“I wanted to convey her strength of character. But I couldn’t get it right.”

“You did get it right,” she said, frustration seeping into her voice despite her attempts to hold it in. “This is my mother the way I remember her when I was a child. Before the pain. You’ve captured her heart as a young woman.”

“That’s great, but I still didn’t draw what I wanted to draw.”

Why was it so hard for him to believe in his own art? “You might not have meant to sketch her like this—” She stroked her mother’s jubilant face. “—but it turned out to be magic. This drawing makes me remember cookies baking in the kitchen and the dolls she used to knit. Can’t you see? That’s what art is all about. How you make a person feel.”

He kept his capable hands on the wheel, switching lanes, eyes on the road. “You love it because you love me.”

She almost growled at him. She’d shamelessly tricked him into sketching her mother, but even though she and her mother had been moved to tears, it clearly hadn’t proven anything to him.

Why could he see everyone’s brilliance but his own?

CHAPTER THIRTY

Early Sunday morning, Charlie had to drag her butt down to the studio. Between working on the house in San Jose, a Saturday afternoon barbecue with the Mavericks, then heading straight to another event that Sebastian was absolutely convinced could be critical to her career—she hadn’t even had the energy to make love last night. She was pretty sure he’d carried her in from the car, undressed her, pulled the covers over her, then given her the softest, sweetest kiss on the forehead before whispering, “We’ll take tomorrow night off. I promise.”

God, she prayed that wasn’t a dream. Please, please, please, not again tonight.

Utterly exhausted, she dropped down to sit on the bare concrete floor and stared at her magnificent stallions. Once upon a time they’d been so alive to her. Now they were mere skeletons. She just didn’t feel them anymore, and she was so tired that she couldn’t get her brain to focus on the vision she used to have.

But Sebastian was trusting her to create something truly amazing for his building. And she’d had a powerful vision of the two of them working side by side, showing their art together—a vision she would give anything to see come true. With only three weeks to go before the grand opening of his headquarters, she would get through the rest of the work even if it killed her.

At this moment, it felt like it would. Even her teeth were tired. All she could manage was coffee, hot and extra sweet. Just the way she liked Sebastian, she thought, but smiling was beyond her.

“Have you eaten?”

Thinking about him must have been like a psychic telegraph message, because there he was. Big, beautiful, sexy. Perfectly silhouetted in the open barn doorway.

“No.” She was starving. But not only was she too tired to make herself something, she was too tired to get up and walk into his arms.

Sebastian approached, a tray balanced on his hand. “Eggs Benedict.” He sat down with her so they could eat right there on the floor, bending over the plates on the tray. She managed half of hers, plus a piece of toast and some freshly squeezed orange juice.

“You spoil me.” The food helped. She was still tired, but now she might actually be able to get up off the floor at some point today and start her work.

“I love spoiling you.” He leaned in for a kiss that was as delicious and sweet as the orange juice.

When he helped her up, she swore her knees creaked as if she were her mother’s age. She might be exhausted, but that didn’t mean she’d given up her plan to bring Sebastian out of his artistic shell. “I’ve got a brilliant idea.”

“All your ideas are brilliant.”

He was so quick to praise her. But so hard on himself. “Draw me while I’m working, Sebastian.”

He frowned at her. “Charlie.”

“Please.”

“I have work up at the house.”

She worked to bite back her frustration. Frustration that had grown monumentally with every day that passed, because he simply wouldn’t trust her when she told him he was a great artist. “You own the company, which means that while you might have work to do at the house, you can probably shift the timing of it around if you really need to.” She pressed into him. Using their attraction to get him to concede might not be fair, but... All’s fair in love, she decided. “Pretty please.”

“You know I prefer to draw when I’m by myself.”

She wanted to kick something, not him, just something. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

“I know.” She could almost hear his teeth grinding when he said it.

Should she push? She knew his past was painful, and she hated bringing it back. But how was she supposed to do anything for him when she didn’t know exactly what had happened?

“Who taught you that you had to be perfect?” she asked gently, as though the more softly she spoke, the easier it would be for him to answer.

“No one taught me anything. I just like drawing for myself.” His knuckles cracked as his fist bunched. Watching him broke her heart into ragged halves. And she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. He hadn’t been ready the last time she’d asked, and he wasn’t ready now.

She was afraid he never would be.

She pretended she’d never brought up the subject, adopting a teasing tone. “All right, then I won’t look at you while you’re sketching. I’ll pretend you’re not even here.” She licked her lips and fluttered her eyelashes. “But you can look at me all you want.”

She was surprised by his sudden kiss—rough, raw, and so passionate that her head was spinning by the time he drew back.

“That was way better than just looking,” she murmured, her voice breathless. She put her hand over his chest, felt his heart pounding hard and fast beneath her palm. And she understood that his kiss was a way of deflecting the question he didn’t want to answer. “Is that a yes to sketching me?”

He breathed in, held it, then finally exhaled on a sigh. “We’re different. You go into yourself as if you’re not even aware of me while you’re working. But for me—it’s a hell of a lot harder to know you’re watching me make one mistake after another.” His explanation was actually a concession, giving her a piece of what she so desperately wanted to know.

She wanted to make him see it didn’t have to be like that. “Can’t it just be for fun? You don’t have to figure me out. It doesn’t have to be good.” Pressing her lips to the side of his neck, she licked his deliciously warm skin. “Come on, for me?”

“I don’t have a sketchbook.”

He was finally bending. She could feel it, and she nearly shouted with glee, but managed to contain the victory. This was a start. All the rest would come eventually—at least, she prayed it would. “I’ve got a clipboard with some paper.” Instead of getting them, she pushed against him, his scent and his heat wrapping around her. “I’ll give you a reward later.”

Looking down at her, his eyes were suddenly deep. “What kind of reward?”

“Whatever you want,” she whispered.

“Anything?”

“Anything.” Heck, she was almost ready to give him the reward right now, before he’d so much as made a mark on the paper.

He lifted her wrists, circling them with his hands. “Have I mentioned that I have some brand new leather wrist ties at the house that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately?” She was nearly panting as he added, “Looks like they’ll be just the right size.”

“So it’s a deal?”

He sealed his mouth to hers, stealing all her thought, her breath, before he whispered, “It’s a deal.”

She danced away to get him the clipboard and pencil, suddenly energized from the gourmet breakfast. From Sebastian all predatory and sexual. From knowing he’d sketch her while she worked. And then there’d be lusciously hot nookie afterward.