When the Billionaire Begs novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Invitation

Veronica Keswick came up my path in the dark with a tin in her hands.

I stood in my doorway and did not move aside.

"Mrs. Keswick."

"Claire, dear. I've brought shortbread." She held up the tin. "May I come in, or will you leave an old woman on the step?"

She was alone, and the driver stayed behind the wheel of the silver sedan.

Behind me, Stellan had stopped on the bottom step, and she gave him the same bright nod as before.

"Go home, Stellan," I said. "I'll be fine."

He looked at her, then at me, and went to his Volvo and sat in it with the lights off.

Veronica walked into my studio without waiting to be asked.

She set the tin on my counter and went straight to the easel.

"Oh," she said softly. "A chair, with someone in it."

"It isn't finished."

"No. They never are, the good ones." She studied the shoulder Stellan had fixed. "Seventeen versions of the empty one, and now this. Do you know, I cried at the Biennial photographs."

"You came here at night, alone, to tell me that?"

"I came to apologize."

I had not expected that, and it showed on my face.

"My son behaved like a spoiled boy," she said. "The wrist, the bill, that girl and her videos. I am ashamed of all of it."

"Then tell him."

"I have. He doesn't listen to me." She smiled sadly. "That is why I came to you."

She opened her handbag and took out a cream envelope with a gold crest.

"The Keswick Foundation is opening a new gallery in the spring," she said. "I want you to have the first solo wall. Eight paintings, a catalogue, and the foundation buys the first three at the price you name."

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