The Secret Ingredient

This preview show was the one exclusive opportunity for the art critics to admire and study his mother’s work without having to share the gallery with the general public. That was the good news. The less-good news was that it had been the art critics who had descended on his mother like a pack of rabid wolves when she had imploded at her last exhibition in Toronto.

Having a screaming and crying nervous breakdown in public was bad enough, but for her tormented and terrified face to be captured for ever by the press had made it worse.

Instead of defending her for her fragile creativity, they had condemned her for being a bad example to young artists for her excessive lifestyle.

But that was eight years ago.

Different world. Different faces. Different approach to mental illness. Surely?

Rob paused long enough to take a flute of chilled champagne from a passing waiter and was just about to launch into the media crew clustered around the gallery owner when he caught sight of his reflection in the installation light feature.

A sombre dark male face glared back at him, his heavy eyebrows low above narrowed eyes and a jaw that would be a better fit on a prizefighter rather than a patron of the arts.

Yikes! Maybe not.

He didn’t want to terrify the critics before they had even had a chance to see the artwork. And most of them seemed to be enjoying the refreshments.

A quick scan of the room confirmed that unless there was a back door through the kitchen, he was trapped. Unless... Yes! There was one person who was taking time to actually see the paintings instead of networking over the catalogues and free booze before the food was served.

A pretty blonde woman. Correction. Make that a very pretty blonde. She was sitting completely alone at the far end of the gallery, away from the hustle and noise from the street. Her gaze appeared to be completely engrossed in the artwork in front of her.

Rob turned away from the other guests, nodding to people as he passed, and started strolling down the gallery space, taking the time to scan some of the twenty-two paintings that he knew inside out.

He could give the critics a full history of each and every brush stroke. Where and when and what mood his mother had been in when she painted them. The hours spent debating locations and the quality of the light. Desperate for each work to be perfect. Flawless. Ideal.

The despair that came when they did not match up to her exacting standards.

The joy and delight and laughter of walking along beaches day after day, which only seemed to make the darker ones blacker. Like the time he was called out of a business meeting when she set six of his favourite canvases on fire on the hotel patio in a barbecue pit. That depression had lasted weeks.

These paintings truly were the survivors.

Especially the canvas that the blonde was looking at that very minute.

Rob exhaled long and slow. He should have known that a critic would be drawn to such a totally over-the-top sentimental and emotional piece.

It was good—no doubt about that.

But it was so obvious that his mother might as well be standing there waving a banner telling the world that she had painted it in a dark time when the depression had almost become too much and she’d had to go back on the much-hated medication again.

It was probably the only piece that he had suggested to his mother to leave behind in her villa in Carmel, California. It was just too personal and way too deep to show to the world.

Too late. Because there it was. Not the biggest painting but the most intimate and revealing in the whole collection.

But just who was this woman who had obviously spotted the best picture in the room?

Rob stood to one side, sipping his champagne, and watched her for a few minutes in silence, his gaze scanning her pose, her body, her clothing, taking it all in and trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

She certainly didn’t look like one of his mother’s art critic pals or the hyenas back in Toronto. Failed artists every one of them. Far from it.

Straight blonde hair falling to her shoulders, she was wearing a sleeveless aqua dress and he could just make out a line of collarbone above a long, slender, elegant neck, surprisingly overlaid with muscle as opposed to starved thin like most fine artists he had met.

And she really was stunningly pretty. A break in the clouds outside the window shone a beam of sunlight onto the cream-coloured gallery wall, which reflected back from her skin. It became luminescent and pale. No artificial tan for this girl. She truly was all white peaches and cream.

But what were her hands like? At the moment they were pushed flat against the bench on either side of her body, palm down, but as he watched she lifted her shoulders and her hands clasped around her arms as though she was cold. The air conditioning was certainly chilly but it was more than that. She was holding on to herself.

Totally wrapped up in her thoughts. Contained. Calm. Her gaze locked on to the painting as though it was the most important thing in the world. She was transfixed. Oblivious to the world. Totally caught up in the painting.

Because she got it. It was so obvious.

And for the first time that day—no, make that the first time this month—he felt that little bubble of a real smile pop in his chest.

Perhaps there was at least one art critic in the room tonight that was going to make him change his mind about their species?

Now all he had to do was find out her name and...

‘Rob. So pleased that you could make it.’ Rob blinked away his anxiety as the gallery owner came forward to shake his hand and, with one pat on his shoulder, guide him back towards the entrance to introduce him to several of the press who were clustered around the media table.

He glanced quickly over one shoulder back to the blonde, but she had turned slightly away from him to take a call on her mobile.

Later. He would find out a lot more about this woman...later.

* * *

Lottie Rosemount chuckled into the mouthpiece of her mobile phone. ‘You really are shameless, Dee Flynn! But are you quite sure that Sean does not mind me using his hotel for the fundraiser? He is doing me a seriously big favour here.’

‘No need to panic, oh, great organiser lady.’ Dee’s familiar laughing voice crackled down the phone. ‘Let’s call it one of the many perks to having a boyfriend who just happens to run his own hotel chain. Sean expects you to invite the great and good of London town and fill his hotel to bursting. And once they see how fabulous his new hotel is? Job done.’

‘Oh, is that what it is. A perk? Nothing to do with the fact that the lovely Sean would jog to the moon and back if you asked him. Oh, no. But I am grateful. You are a total star! Thanks, Dee. And have a great time in the tea gardens.’

‘I will, but only if you stop worrying, missy. Yes, I can hear it in your voice. Just because a few hundred people will be turning up on Saturday night doesn’t mean that you have to be nervous. They will hardly notice that Valencia has not turned up. You wait and see.’ Then Dee’s voice changed to a breathless gasp. ‘Sorry, Lottie. They’re calling my flight. Miss you, too. But we need the tea! Bye, Lottie. Bye.’

Lottie held the phone in her hand for a few seconds before clicking it closed and exhaling. Very slowly.

Worried? Of course she was worried. Or should that be terrified?

She would be a fool if she wasn’t.

What if the fundraiser was a flop? There were so many creative people bursting with talent who needed a helping hand to get started living their dream. Scholarships to help gifted chefs find training was only the start. But a big start in more ways than one.

Pity that Dee had to be in China this week. She could have used some moral support.

Especially when the celebrity chef she had booked as the main attraction for the fundraiser had just cancelled that morning. It had taken months of pleading and cajoling before multi-award-winning chef Valencia Cagoni had finally agreed to turn up for the night.

Yes, of course Lottie understood that Valencia was still with her family in Turin because both of the four-year-old twins had chickenpox and were grounded as infectious tyrants. And no, Valencia was way too busy with the calamine lotion to think of another chef who could step in at such short notice and take her place.

Thank you, Valencia, my old boss and mentor. Thanks a lot.

Panic gripped her for a few seconds but Lottie willed it back down to a place where she kept all of the suppressed fear and suffocating anxiety that came with taking on such a huge responsibility.