The bell on the shop door jingles, and I startle, my surprise blending with an inner thrill because I have a bell now. After four years of slogging through college, I’m finally doing this art thing for real.

The slim young man who saunters in is so tall, his hair almost touches the top of the doorframe. To be fair, the door is shorter than standard, and his blond, shoulder-length hair is thick and wavy, adding another inch or so. Still, his height is impressive.

And god.

He’s obscenely pretty. I mean really…how dare.

Slanted cheekbones designed for slicing open soft little hearts. Plump lips, as red as if they were glazed with the blood of said hearts. Perfect nose. Neatly arched eyebrows over electric-blue eyes.

His mouth tilts in a little smirk, dark lashes hooding his gaze. It’s all I can do not to scoff as I look away. He’s just the sort of self-centered pretty-boy I despise. A walking TikTok thirst trap.

But he’s wearing a Dior T-shirt and Escada jeans, so clearly he has money to burn. Which means I can’t tell him to fuck off.

Why the hell is he in my shop? He belongs in one of the fancy galleries in the French Quarter.

As he breezes past me, a sage-and-lavender fragrance unfurls from him—delicately masculine and metrosexual, probably an expensive cologne. He smells damn good, like the incense I usually burn at home.

Rolling an unlit cigarette between his ringed fingers, he inspects the paintings on display—still lifes of shells and pebbles in vivid blues and rich browns; a scene of bristling boat-masts against a peach-colored dawn; waves crashing on cliffs; gulls with cruelly blank eyes. Everything’s priced lower than it’s probably worth, but hey, there’s a lot of competition in this city, and a girl’s gotta eat—and pay for hurricane insurance.

He scans them all, his eyes hooded as if none of them meet his standards. There’s an insolent slouch to his posture, a casual carelessness I’ve come to associate with rich, gorgeous assholes. I knew a couple, distantly, at USC.

I swallow my inner resistance and force out polite words. “Can I help you with something?”

“I’m looking for Baz Allard.” His voice is low, smooth, musical, with the faintest hint of a British accent. A voice designed for melting hearts—or panties.

I pretend I’m immune to such voices. “That’s me. I’m Baz.”

He cocks an eyebrow.

I’m not about to explain the history of my weird name to this guy, or the fact that staying gender-neutral online and refusing to post pictures of myself have spared me from a lot of unwanted attention by random incels. “Are you looking for something specific?”

“I’ve seen your work on Instagram. Some of it is like this”—he gestures dismissively at the ocean-themed art—“but other pieces are much more interesting.”

I waffle between offended and flattered for a second before I reply. “I keep my darker stuff back here.” Hopping off my stool, I walk to the back of the shop, sliding a huge oceanscape aside and pulling several smaller canvases out from behind it. A cockroach scuttles across the carpet, and I bite back a scream before crushing it under the chunky heel of my Blackcraft Cult boot.

These paintings are my babies—my beautiful Gothic children. Fish swimming through a rib cage while light glances down through the water, sparkling on a diamond ring that encircles a rib. A spider spinning a web across the jaws of a skull. A hawk lying dead at twilight beside a country road, one wing jutting brokenly upward, a moth perched on its half-open beak.

The customer scans the paintings briefly before shaking his head. “I’m talking about your character art.”

The only people I let myself paint are entirely fictional, created from my head. I barely glance at reference photos. Too risky.

I nod to my customer and walk over to a battered dresser, tugging on the sticky top drawer. “I’ve got some samples here. You have a D&D character or something you want art of?”

Another smirk. “Do I look like I play Dungeons and Dragons?”

“Um…” I turn, prints in hand. “Maybe? It’s anyone’s game. I do art for authors too. Any original characters, really.”

“I need a portrait.”

My heart sinks. “A character portrait?”

“No, an actual portrait. Of me.” He’s still smiling, but his jaw goes tight, a muscle flexing near the sharp corner.

Great. There goes my one chance at making some replacement-iPhone money. “Sorry, I only paint fictional characters.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug, putting the prints back in the drawer and pushing it shut. “For some reason I’m just no good with real faces. The results are crap every time.” I give an airy little chuckle.

“Bullshit.” His white teeth bite off the word crisply.

“Excuse me?” I frown at him.

His debonair attitude drops like a coat falling to the ground, leaving behind a naked intensity, a steely desperation that’s palpable in the taut air between us.

He steps toward me, and I back up against the dresser. I’m immediately angry at myself for retreating. But he closes in before I can undo the recoil.

“Look, man, I’ve got pepper spray,” I tell him.

“Where?” His gaze travels the length of my bare legs, sheathed in tattoos—skims over my tight black shorts, faux leather and clearly pocketless—then roams my black vest and cropped white tank top.

“Maybe it’s hidden in all that hair,” he muses.

The left side of my skull is shaved, and the rest of my hair spills over my right shoulder in an abundant pink-and-black waterfall.

I wish I had pepper spray hidden in my hair. But of course it’s back home, where it’s useless.

“Fuck you,” I hiss.

He shutters the predatory light in his gaze, shifting back a step. “I don’t mean to frighten you. I just want honesty.”

“And I told you honestly that I can’t do your portrait.” I sidestep, snatching a palette knife from my worktable. “I think you should leave now.”

“I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars.”

Sweat breaks out on my palms and the back of my neck. “Come again?”

His rosy lips stretch in a catlike grin, a dimple popping into his cheek. “You heard me.”

Shit.

Maybe I could—

No. I can’t. Not for any sum would I ever consider painting someone’s portrait. Not after what happened to Dad. Not after—

I took a fucking vow before the goddess and the spirits and whatever else exists out there. I won’t break it. I can’t.

The guy is watching me. There’s no trace of threat from him now—his face is so serenely beautiful, it’s almost innocent.