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The walls were concrete, but with the gold and blue oriental rug and nothing but one piece of artwork on the wall, the room was somehow warm and comfortable.

I studied the painting that sat behind a shiny piece of glass. Pastel colors and bold yet refined sweeps of a brush. I wasn’t an artistic person like my sister, but I recognized the work. I’d watched a documentary about the downfall of modern art. That what we consider art today is a poor example of the talent and heart of art in the past.

“I didn’t take you to have a soft spot for Monet,” I said, glancing at him.

His attention was on his computer, but a small smile pulled on his lips. He stood with one hand braced on the desk while hitting keys with the other. Either he had this place under his command much like a mad scientist with their destructive red buttons, or he was a very unproductive typist.

“My mamma was a fan.”

My stomach warmed at the deep way mamma rolled off his lips. “She had good taste.”

He laughed quietly. A bitter note showed through, and he wiped his amusement away with a palm like he’d just realized what he’d done. It felt like I was about to wade into deep waters, but I couldn’t stop myself from going deeper.

I raised a brow. “You don’t like Monet?”

“I have it in my office, don’t I?”

“That’s not why you have it in here.”

His shoulders tensed, and he pushed his keys a little harder. “You analyzing me?”

I gazed at the soft, pastel strokes in the painting. “There’s a saying amongst us women: Don’t trust a man who isn’t good to his mamma.”

His gaze burned into my cheek. “You think I was bad to my mother?”

I wasn’t sure how I recognized I wouldn’t get to know him easily, that I might have to get him worked up to do so. He wasn’t someone to sit around and share his past with others, his fiancée included. I needed to know the man I would marry. There was a part of me that just wanted to know, so I lifted a shoulder. My heart danced at the unfamiliar game I was playing.

“Am I supposed to think differently?”

He let out an unamused breath, but he didn’t say another word. He didn’t try to defend himself, and my stomach tightened with the need to assure him that wasn’t what I thought. Was it?

An itch began in my throat to apologize for what I’d insinuated as he walked across the office to leave, and I turned to see him open the door.

“James will be right outside if you need something. Stay here. I shouldn’t be gone long.”

“Nico, wait. I shouldn’t have said—”

Nicolas called into the hallway for a Lucky. Glancing back at me, he said, “No, you’re right. You shouldn’t trust me. I’ve already lied to you since we’ve been in this room.”

I swallowed. “About what?”

He paused with a hand on the doorknob. “I always just say she was a fan. It’s much easier to say than to explain that she was always so high she couldn’t tell a Monet from a fucking caricature painted on the street.”

“True love stories never have endings.”

—Richard Bach

THE DOOR SHUT BEHIND HIM, and I was convinced I was the worst person in the world at that moment. I had no idea about his mother. I’d assumed she’d died of cancer or some other illness, but now I wondered if it was an illness at all. I had imagined that in his family, the woman would be the only reliable and steady person to lean on. He didn’t even have that.

This painting had been his mamma’s, and he’d kept it even though she was probably far from the best parent.

He was good to his mamma.

I needed a drink.

As I took my time making a gin an

d tonic, a kid of fifteen or sixteen stepped in. Once he shut the door, he stood beside it with a stoic expression. I had a James in the hall and this must be Lucky. The nickname had conjured an image of a beefy man with a shamrock tattoo, not a boy. My fiancé must be initiating this kid, poor thing.