looked the equal of any of the other Elstrom men captured on these walls. Strong, powerful and in control. Even down to the grey in his beard and stubble.
But this portrait was different.
Toni had seen something in him which nobody alive had ever truly noticed before.
Yearning. It was in the way his blond eyebrows came together in concentration as his eyes stared out of the window where gentle snowflakes blurred the hazy outline of the tall buildings opposite Elstrom. His mouth was curved into a small warm smile as though he was dreaming of somewhere else. She had painted his eyes a shade of blue that he knew from his reflection in the mirror every morning. The exact perfect shade.
Tears pricked the corners of Scott’s eyes and he left them there.
Freya was right. This painting was intensely personal. Every single brush stroke screamed out to him that the hand that had painted his image cared about him so deeply and intensely that it was impossible to conceal.
It was a love letter in the shape of a painting.
Toni Baldoni was in love with him.
A bubble of happiness popped up from deep in his chest and he scrubbed his chin a couple of times. Men like him rarely got second chances and he had never imagined that it could happen twice.
Damn Toni for showing him how wrong he had been.
No way was he going to lose his chance of love again!
Leaping to his feet, Scott saluted the strong and intelligent-looking man in the painting before whirling around and striding to the door. ‘Wish me luck. I have ten minutes to work out how to tell Toni what I feel. And it had better be good!’
* * *
‘Oh, rollers,’ Toni grunted through gritted teeth as a great splodge of white emulsion paint dropped off the end of her paint tray and on to the leg of her painting overalls. She didn’t mind the paint; she was used to that. It was the wet patch she was not too keen on.
No time to get changed. She was determined to finish the studio walls today and that was precisely what she was going to do! It was the third coat and the last. From now on, the studio walls were going to reflect back every bit of the natural light she needed if she had any chance of working the way she wanted.
For the past three weeks Toni had filled her days and sometimes her nights with the perfect challenge. Transforming the Baldoni studio into a space which she could use for new clients and new portraits. She didn’t need a photographic studio on the high street. Not any longer.
The first things to go were the cracked paint trays and old chewed paintbrushes which she knew that she would never use. She had broken up the old wooden cracked picture frames and battered shelving and used them as firewood. That little splash of linseed oil really helped warm the old stone walls. Papers went for recycling. Same with the dried-up paints and oil cans.
It was as though working on Scott’s portrait had unleashed a cleaning demon which had been waiting inside to get out.
The portraits that her father had hung on the terracotta-coloured walls were the last things to be taken down. His hoarding of every receipt and invoice had actually come in useful for once and in three cases the client who had sat in this very studio so many years ago had been delighted to pop in and buy a copy of their portrait from the artist’s family and at very good rates.
The nice thing was, the moment they’d taken a look at Scott’s painting on the easel, they had been so delighted that they’d wondered if she might be available to paint their granddaughter or son who had just received a wonderful promotion at work.
Three new commissions in three weeks.
She would never have thought it possible.
Scott Elstrom had a lot to answer for, in more ways than one! No matter how many late nights she worked or how physically exhausted she was at the end of the day, Scott still filled her thoughts with dreams of what could have been and what had been lost.
It only took one glance at his portrait to take her instantly right back to Elstrom Mapping and the man who owned it.
It was gone now. Freya had collected it yesterday. All boxed up and packed away.
So why did Scott’s face still flood her mind even now, halfway up a ladder with her arms stretching up to cover the walls with white paint?
Stepping down from the ladder for a moment to check for dark patches, Toni was suddenly aware that there was a cold draught from the kitchen but she was sure that she had closed the back door.
Wiping her hands, she stepped into the kitchen and was suddenly aware that there was someone standing in front of her.
It was Scott.
In the flesh.
He was here. Standing in front of her. All tall and gorgeous and clean and handsome and so attractive she could happily have dived into those blue eyes and warm arms and not come up for air.
The masculine strength and power positively beamed out from every pore and grabbed her. It was in the way that he held his body, the way his head turned to face her and the way he looked at her as though she was the most fascinating woman he had ever met, and oh, yes, the laser focus of those intelligent blue eyes had a lot to do with it as well.
He was so close that she could touch him if she wanted to. She could practically feel the softness of his breath on her skin as he gazed intently into her eyes. The background noise of the radio she always played at full volume when she worked seemed to fade away until all of her senses were totally focused on this man who had captivated her.
She couldn’t move.
She did not want to move.
There was an awkward gap and just then her resolve gave way and she felt that she simply had to say something—anything—to fill the silence. ‘What are you doing here, Scott? What do you want from me?’
Her words blurted out in a much stronger voice than she had intended, and she instantly warmed them with a small shoulder shrug. ‘I thought that you were travelling?’
Scott straightened his back and lifted his chin. ‘What am I doing here? Well, I thought that was fairly obvious. I’m here to thank you for the portrait.’
Freya!
‘Do you think it is a good likeness?’ Toni asked as casually as she could.
‘Perfect. It’s me. All of me. Outside and inside too. I don’t know how you did that with paint but you did. Clever girl.’
‘It’s in the blood. But I’m pleased that you like it. That means a lot.’
He tilted his head slightly to one side and gave her a lopsided grin which made him look about twelve years old.
And her poor lonely heart melted all over again.
She smiled back, her defences weakened by the wonderful charm and warmth of this man she cared about so very much, who was standing so very close and yet seemed beyond reach.
‘What have you been doing with yourself these past weeks?’ Scott whispered. ‘Travelling the world with that camera of yours?’
‘Actually, I’ve been working on my own projects, right here.’ She waved her right hand in the air and looked up at the white-painted ceiling. ‘I thought that I might stay in one place for a while.’ Her voice quivered a little. ‘In fact, I decided to take a year’s leave from the media company and focus on painting for a while. See where it takes me.’
Scott glanced quickly over her shoulder before turning his gaze back to her face. ‘You’ve worked wonders. It looks amazing.’
His fingers traced a line along her chin from ear to throat. ‘My portrait is stunning. You should be very proud of your talents, Toni. I believe you have it in you to achieve amazing things with your work. Photographs, painting. It’s all part of your creative genius. You’re destined for wonderful things, my girl.’
His girl?
‘Oh, Scott, I’ve been such an idiot,’ she whispered.
His reply was to cup Toni’s head between his hands, his long fingers so gentle and tender and loving that her heart melted even more.
‘You were right, Scott. I did need to paint your portrait. And it wasn’t just for the cash, although it has been very useful. It was more than that. A lot more.’
Her head dropped forward on to his chest so that when she spoke her words were swallowed up in the warmth of his fleece shirt.
His reply was a low sigh of contentment as he wrapped his arms tighter around her back and drew her even closer so that she was totally encased in his loving embrace.
‘Ah. She finally admits that I am a genius in all things. Happy days.’
‘You don’t get everything right. You thought that I couldn’t understand what it was like to see the Elstrom heritage slip away from you. But you are so wrong about that.’
Words and feelings whirled around inside her head and her heart so fast that she thought she might pass out if it wasn’t for Scott’s strong arms holding her upright.
But how could she explain without giving away a secret that she had sworn to her parents that she would never tell anyone unless she had to?
Toni closed her eyes and listened to the sound of Scott’s heartbeat. It was strong and clear and it beat for her and only her. She was certain of that now.
It was so hard to step back from Scott but she could still feel his arms around her as she whispered, ‘I need to show you something. Okay?’
Sliding away, she took hold of Scott’s hand and with one quick smile she led him into the bedroom and gestured for him to sit on the bed.
‘If this is a lingerie display I may have to call Freya and tell her that I’m missing dinner.’
With a quick chuckle, Toni shook her head. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but this is more of an art display.’
Toni knelt down next to her bed and tugged an old battered leather suitcase out from underneath. Taking a long juddery breath, Toni slowly pressed the metal sliders away and felt the lid of the suitcase spring up as the pressure was released.
Suddenly exhausted, Toni sat on the floor next to the suitcase with her back pressed against the bed and her legs outstretched in front of her.
Slowly and with shaking hands, she lifted the suitcase lid and sat for a few moments in silence. Staring back at her was the sweet smiling face of the nine-year-old Amy. It was the last portrait that she had ever painted and signed under her own name. Lifting up the thin wooden light canvas, Toni smiled and stroked the edges as a freckle-faced happy girl with long hair and a turned-up nose and missing teeth grinned back at her.
When she finally found the words Toni was speaking more towards the picture than to Scott but she knew that he was listening.
‘Every brush stroke of this painting was a delight. Our annual holiday had been in Cornwall for a couple of weeks the summer after I turned seventeen and we had all gone down to the beach for the afternoon. That was a rare event in itself. My father hated the sun and would much rather have stayed inside working on a commission he had to deliver the following week. It had been going too slowly and he couldn’t seem to concentrate on the work so Mother had suggested that he take the afternoon off.’
Toni smiled to herself. ‘It turned out to be a wonderful day of happy relaxed laughter and fun and sheer pleasure. Not too hot. Not too windy. Perfect blue skies and golden sandy beach. It was only natural that I should take some photographs of Amy and my parents. I had never intended them to become sketches or paintings. But somehow the moment I lifted the camera and pointed it towards Amy everything changed. I called out her name...Amy turned towards me.’
Toni flicked both hands in the air. ‘And bam. Just like that, I knew that the photograph would be wonderful. Not just good. But special and amazing. And that feeling was so astonishing and overwhelming that I started to cry.’
‘Cry? Why were you crying? Didn’t that make you happy?’
‘Yes. Amazingly, wonderfully happy. But it was sad at the same time. All my life I had been focusing and training on one thing—to be a painter and true artist like my parents. And in that moment, looking down that camera lens, I realized that it was all for nothing. Because I had never once felt that way with anything that I had painted. Not once. I could paint professionally any day of the week. And that’s not being immodest. It was the truth. But taking that photograph changed everything.’
She glanced over her shoulder at Scott and smiled through the tears that were streaming down her face. ‘Until then I was Antonia Baldoni, little daughter of Aldo and Emily Baldoni. Painters. Artists. But that moment made me realize that I could take everything I had learnt and apply it to creating portraits and paintings with more than canvas and paint. I had found my passion. Just like you found yours.
‘I was so excited that I was jumping up and down and laughing and crying at the same time and generally making my parents fearful that something terrible had happened. I couldn’t wait to tell them. I thought that they would be so excited that I had found the artist in me.’
‘Oh, Toni. I know where this is going. My poor girl.’
Her head dropped. ‘It came as a bit of a shock to realize that everything I believed about being part of a family of artists until that second was completely wrong. They were not excited for me at all. In fact they were horrified. Speechless with shock and horror. They felt it was a betrayal of my legacy. And then there was my dad’s work...’
Her hands got busy lining up the edges of sheets of her sketches and notebooks inside the suitcase. She focused on the gold-edged papers so that when Scott shuffled closer she could pretend that a collection of ragged teenage work was far more interesting than the man whose trouser leg was only inches away from her shoulder.
‘What about your dad’s work?’
She pulled out a sketchbook and started casually flicking through it, not ready to look into his face.
Her fingers paused at one particular drawing and she ran the pad of her forefinger down the edge of the smooth paper she liked to work on.
‘Have you ever heard of the studio system? No? The old masters used to train young artists as a way of making some extra income. They all did it. The more famous you were, the more parents were prepared to pay to have their children study with you and work in the studio.’
She lifted her chin and gestured towards the next room where the art supplies were kept. ‘I remember a time when there were always three or four art students from the local college hanging around, making tea and preparing canvases and now and again my dad would let them make sketches on a sitting with a client. So he could critique their work. Show them how to develop the idea into a painting. Maybe even work on a background for one of his portraits. If they were very good.’
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her knuckle.
‘Fame is a fickle thing, Scott. One day everyone loves your work and the next? You’re history and nobody wants to hire you because the exciting new style is all the fashion and who needs their portrait painted? That’s why cameras were invented.’
She felt his body lift from the bed as the hard springs squeaked in protest and suddenly Scott was sitting on the floor next to her, his back so tall against the divan.
His left hand slid sideways and as she glanced down all the weight and strength that Scott possessed seemed to flow through those fingers as they meshed with hers.
‘He resented you for leaving him.’
She nodded. ‘I was his last apprentice. The student who was going to make her mark in the world and show the art establishment just how powerful fine painting could be. I was going to lead the next generation of Baldoni portrait painters proudly forward.’
Her head dropped and she picked up Amy’s portrait with her left hand. ‘I painted this when I was seventeen. By then I was working every night after school in the studio and doing nearly all of my dad’s canvases. My weekends and every day of the school holidays were spent in that studio.’
She shook her head and blew out hard. ‘I was his apprentice so it made sense for me to be there for the sittings so that I could paint the backgrounds and clothing on his portraits. He always worked on the fine detail. Afterwards. But as I got older and he got more disillusioned and depressed about how much photography was taking over, I found that he was leaving me to work on the few commissions that were coming in.’
Scott breathed in through his nose. ‘You were doing the work. Weren’t you? You were painting those amazing portraits and he was passing them off as his work. Oh, Toni.’
His fingers squeezed hers for one last time then slid away and moved around her waist so that he could draw her to him.
‘It didn’t feel like that,’ she replied and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘I loved the work and wanted to learn everything I could. This was my real education. School work was not important in the least. Not like it was to Amy.’ She chuckled deep in her throat. ‘It was a bit of a shock finding out that we had a scientist in the family. Her idea of drawing was a flow chart and computer spreadsheets.’ Then she swallowed down a lump of guilt and regret. ‘But of course that put even more pressure on me to fly the flag for the family and carry on my legacy. So when I announced that I was moving to photography...it hit them hard. So very hard.’
‘What did you do?’
‘What could I do? For a while they did everything they could to try and make me change my mind. That I was making a huge mistake and throwing away my career and that people would start commissioning portraits again. I just had to carry on and learn my craft and be patient and it would all work out.’
She glanced quickly over one shoulder towards Scott, who was breathing hard and fast on to the top of her head.
‘Ever wondered what proud artists do when they don’t have any work coming in? They borrow on the only real asset they have left. This house must have been mortgaged and re-mortgaged four times. A commission comes in, they pay some of the loan off, then the money runs out and they borrow again and...I learnt the hard way that putting your home at risk to pay the gas bill is a stressful way to live.’
‘Your family? Other relatives? Couldn’t they help out?’
‘Oh, no. My father was a stubborn man and he would never have contacted his Italian side of the family. A Baldoni would never sink so low. So he dropped his prices and offered to paint children and local people. Said that it was his way of being generous.’
She chuckled and sniffed. ‘They needed me to work and work hard to create commercial pictures they could sell quickly to bring in some income. And that is what I did. Nights and weekends. There are children around here with a genuine Baldoni portrait on their walls!’
‘Did you sign them?’
‘Of course I did. A. Baldoni. They didn’t know that it was an Antonia Baldoni and not an Aldo Baldoni work they were buying—why should they? Everyone called me Toni. The local mayor would have been very upset if he knew. I think he is still bragging about that painting to every visitor to his official office.’
She wiped away one tear and whispered, ‘Very upset. Seeing it was the last one that my father claimed to have painted before he died. It’s his claim to fame.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘A train crash in Italy. It was June. They had been invited to a family reunion and scraped together the rail fare with some sort of excuse about them hating flying. It was...brutal to lose them both at the same time. Horrible, really. I was just about to leave school...’
Her eyebrows squeezed together tight. ‘And that was the end of my hopes and dreams. How could I go waltzing off to my dream course in New York to study photography when I had a sister to take care of? So I stayed in London and went to college when Amy was at school and did the best that I could with grants and loans. And we worked it out. The two of us together. I got a job with a media company which meant that I could stay in London as much as possible. It was fine. Until I got a call from a certain Freya Elstrom.’
‘My sister is a well-known troublemaker.’
Toni nodded. ‘I thought that I was ready to put all of the painting behind me. Amy and I spent Christmas sorting through so much rubbish and clutter so I could get the house ready to decorate and rent out. The only room I didn’t touch was the studio.’
She flashed Scott a half smile. ‘The plan was to donate the unused canvases and equipment to the local school. Amy’s art teacher would have taken everything if she had the chance. But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it. You were my excuse.’
‘I like to be useful.’ Scott smiled back.
‘Amy is no fool. She saw through my little pretence straight away so I convinced her that this was going to be my last portrait. Ever. One more painting and I would be done. End of an era. But then I met you. And my world has never been the same since.’
Her hand swept out, her eyes hot and fierce, and she tapped the heel of her hand against the hard planes of his chest. ‘I blame you for everything, Scott Elstrom. All of it. I was happy to leave painting behind until you came along. My life was all planned out. Neat and tidy. Until you walked into my birthday party and blew me away. I have done things this month that I never imagined possible.’
She pressed the fingers of both hands hard against her forehead. ‘Because do you know what I have done? Exactly the same thing as my dad did. I have borrowed money on my house to invest in Elstrom. And it is all your fault!’
