Insecure (27 page)

In contrast, she enjoyed the art classes. It was like being back at school. No one was expected to have mastered anything, and her classmates were an interesting collection of people, from Ingrid the bored retiree, to Alfie the pub circuit rock star.

They knew her as Cinta Worth, the name she'd signed up with, the name she'd scrawled tiny on the two etchings she'd had in the gallery window. Her hip, cool and anonymous artist's name. Her shame given its own identity and signature. Because that's what it was. Mace had called it when he'd stumbled into the room that first time. He'd meant it was a shame she'd given it up, but it was embarrassment and insecurity that made her give it up.

It wasn't like Ingrid or Alfie or any of the teachers would've known her in her banking life, or cared if they did either. But it mattered to her. She'd gone from CEO designate to art student and it burned.

There was no reason to feel like she was game over, but she did. It was short-sighted and ridiculous, but there it was in the manipulation of her first name and the obscuring of her last. A lack of contact from headhunters, no emails or phone calls about jobs, reinforced it. She'd known to expect that, but somewhere deep inside she'd hoped it might be different for her and she'd be one of the lucky ones who went from one high profile job to another with next to no gap in her career timeline.

The hardcore reality that she was clay-footed; ordinary was like a disease. It ate at her, weakened her. She was nowhere near as strong a person, as resilient, as she'd thought, and far more arrogant than she liked.

Right now there was very little she liked about herself and only the time she spent in Mace's arms didn't drag on her with a weight of unrealised expectations. She only had to look into his eyes to know he loved her for all her failings, real and perceived.

Truly she needed to wake the hell up and kick those negative feelings out of this bed she'd made for herself. It was Malcolm in her ear, it was his values, the ones he'd foisted onto her mother she was internalising and they were dank, foul and rotten. Until she could face a canvas she was denying the part of her that was artistic, that was like her mother, and it was time for that to end.

It's why she didn't simply close the door and walk away from the chamber of horrors. It's why she let the canvas terrorise her. But she was going to beat this, make herself a whole person again, if it meant she died of turps fumes in the process.

She picked up one of the new brushes Mace had arrived home with weeks ago and quietly installed in a blue glass vase on her workbench. She held the bristles and pointed the wooden handle at the canvas.

“You are an inanimate object. You have no power.” She closed her eyes. She felt like a right idiot. “You suck, canvas.” She stabbed the brush towards its pale face. “You are not the boss of me.” That felt sillier, but better.

She changed her stance; put her hand on her hip. “You think you're so tough, sitting up there, on your pedestal. You want me to fail. You want me to come at you like I'm scared and screw things up again. You think I'll give up, blow my cool and take a blade to you.” She touched the point of the brush handle to the canvas surface and lowered her voice. “You. Wish.”

She laughed. She was quite possibly losing her mind and when Mace got home from work he'd find her curled into a ball, rocking and chanting nonsense. She laughed again. The funny thing about that was he'd cope. That's what he did. He coped with all the crap she put him through. He was the kid who'd coped with his mother walking in front of a bus, he was made of far tougher stuff than she was.

Two nights ago he'd come home to find her swearing at a pot of rice she'd upended on the floor. She'd managed to ruin three evening meals that week—three, when she'd had all day to get something edible together. Mace ignored her ranting, picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and took her to bed, without saying a single word, until he was deep buried inside her and then he told her how little he cared about dinner and how much he cared about her. And if that didn't make him her heart, he cleaned up while she slept and woke her for takeaway Thai feast.

He was working split shifts, he was huddling with Dillon on Ipseity trying to resurrect it, and he was the only thing in her life that made sense. He kept their little home running with groceries and housework, competently, constantly without expectation of thanks or comment, and he slept every night with his arms around her, his hand at her hip or his knee tucked to the back of hers. The only disagreement they'd had was over the air-conditioning in the bedroom. He liked it cold so there was no excuse not to snuggle and every reason to warm each other up.

“I am all over you, canvas. I will take you down.”

She'd do it because it was a strike at Malcolm. She'd do it because Mace had faith and he never asked anything of her, and she'd do it to prove to herself she was more than a corporate animal.

And if it worked, if she could paint that canvas into submission, she might find her soul.

She turned the brush around and riffled its bristles with a fingernail and the next thing she was aware of was Mace's lips pressed to the back of her neck.

She put her hand up to his head. “What time is it?” It was still light, but he was home so it had to be after five.

“Seven-thirty, dark soon.”

How could it be that late? She'd stopped for a bathroom break and to grab some fruit and yoghurt around one then apparently fell into a time warp. She turned in his arms, careful not to get the brush anywhere near him.

“How long have you been home?” He'd changed, his hair was wet, but it wasn't raining.

“Came in, you were in the zone. Went for a run. Dinner's ready.”

“What?”

He wanted her lips but she pushed him away. She looked back at the canvas. It wasn't finished, but it wasn't blank either. “Oh my God!” She dropped the brush and flung her arms around his neck, gave him the kiss he'd wanted earlier, open mouth, lots of tongue, gripping his head in her hands. Beeping from the kitchen made him break off.

She pointed at the canvas. “I own you. I totally brought it today.” She looked back at Mace, noted his raised eyebrow and spun back to the canvas. “I win. I totally win. And I don't suck anymore.” She turned again and poked Mace in the chest. “This is my studio. This is where I go to paint.”

He grinned, reaching for her, but she skipped away.

“I painted that,” she said, watching his amusement, in the tilt of his lips and the shine in his eyes, wanting to kiss him again. Wanting to leap on him and have him right here on the rough wooden floor. “It's crap, but I painted it. I can paint. I can do this. I like doing this.” She danced around him. “Are you listening to me? I'm not scared to paint a stupid picture.”

He tracked her. “You're fucking sexy when you're excited.”

She was wearing a once expensive t-shirt she'd shrunk in the wash and cut the sleeves out of and bleach-marked yoga pants. She stopped in front of him and put out her right hand to shake. “I'm Cinta Worth and I paint. It makes me happy.”

He took her hand and jerked her into his body, wrapped his arm around her waist and dipped her so low she shrieked, her legs losing purchase on the floor, her shin ending up in his hand, her thigh ending up over his hip. He wore light, loose trackpants and nothing else, he smelled of soap and laundry powder and he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.

He moved his pelvis against hers, his lips at her ear. “You're my Cinta.”

She was, heart first and now her soul was following. “I might not get the perfect job again.”

He kissed her jaw, pulled her upright and against him.

“I might not ever make it to CEO.”

He put his hands behind her knees, under her thighs, and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he groaned at their contact. “It's okay if I don't.”

“Always was.”

She held on to his shoulder with one hand and stroked his hair with the other. “How hungry are you?”

He was starving and she couldn't have that. She kissed him till he tired of holding her. He carried her to the kitchen, and they fed each other the chilli con carne he'd cooked without her realising he was home. She had designs on dessert, ice cream kisses and spoonful's of it melted on his stomach, licked off the muscle moguls of his abs He let her play a while, indulging her, but he liked to have control as much as he hated being the focus of attention.

“You smell of chemicals and you made me sticky,” he said, as she licked around his caramel coated belly button. He made it sound like a complaint, growly in his throat, but he was sleepy eyed and his hand in her hair was kneading her skull. He was not near sticky enough. She fed him a spoonful, kissing him before he'd swallowed the mouthful, licking across his cold lips. He showed his love for her every day: small things like going out of his way to buy the coffee she liked, big things like waiting patiently for her to show she loved him in return, and she did love him more than it was sensible to.

“Make me come, Mace.”

He took her in the shower, up against the slippery tiles, stroking into her slowly till she fractured into fire and earth, rain and air, gasping into his mouth and sticking him with her fingernails. He welded her back together, washing her, scrubbing her hair, holding her upright in her exhaustion and when she was dry and curled inside the strength of him in their bed, she knew she'd found parts of herself she'd never known were missing.

The music should've been a clue. Mace could hear it in the stairwell. Cinta usually listened to radio. Inside the loft it was deafening. Linkin Park belting out
Numb
. He turned it down and dumped his laptop bag. It was after eight and there was no sign of food in the kitchen. He shrugged out of his suit jacket, kicked his shoes off, got rid of his tie and untucked and unbuttoned his shirt. It was good to be home, it'd been another long and confusing day. What he wanted was a meal, his girl in his arms and quiet.

He padded over to the fridge. He hadn't shopped for days, which meant if Cinta hadn't today he'd have to go out again. Last thing he felt like doing. But they'd had too much takeaway recently. He stood in the cold blare of the fridge and realised they didn't even have milk, bread or eggs. The shopping note he'd left her was still on the sink. When he slammed the door the condiment bottles in the shelving belted against each other.

The problem wasn't Cinta losing herself in her painting, or groceries, it was money. In the last month he and Dillon had met with, pitched to, and crashed and burned with four venture capital firms. They'd met the same fate with a fifth today. They had nowhere else to go. If they wanted to stay in the game, the only option was to use Buster's money with a bank loan and try again with the VCs when they'd managed to build proof of purchase.

Success was so close he could swallow its aftertaste, but far enough away to be a gourmet meal he'd never get to eat.

The next clue was the mess. He stepped over a rough wooden frame in the doorway of the studio. She wasn't numb, she was a tornado. The room was wrecked. Torn canvases everywhere. The workbench had been shoved out from the wall and everything on it had fallen over or off. There was water and paint and blue glass on the floor. Cinta stood in the middle of it with her blade slashing through a painting she'd done weeks ago.

His first instinct was stop her, take the knife out of her hand before she hurt herself, but she'd been at this a while and whatever was going on with her probably needed to play out.

She dropped that canvas and shoved the easel over. She was breathing heavily. She wore an old navy work singlet of his, long enough to be a short dress, covered in paint and plastered to her body with sweat. She cast about for something new to ruin and he stepped up behind her.

“Cinta, stop.”

She swung around, shifting the blade from hand to hand; her eyes were huge, her hair a wreck. “Get out.”

“Enough. Tell me what's wrong.”

“Get. Out.”

He held both hands high, no threat to her. “What's going on?”

She screamed at him, using words he'd never heard come out of her mouth before, and turned to attack the painting on the other easel; the old self-portrait of her running from her fears. He grabbed her, arms coming around down over the top of hers, pinning them to her sides before she could get to it. She bucked and kicked his shins with her heels, knocked her head on his chin and he bit his tongue.

He tightened his grip on her. “Settle down.” She tried to elbow him, she tried to break his grip and then she dropped the knife and burst into tears.

He held her till the storm of sobs slowed, murmuring shush sounds in her ear, till she sagged in his arms, then he picked her up and carried her back to the lounge room, held her on his lap, rocking her, stroking her back till she breathed normally.

She wanted to kiss him then, her hands wound around his neck, but she'd shocked him with the ferocity of her rage; it was ticking inside him, a fear bomb. Whatever had broken her like this might break him too. He needed answers first.

He lifted his head away, pulled her hands off, held them in his. “You need to tell me what's going on. Right now.” Her expression was torn like a part of her had been ripped away. “Cinta.”

She closed her eyes. “The Wentworth board forced Malcolm out.” Her voice was flat, as if she'd worn out all its highs and lows. “Tom is the new CEO.”

The swearing came out of him now. He squeezed her hand but it was unresponsive.

“He announced sweeping reforms to the bank's policies and procedures so no customer will be put at financial risk because of the banks products or actions.”

“Your reforms.”

She nodded, tears in her eyes again, but the fury not far under the surface of her sun-loved skin.