Chapter 186

Almara’s Pov

“It’s coming together.” I hear someone say over the sound of Arthur hammering away. By the last strike of the hammer, I’d say Arthur recognizes the voice and isn’t happy about it.

I peak around the side of the building from where I’m leaning on a ladder painting and see Roman standing below us, hands on his hips.

He looks out of place in his ten-thousand-dollar tailored jet black suit with midnight blue cufflinks standing among slabs of wood, buckets of paint, and tools scattered about.

Then again, he always looks out of place when he comes to see how things are progressing and I should really stop being so surprised. It’s not like he came to help or anything. And, he always say that the project is ‘coming together’, not that it’s specifically coming together well or nicely, just together.

“Hi, Roman,” I call out, out of expected niceties.

“Almara.” He greets in return with tipping his sunglasses down, which are also unnecessary on this over cast day.

“What are you doing here, dad?” Arthur asks, wiping his hands on a dirty rag and slinging it over his shoulder.

“What? My son is building a school and I can’t come to see it.” Roman says and eyes the building up and down. Only now do I realize that perhaps he’s wearing the glasses so we can’t read his judgement. I suddenly get very insecure about my brush strokes.

Don’t sweat it. Lily tells me. He’s just jealous. Jealous? I ask. What would he have to be jealous about? He strolls up in the news jaguar sports car, tailored suit, and could hire the crew dogs to get this place built in a week.

Meanwhile, Arthur and I are six months in and behind on our projected timeline. Not to mention the weather has been getting colder, making the work more taxing.

Lily shrugs. My guess is he doubted that you two would really pull it off.

Well, we haven’t yet. I remind her. I shake my head though. I can’t think like this. The project is going to get finished even if it takes us longer to build than we anticipated. Unfortunately, manual labor is only partially the problem.

My mom was right that getting permits is a whole other task. We started looking into it about a month ago as I know these can take up to a year to process, but so far every contractor sees us as a liability, and it’s all starting to make sense as to why those sellers and renters wouldn’t sign us.

We’re branded as the fire starters. We haven’t relayed this to Roman. It’s odd, he seems to have been able to step right back into his old life seamlessly and Arthur and I choose to do our business as any other regular pack and we’re treated as the criminals.

“Almara!” I hear Roman shout and I nearly fall off the ladder. “Watch where you’re dripping!” He yells before I even have time to gather my bearings.

“S-sorry!” I stutter and look down to see him wiping aggressively at an obvious white spot on his otherwise pitch-black shoulder. I guess I didn’t realize I had some paint drip from my brush.

“Well, dad you are in an active work zone,” Arthur says and steadies the ladder.

“This is why professionals would be better. They would be fast and clean.” Roman remarks. I resist the urge to remind him that I am a professional painter. In fact, my paintings are the whole reason we’re doing this anyway.

“Why don’t you let me hire some workers for you,” Roman says, trying to sound helpful but sounding way too hopeful that today will be the day that we admit we need his help and money.

“No,” Arthur tells Roman flatly, just as he’s done many times before. I begin to descend down the ladder, careful not to drip any more paint which is harder than I thought, I didn’t realize my fingers have gone numb because of the cold.

“Robert graciously accepted every dime I’ve offered him.” Roman points out.

“Well of course he did.” Arthur laughs. “He’s Robert,” he says and though he didn’t say much, he pretty much summed up everything.

I’m just a few steps away before touching the ground when I hear Roman nonchalantly mention to Arthur that I should learn to say thank you when a gift has been given.

“Excuse me?” I say, genuinely confused. We haven’t accepted anything from Roman, Elenor, or even Robert in well over a year- well we never accepted anything from Robert.

Arthur raises his eyebrows showing he’s just as confused. Roman is clearly getting a thrill out of knowing something that we don’t.

“You can’t be that naive,” Roman says, the corners of his mouth lifting in amusement. “The painting that sold for ten grand?” Roman says, waiting for the bell to ring and unfortunately, it does, but I don’t say anything. I wait to let Roman explain.

“At your auction some time ago. That lovely angelic painting that sold for ten grand,” Roman says looking between us both.

“What about it?” Arthur snarls.

“Well, who do you think told the gentlemen who bought it to buy it for that much?” Roman says as if this should have all been very obvious to us.

“You set that up?” I hear my self ask over the ringing in my ears as I try to process what’s being told to me. My whole body is numb now, and it’s not because of the cold.

“Well, only that one,” Roman says defensively. “The others sold at the price they did only because that one sold so well.”

“I think you should leave,” Arthur says through clenched teeth. I can see him trying his best to refrain from turning, and me from crying. Lily on the other hand is ready to pounce. Arthur shrugs.

“You’ve still done a majority of the work.” Roman says, and it all makes sense now. He had someone buy my painting for such a big price so he has his paws in someway involved when the school becomes a success.

Roman struts away, holding his head high. Arthur comes to stand next to me.

“We’re going to pay him back.” Arthur says. “We don’t need his help.” My shoulders sag.

“Arthur we’ve been running off of our savings since we’ve started this project. I haven’t had the time to paint anything. Who knows if I’m even still relevant enough to sell at the prices I was once selling at,”

Even as I say that last sentence, I know I can say that only because Roman was involved. Without his acquaintance buying that painting at the price, who knows if I would even have been able to sell others at that high-end amount.

“Look at me,” Arthur says and takes my chin into his fingers and tilts my head up until I’m looking at him through a blurry vision. “One thing he said was true. We did the majority of the work, which means we are going to take care of the rest. No matter what.”

I nod. “No matter what.”

“You take care of the paintings and the money. I got the labor. We got this.” Arthur says with such confidence, I start to feel better. I just hope he’s right.