Free Games People Play by Shelby Reed

me with my painting. Do you mind?”
    “Your boyfriend paid me to do whatever you want. Pry away.”
    Something about the edge to his words told her to shut up, but she couldn’t. Her curiosity controlled her like a puppet master. “Tell me more about your background.”
    His fingertips went to the tattoo. “I grew up with one sister, a twin. My mother died of cancer when I was eighteen, my dad of a heart attack when I was twenty-five.”
    She stopped in the midst of mixing flesh tones. “I’m so sorry.”
    “Thank you.”
    She felt his eyes on her, stripping away her defenses when she was the one asking the probing questions.
    “How old are you?” she continued, without looking at him.
    “Thirty-one,” he said. “You?”
    “Twenty-nine. My thirtieth birthday’s on Friday.”
    “Ah. Sad about kissing your youth good-bye?”
    She couldn’t help but smile. “I’m asking the questions, Mr. Hennessy.”
    “Don’t start that name thing again.”
    She pressed her lips together and lapsed into silence again, studying the way the light fell across the bridge of his nose and defined the beautiful bow of his upper lip, the shadowed dip below his full bottom one. She sensed his attention on her all the while, and when she looked into his eyes, his gaze caught and held hers. And like a fool, she said, “I assume you’re not married.”
    The right corner of his mouth tugged up. “What makes you say that?”
    “Well . . .” No explanation would come. Her throat tightened, then she blurted, “Well, you’re free to come here for two weeks, for one thing.”
    “Maybe I have an understanding wife at home.”
    “You don’t wear a ring.”
    “I don’t like jewelry.”
    She knew he didn’t have a wife at home. For all his clean-cut appeal, there was something of an untethered animal about him, as though he’d broken away from his keeper but didn’t know where he wandered.
    A stray.
    “Have you ever been married?” she asked as she applied a shadow to his image’s jaw.
    “Once,” he said, and that was all.
    The curiosity burned her in the dearth of conversation that followed until she thought she’d burst out of her skin. “Colm.” She laid down her brush and looked at him. “I’m curious about you. I know it’s none of my business, despite how much Max is paying you—”
    “It’s fine.” He shrugged. “We’re getting to know each other, which will relax you and make it easier for you to do your work. Right?”
    “Right.” But the awkwardness had crept back, drawing her attention from the canvas to his face again and again, not for the sake of her work, but for the masochistic sweetness of looking at him without being able to read him.
    Intimacy swirled around them, a hot tension drawing them tight together, and the questions burst forth again. “Was Amelia your wife?”
    “No. Jill was my wife.” He moved suddenly, straightened from his pose. “I’m a widower.”
    Surprise stole Sydney’s breath. “Oh, Colm. I truly am sorry.” He’d lost so many loved ones. Now she understood the weary look about him today. Maybe he’d lain awake last night, missing Jill. Or missing some beauty named Amelia he had loved enough to engrave her into his skin.
    He’d said Sydney could pry as she wished, but the vibe in the room had changed. She finally gathered her wits. “This is coming along nicely. The painting, I mean.”
    “Plan to finish it before you begin the ménage project?”
    “I’d like to. Do you have that many hours in you?”
    He smiled. “Sure. Can I take a break and see what you have so far?”
    “Of course.”
    He hopped off the platform and came around to look at the canvas. He stood there a long time, studying it with the same intensity he had when he’d looked at her work two nights ago at the gallery.
    Two nights ago. Had it only been that long? The minutes passing between them had been so full of . . . she didn’t know. Something electric and rich. Something that