Read The Secret Heiress for Free Online

then said, “What about you? Why do you come here? Are you an art major?”
    He shook his head again. “Not exactly. I’m sort of a dabbler. I paint and sculpt. Sculpt mostly.”
    “You paint and sculpt, but you’re not an art major?”
    “No. I work part-time at the Clark Institute. I do a little restoration work.”
    “Oh, I go there a lot, too,” she said, becoming enthusiastic. “I’ve seen the restoration center, but you’re the first person I’ve met who works there.” He doesn’t look like the type I imagined worked at a place like that, she thought. Then she realized that she had no idea what that sort of person might look like. She’d never met an art restorer before. “It’s funny,” she said. “You look outdoorsy. Not like the type who stays cooped up doing whatever it is restorers do.”
    He laughed softly. “A lot of my work is probably not what you’d expect. I do spend time indoors. I clean paintings and analyze pigments and fill in the gaps where paint is missing. That kind of thing. But most of my time is spent welding and sanding and polishing. There’s a lot of heavy lifting and dirty work with acetylene torches and chemicals.”
    A small group of women began circling the room, pointing at the paintings and speaking in self-important voices.
    “That’s interesting,” Ariadne said as she watched the women discuss a provocative Paul Cadmus canvas. “I never gave much thought to that kind of work before.”
    “Well, why should you? You’re in business. But enough about me. Tell me about yourself. Where’re you from?”
    “Would you like the short version or the long?” she asked.
    “The long for sure,” he replied, grinning.
    “I was born in Greece and lived there awhile,” Ariadne said, “but I grew up in Connecticut.”
    “Wow, Greece,” he responded. “You’re a long way from home.”
    “I only remember snippets,” she said.
    “Your parents moved to the States?”
    Ariadne shook her head. “I lived with foster parents in Greece, then was brought to live with different foster parents here.”
    “That’s unusual,” he said. “Where in Connecticut?”
    “A tiny place I’m sure you’ve never heard of,” Ariadne said. “Roxbury.”
    “You’re right,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve never heard of it.”
    “Where’re you from?”
    “Oh . . . here and there,” he replied—evasively, she thought. When he saw the puzzled expression on her face, he went on. “What I mean is, I’ve traveled quite a bit, but I grew up here in Massachusetts.”
    “Did your family move around a lot?”
    “Not really, but work took me away.”
    “Oh? What kind of work?”
    “Government.”
    What’s that supposed to mean? she wondered, but before she could satisfy her curiosity, he grinned and said, “You’ve turned the tables on me. I was trying to find out about you.”
    A lady with salt-and-pepper hair gelled into spikes strolled past them, her long earrings jangling as she passed. She did a very quick sweep around the room and left as if there was nothing of interest to her.
    After she was gone, Ariadne shrugged and said, “There’s not much to know.”
    “That can’t be true,” he said, shifting on the bench slightly and gazing into her eyes.
    He had moved only a mere three or four inches closer to Ariadne, but she felt a violation of personal space. She didn’t move, however. She felt oddly at ease with this man—Matt, she reminded herself—but at the same time, he stirred feelings in her that were unfamiliar and unsettling. “I . . . I don’t know what to say,” she finally replied. “I’m just a simple girl from Connecticut.”
    “How do you like Williamstown?” he asked, apparently trying to make her feel comfortable.
    “I like it. It’s fun after being out in the sticks for so long. After Roxbury and boarding school, Williamstown seems almost like a city to me, and there’re a lot of really nice people.”
    “I bet you’ve learned a lot,”