Chapter 4 - THE BLUE PAINT SECRET
Monday morning, Willa walked into Bell Hospitality wearing a cream suit she had bought with her own credit card.
Technically, Grant had always paid the bill.
That bothered her now.
Everything bothered her now.
The executive offices occupied two floors of a renovated brick warehouse overlooking the Chicago River. Glass conference rooms lined one wall. Exposed steel beams crossed the ceiling.
People knew who she was.
Of course they did.
Grant Bell’s wife.
Or soon-to-be ex-wife.
The woman from the dinner.
News traveled quickly in families.
It traveled faster in companies built around them.
Willa felt eyes following her to the temporary office Damian had assigned her.
The brass plaque beside the door read:
WILLA MERCER
SPECIAL OPERATIONS REVIEW
She stared at it.
Mercer.
Her maiden name.
Damian appeared behind her.
“I assumed you wouldn’t want Bell.”
She swallowed.
“You assumed correctly.”
Then she opened the door.
The first month nearly destroyed her.
She loved every second.
Willa read contracts until her eyes burned.
She spent nights in restaurant kitchens and mornings with payroll clerks.
She rode delivery trucks.
She learned which managers skimmed overtime, which vendors padded invoices, which chefs bought produce from friends at inflated prices, and which employees had been quietly keeping entire locations alive while senior executives took credit.
The fake linen company led to a purchasing manager.
The purchasing manager led to another vendor.
Then another.
By December, Willa had identified nearly $1.2 million in annual waste and theft.
She fired two executives.
Promoted four employees.
Canceled six supplier contracts.
And made enemies everywhere.
Damian seemed delighted.
At the end of her first formal presentation, he sat at the opposite end of a conference table surrounded by eleven department heads.
Willa finished explaining her restructuring plan.
Silence followed.
She hated silence now.
It reminded her of that dinner.
Finally Damian leaned back.
“This will anger half the company.”
“I know.”
“It will probably cost us two senior managers.”
“They should already be gone.”
One of them shifted uncomfortably.
Damian noticed.
“So you’re telling me my choices are chaos now or failure later?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Approved.”
That was all.
No applause.
No congratulations.
Yet walking back to her office, Willa felt ten feet tall.
Her divorce papers were filed in January.
Grant didn’t contest them.
At first, he called.
Then he texted.
Then came emails.
I made a mistake.
Can we talk?
Sloane meant nothing.
Please don’t let Damian turn you against me.
The last line almost made Willa laugh.
As if she had no mind of her own.
Eventually she blocked him.
Sloane vanished from Chicago within forty-eight hours of the dinner.
Damian’s investigators discovered she had indeed been feeding information to Malcolm Voss, a businessman who had spent years trying to weaken the Bell family’s legitimate holdings so he could acquire property cheaply.
But the strangest discovery came three months after Willa started working.
She had been staying late at the Lakeside Grand, a half-renovated hotel she had taken over as her first major project.
On the ground floor, she was building something Damian hadn’t asked for.
A conservation studio.
Glass walls.
Public viewing.
Free admission.
A place where schoolchildren could watch damaged paintings being restored instead of being told art belonged to rich people.
That night, cardboard boxes filled the room.
One contained Willa’s old tools.
Brushes.
Microscopes.
Pigment charts.
The magnifying lamp she hadn’t used since her wedding.
And a narrow velvet case containing seven tubes of ultramarine pigment.
One arrived anonymously on every birthday after she married Grant.
Real lapis-based ultramarine.
Stupidly expensive.
Beautiful.
She had never opened any of them.
She was turning one beneath the work lamp when she heard footsteps.
Damian.
He stood in the doorway, jacket off, sleeves rolled to his forearms.
“You’re still here.”
“So are you.”
“My building.”
“My project.”
He considered that.
“Fair.”
Willa looked at the tube in her hand.
“Do you know anything about paint?”
“A dangerous question.”
“This pigment came from a workshop outside Florence.”
Damian went still.
Willa saw it.
Seven months of working beside him had taught her his smallest tells.
His right thumb brushed once across his index finger.
Nervous.
Damian Bell was nervous.
She slowly raised the tube.
“Someone sent me one every birthday.”
He said nothing.
“Grant didn’t.”
Silence.
“Did you?”
Damian looked at the glass wall.
Then at her.
“It’s difficult to buy accidentally.”
Her heart stopped.
“Oh my God.”
He exhaled.
“Willa—”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“For seven years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Damian said nothing for so long that she became angry.
“Don’t you dare go silent on me now. I’ve had enough Bell men doing that for one lifetime.”
That almost made him smile.
Almost.
Then he walked toward her.
He stopped well beyond touching distance.
“The first time I saw you, you had paint on your nose.”
Willa frowned.
“What?”
“Eight years ago.”
His voice was different.
Softer.
“I went to the Hawthorne Museum to inspect the painting Dad had donated after the fire.”
The woman holding the lantern.
Willa remembered.
Her first Bell painting.
“My appointment was upstairs. I took the wrong elevator and ended up in the conservation level.”
Damian looked down at his hands.
“You were bent over the painting with that ridiculous lamp strapped to your forehead.”
“It isn’t ridiculous.”
“It looked ridiculous.”
She nearly smiled.
“You were singing.”
“I do not sing.”
“You did.”
“What?”
“Something from Fleetwood Mac.”
Willa covered her face.
“Oh God.”
“Badly.”
“Please stop.”
“I stood there for twenty minutes.”
Her hands fell.
Damian’s eyes met hers.
“I came to the museum gala planning to ask you to dinner.”
Willa forgot how to breathe.
“But Grant found you first.”
Damian’s jaw flexed.
“He made you laugh.”
“So you stepped aside?”
“He was twenty-five. Carefree. Charming. Clean.”
The last word held meaning.
Willa understood.
Damian had inherited the darker responsibilities of his father’s world.
Grant hadn’t.
“I thought he could give you something I couldn’t.”
“A safe life?”
“Yes.”
She laughed softly.
“You gave me away like a painting.”
Pain crossed his face.
“I know.”
“I wasn’t yours to give.”
“No.”
He didn’t argue.
That mattered too.
Damian continued.
“When you stopped working after the wedding, I hated it.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You were my brother’s wife.”
“I could still have used a friend.”
The words hit him harder than she expected.
He looked away.
“I didn’t trust myself to be your friend.”
The room went quiet.
Willa’s heart was beating painfully.
Damian looked at the seven tubes.
“So I sent something you might understand.”
“Paint.”
“Yes.”
“Every year.”
“Yes.”
“Did Grant know?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“No.”
Willa took one slow step toward him.
Damian immediately stepped backward.
That startled her.
“Why are you moving away?”
“Because you’re still married.”
“Separated.”
“Married.”
His voice was rough now.
“I will not become another man standing between you and your choices.”
Something warm and painful opened inside her.
“Damian.”
“No.”
He backed toward the door.
“If there is ever anything between us, Willa, you will come to it free.”
Then he left.
She stood alone in the studio.
After seven years of keeping the tubes sealed, Willa opened the first one.
May you like
Ultramarine blue touched her fingertip.
The color was breathtaking.
