Rough Sketch

  Rough Sketch

  A Talbott’s Cove Novel

  Kate Canterbary

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Kate Canterbary

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any forms, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.

  Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner's trademark(s).

  Cover Photography: Isabella Antonelli of 2Design

  Editing: Julia Ganis of Julia Edits

  Proofreading: Jodi Duggan

  Content Review: Sonal Dutt

  Created with Vellum

  About Rough Sketch

  Smart, successful, and sitting pretty at the top of her game, Neera Malik has it all figured out.

  Save for the small issue of Gustavo Guillmand.

  The artist with a cult—and Instagram—following has a problem and it's not his preference for shirtless selfies.

  No, he has an attitude problem, a minding his own business problem, an infuriatingly sexy problem.

  They can't stand each other and they can't stay away from each other.

  This steamy enemies-to-lovers office romance originally appeared on the Read Me Romance podcast. This edition includes a seriously extended epilogue beyond the podcast content.

  For lady bosses who wear orange shoes with all their black dresses.

  Chapter One

  Neera

  Scumble: the technique of applying a thin layer of opaque to semi-opaque paint over another layer, often to mute or dull the previous layer.

  There was another bird on my desk.

  A wooden one, but a bird nonetheless.

  The fifth bird to find its way into my office in as many weeks.

  I'd paid little mind to the first carving. It was a simple gesture, of that I was certain, and nothing more. Wasn't that what artists did? They created lovely things and shared them with people. There was nothing special about it.

  But then they kept coming. No note, no explanation. Just one beautifully carved bird after another. Now I couldn't stop thinking about those blasted birds.

  I had an idea who left them but I couldn't imagine why he was doing it, or how he gained entry into my office. It was no great mystery, and if I wanted answers, I had only to access the company's surveillance network. Snatching my tablet from my bag, I was ready to do exactly that. But my finger hovered over the icon, a beat of hesitation holding me back. Even if I confirmed my suspicions about the who and the how, the why would linger unresolved.

  And I wanted to know why.

  On a better day, I would've set the carving aside and gone on with my work. After spending the past week blocking and defending my boss against every asshole with an idea at the Aspen Institute's annual think tank festival, I had plenty of work waiting for me. That was on top of prepping for a business trip tomorrow, managing four pre-dawn crises, sitting through two waste-of-time meetings before noon, and enduring one unnecessary lunch meeting featuring a poor excuse for a Niçoise salad.

  I was behind schedule, annoyed, and hungry.

  Today wasn't one of my better days.

  I set my tablet, bag, and tea on my desk and marched out of my office. As I reached my assistant's desk, I announced, "I'm stepping out for a moment."

  "You just got here," Heath said.

  "And I'll be stepping out now," I said, pausing at his desk. "Do you have any idea where I can find Mr. Guillmand at this hour?"

  Heath tapped at his keyboard before swiveling to face me. "The artist guy?"

  Swallowing a sigh, I said, "Yes." I caught myself before adding, The one sneaking into my office and leaving sculptures all over the place.

  When it came to presiding over the company's rumor mill, Heath was unparalleled in his skill. That was half the reason he was my right hand. But I wasn't prepared to give him fresh material on Mr. Guillmand. Not until I knew why he was leaving birds at my door like some kind of praise-hungry house cat.

  "Beats me," Heath replied. "Haven't seen the guy since that first day when he was introduced at the all-staff convocation last month. I hear he likes to hang out near the gardens but I've never seen him there."

  "So, then," I started, drumming my fingers against my hips, "he hasn't stopped by? Hasn't asked to see me?"

  "Nope."

  Heath dug a purple carrot out of the feed bag he kept under his desk and bit into it. He grew his snacks at the community garden plot on the far side of the campus and foraged for wild mushrooms on the weekends. He was phenomenal at his job and knowledgeable about every facet of this company, but he was an unusual fellow. Around here, unusual was the norm. I barely registered it anymore. Quirky, eccentric types were standard issue in Silicon Valley. It often seemed that the people around here leaned into those quirks and eccentricities as if they were required elements of their personal brand.

  Mushroom foraging. Cross-stitching. Throat singing. It was always something.

  "Haven't seen him," Heath continued between bites. "Do you want me to call over to the studio?"

  I shook my head, already moving toward the hallway. "No, thank you." I stopped, calculating the time it would take to reach the studio and garden. I hadn't formulated a course of action for handling Mr. Guillmand and wasn't certain I'd make it back to meet with the chief financial officer and his team as planned. "Reschedule my three o'clock meeting."

  Not waiting for a response, I headed toward the stairs. For better or worse, my office was housed in the flagship building, the central hub of activity. It was a grand, glass-enclosed space bathed in warm California sunlight and scented with mossy green. With native trees and plants, and a softly babbling stream running through the atrium, it seemed our headquarters grew up among nature rather than us bending the environment to our preferences. It managed to feel energetic and serene all at once. Not the ideal place for stomping or scowling.

  On a better day, I would've stopped to properly greet the people who waved and called "Good afternoon" as I passed. It still wasn't that day. I could only manage a quick smile as I continued toward the doors, my hands balled into fists and my shoulders tight. I was getting to the bottom of this bird situation and resetting expectations with Mr. Guillmand.

  I could manage damn near anything—a corporate coup d'état, large-scale foreign hacking attempts, lawsuits by the dozen—but something about this sculptor drove me straight over the edge.

  On paper, Mr. Guillmand was exactly the type of rising star artist we wanted to celebrate and support with a yearlong residency. His accomplishments were in raw materials sculpture but several of his paintings fetched respectable prices in up-and-coming galleries. He favored striking new spins on origin stories and creation myths, his portfolio ranging from Popol Vuh, the history of the K'iche' people of the Guatemalan Highlands, to the Hopi's Fourth World story, to the Homeric Hymns. His global consciousness made sense. Born in São Paulo, boarding-school-educated in Switzerland, fine-arts-trained at UCLA—Mr. Guillmand was a citizen of the world.

  It was said his father could trace his lineage to the French monarchy. At least the ones who'd escaped with their heads.

  The man knew and respected culture, and despite his aristocratic upbringing, he lived an unpretentious life in northern Arizona. And his social media following
numbered in the millions. It helped that half his Instagram posts featured him shirtless, smiling, splattered with clay.

  Not that I'd dedicated much time to studying Mr. Guillmand's bare chest but it was difficult to vet his online presence without catching a glimpse or two. Perhaps more than that.

  It didn't matter, of course. Plenty of pretty faces and washboard bellies belonged to obnoxious men who didn't know their place.

  And this man, with his lurking and sneaking and bird-carving, didn't know his place. I realized it the day he arrived at the company's campus. He'd been arrogant, his arched eyebrow nothing short of contemptuous as he scanned the ten-thousand-square-foot studio built to his specifications and then turned his unimpressed gaze toward me.

  It was a moment, an exchange over before it started, but it burned long enough to leave a bitter taste in my mouth. After that, I'd made a point of avoiding Mr. Guillmand's corner of the campus. Frankly, I had more important matters at hand than a condescending artist. I served as executive vice president and chief of staff to the company's founder. My days were packed with real priorities. The moods of one inconsequential man didn't rank among them.

  "This isn't an effective use of my time," I murmured to myself.

  I knew this, but I didn't turn back to my office. If there was one thing I did well, it was shutting down problems. I intended to do just that.

  The campus was vast, many hundreds and thousands of times larger than the tiny offices we'd shared with two other start-up ventures back before our initial public offering. There were moments when I missed fighting for desk space and electrical outlets, and waging war on anyone who dared to microwave fish in the communal kitchen.

  Most of all, I missed knowing every member of the team. We'd been a family in those early days, a scrappy little group willing to do whatever it took to get off the ground. With more than fifty-three thousand employees in offices all around the world now, we were a different kind of family.

  And that scrappy little group was scattered to the winds. Most of the original outfit had moved onto new ventures and passion projects. Others left the company courtesy of a swift kick in the ass. Even the man who made me believe in the beauty and power of innovation, Cole McClish, had pulled up his Silicon Valley stakes and settled a world away in Maine.

  It'd been Cole's idea to develop an artist-in-residence program. He argued it was small money for easy PR, and I bought that reasoning. I bought it, sold it to key stakeholders, and saw it through to fruition. It was a solid plan, but it never accounted for Mr. Guillmand's obnoxious birds invading my days.

  Or his bare chest.

  Chapter Two

  Gus

  Oiling Out: the technique of painting a thin coat over existing layers, often to return colors to the shade when originally painted.

  I climbed a tree today.

  It wasn't my brightest idea, but I needed a new perspective on the hills and mountains in the distance, one I couldn't gain from the ground. If I was back home in Arizona's Rim Country, I would've hiked until I found the right vantage point.

  Actually, no. Fuck that. If I was in Rim Country, I'd be scavenging for stone, clay, felled trees. I wouldn't be sketching ridgelines. I'd be doing something useful, not…whatever the fuck this was.

  With a resigned sigh, I brought my charcoal back to the sketchbook. It was another in many pages of dark, smudgy scribbles. Flowers, trees, hills, clouds. Each more uninspired than the one before. If you'd asked me two months ago, I would've said my creative well knew no bottom.

  That was before creating in captivity.

  When the biggest, most recognizable internet firm in the world announced a residency at their California campus, complete with a hearty stipend, living quarters, and all the bells and whistles, I hadn't thought twice before applying. I never expected they'd select me. I figured they'd see my name, see my incoherent body of work, and move on to someone more suitable.

  I'd made it through art school only because I hadn't known what else to do with myself and couldn't stomach working a nine-to-five. I wasn't classically trained, not really. I had no apprenticeships or residencies to my name and I'd rejected that path often. Regardless, I did well and I knew acclaim in small doses. A centerpiece sculpture in the New Mexico statehouse. Several community art installations across the Southwest. Exhibits in San Francisco and New York. A revolving collection featured at a new hotel in Vegas.

  I made my way on my terms and that was essential.

  But a slim part of me wanted this, wanted the stamp of approval. No matter how often artists said they did it for the craft, we also did it for the love. The adulation. It bit like a bug and the venom hooked you just as quick as it sucked the life out of you.

  That venom had me up a tree in Silicon Valley, staring off at the natural world while my fingers scratched out the shape of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The lines started out soft, almost downy. Lamb's wool in shades of green, yellow, brown. Nothing like the Kaibab Plateau or Buckskin Gulch or the raw magnitude of the Mogollon Rim.

  But I had to do this. I had to stretch my fingers, translate shapes into stories. I'd draw my way out of the driest spell in my thirty-six years, and eventually, I'd find a path back to the beginning. If I could do that, I'd learn how to create again. Even if I had to do it from inside a fishbowl.

  I was betting on this. I couldn't stare at the walls or walk in circles anymore. I had to get out of my head and move my hands. I never went longer than a month without a new project taking over my existence. It always went that way—until now. An idea tickled the back of my brain until it consumed my every breath and thought. After submitting to that cycle for more than twenty years, I didn't know how to function without it.

  I would've been rocking in a corner right now, scratching my skin off like a junkie in need of a fix, if not for a voluptuous, whip-cracking executive vice president. One frigid look from her and I felt the fire kindling inside me. Fuck that. It wasn't kindling. It was a goddamn wildfire. She brought to mind steel-tipped arrows and lush camellias and a dozen other contradictions.

  And doves. Graceful, regal doves.

  When I'd rifled through the warehouse-sized supply room after she deposited me in the studio on the first day of my residency, I hadn't intended to sculpt anything. But I'd happened upon some pale birch and the magic took charge. Two hours later, I had a dove in my hands.

  Since then, I'd fever-dreamed a small flock of birds to life. Goldfinch, chickadee, sparrow, meadowlark, even a nice, plump dove. I'd decided it meant absolutely nothing. I wasn't sculpting birds that reminded me of her in peculiar ways for any profound reason. Muses came in all shapes and forms—music, weather, nature, women—and they went just as quickly. None of them meant a damn thing.

  Save for the small issue of me gifting her those birds. All previous muses served me and my needs. I'd never served them. I didn't intend to change my ways now.

  Except…I already was. I was crafting by her and for her, and that was the last fucking thing I wanted.

  I shrugged off that inconvenient realization and went back to my mountain range. I had several pages filled with increasingly twisted interpretations of the geography. I couldn't sketch anything without traveling down a winding path and then turning it inside out. As far as my mind's eye was concerned, nothing was what it seemed.

  These mountains were born of a blood feud, rock against rock, one rising up as the other bowed down. The Santa Cruz range stood as a tribute to the victor but also a reminder of its strength. The cost of that strength was in its scars. The terrible, rippled lesion of the San Andreas Fault served as a reminder of the fight.

  Everything was a product of a long, blistering history. I couldn't see it any other way.

  An airplane sliced my line of sight, its roar echoed by my growl at the interference. I glanced down at the sketch. The page was a mess of anthropomorphic earth at war with itself, line and smudge void of purpose and composition. If there was any vision here, I couldn't find it.
Burning the whole damn thing would be the kindest solution by far.

  I pocketed the charcoal and closed my sketchbook. "That's some real dog shit," I mumbled to myself.

  I ran the back of my hand over my forehead as I frowned at the sunlight blanketing the cloudless sky. Today was the warmest since my arrival in early June, but a hot day in the Bay Area had nothing on Arizona's heat. I missed the wilderness and my place in it, but I could enjoy this temperate weather.

  Then, I saw her in the distance, her dark skin shining in the afternoon sun like burnished bronze. She zipped down the sidewalk like a hummingbird starved for nectar. Oh, fuck. A hummingbird. "Speak of the fuckin' devil."

  Miz Malik. She introduced herself that way, like some kind of prim, old-world maiden.

  But there was nothing prim or maidenly about her. She wanted to play the part of the proper businesswoman, but heaven help me, she failed miserably. Anyone with lips like that would. Full, plump, dusky pink. Always pursed, as if she was biting that silver tongue of hers.

  Luscious. Rubens was rolling in his grave and cursing the limits of his natural life for missing the opportunity to paint this voluptuous woman.

  It was too bad she was so fucking insufferable.

  The lady didn't know how to slow down to walk. If she'd ever stopped to smell the roses, I was certain she'd follow it up with a performance evaluation on the quality of their blooms.

  But that hair. Dark and silky, just long enough to brush her shoulders. It shone like obsidian and spilled like a waterfall. My fingers itched to stroke those strands, feel it sliding between my fingers, carve an ode to it in stone.