Chapter 4 - Chapter Four: A Brush with Fate

Eliana didn't sleep the night before.Not from fear though she was frightened but from something more dangerous. Which is anticipation, curious, restless hum that had wrapped itself around her thoughts like ivy growing through cracks in concrete.The rooftop painting had taken on a life of its own, people had started sharing it online. Fallon had reposted it with a glowing caption, and soon after, someone messaged Eliana asking if prints were available. Prints, like she was a real artist, like she had a store, like she had any idea what she was doing.She didn't. But she figured it out. Jasmine helped, researching quick tutorials on setting up a small shop page. By the time the sun came up, they'd managed to upload five print designs.Three sold within the first two hours.By noon, she'd received a call from someone at a tiny art magazine asking for an interview. Eliana thought it was a joke at first, but the woman on the phone was persistent and kind and genuinely interested."People are calling your work intimate and cinematic," she'd said. "Like watching a memory form while you're dreaming."Eliana nearly dropped the phone.She said yes. To everything.The buzz of this new life, however fragile, carried her through the afternoon.She painted, answered emails, fixed Jasmine's scarf, also fixed her own cracked nail with clear polish and then ruined it again digging through a drawer for the last stamp she owned.She was alive in a way she hadn't felt in months.And all through it, one thought pulsed in the background like a second heartbeat: He saw the painting.Whoever he was.He saw it, and he wrote, Magnificent. Thank you.That was the only message, short and almost reverent.It didn't make sense but it felt real.She didn't reply not because she didn't want to, but because she didn't know how. There were no words big enough to hold what that message had made her feel.By five o'clock, the city was turning gold.The light spilled through her window in long slashes, catching on dust motes and the curves of dried paint. Jasmine was napping again, her breathing slow and fragile. Eliana sat on the floor of the studio, surrounded by brushes and paper and open doors she wasn't sure how to walk through yet.She heard it before she saw it: a knock not a tap, not a slip-under-the-door delivery.A knock.Which was firm and confident. One beat of silence, then again.Eliana rose slowly, wiped her hands on a paint-stained cloth, and crossed the living room. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.She opened the door.He was not what she expected.Then there stand a tall, impeccably dressed in a tailored charcoal coat, navy scarf knotted with subtle ease. His hair was dark, combed back with a kind of sharp precision that spoke of wealth, order, and a schedule managed by people paid to care.His eyes met hers and didn't move. Gray—no, not gray but something between smoke and silver.He said nothing.Neither did she.He reached into his coat pocket and held out a plain white card.Her hand hovered."Who are you?" she finally asked, voice quiet.He looked at her as if weighing his answer."A collector," he said.It wasn't enough not even close.She took the card.It was blank.She flipped it.A name embossed in minimalist font: Dominic Blackwood.The name echoed somewhere in the back of her memory something about luxury developments. Billion-dollar mergers. A man whose presence, when captured in the media, always felt a little too polished, too controlled—like the truth of him was wrapped in silence."Why me?" she asked.His gaze flicked to the painting inside her studio, he could see it through the open door."Because what you create is not ordinary. And I don't collect what's ordinary."She looked back at him, arms folding unconsciously."You've been sending the notes."He didn't deny it."Why anonymously?""Because I wanted to see how you'd respond to encouragement that didn't demand anything."That made her pause. The card felt heavy in her hand."This isn't how things usually work," she said."Exactly."She didn't invite him in not yet. Jasmine was asleep, her home was too small, too messy, too full of reality.Dominic didn't seem to mind. He didn't look disappointed, he just nodded, once."You don't have to decide anything now," he said."Decide what?" He reached into his coat again. This time he handed her an envelope—cream, of course, with that same handwriting."Open it when you're alone."He turned to leave.She called after him. "Wait…what is this? What do you want from me?"He stopped. Looked back over his shoulder."Not what. Who."Then he was gone, melting into the hallway with the kind of practiced efficiency that left her blinking after him.Eliana locked the door. Her hands shook.She didn't open the envelope right away. She poured herself water, sat down, checked on Jasmine and start pacing.When she finally opened it, she found a letter folded on expensive paper. Inside:Ms. Brooks,Your work speaks and I listen.I'm offering you an opportunity, I'm starting a private collection—quiet, selective. Your pieces would be its foundation.This is not a gallery offer. It's something more refined, more long-term.Attached is a contract. Read it then consider it. I'll return in three days.Until then, create only for yourself.And beneath that, there lies a check. Five thousand dollars.Just like that.Eliana stared at the check like it might disappear.Her throat closed.She didn't sleep that night, again.But not from fear.From wonder.And from the quiet beginning of something she hadn't allowed herself to feel in years:Possibility.Morning came with a sense of strangeness. Eliana woke earlier than usual, her heart ticking faster than her feet could carry her to the kitchen. The check sat on the table, untouched, as though daring her to believe it was real.Jasmine shuffled in, her hair wild, sweater sleeves swallowing her hands."You didn't sleep again," she said. It wasn't a question."Didn't want to waste it.""Is this about the guy who knocked? The fancy one?"Eliana raised an eyebrow. "You saw him?""I peeked through the curtain. He looked like a man in a spy movie."Eliana huffed a tired laugh. "Yeah. And now he wants to buy my art.""Is that bad?""No but it's strange.""Strange can be good, you always say that."She didn't reply. Jasmine was right but the thought of someone like him—someone from another world wanting something from her felt like a trap even if it wasn't.She spent the day going over the contract. It was simple too simple, nothing about ownership or exclusivity. Just a promise to commission six original pieces over the next year, paid in full up front.It didn't feel real.So she did the only thing that made sense—she painted something quiet, something soft. A girl standing in the rain under a flickering streetlamp, face turned to the sky.And all the while, she wondered: What kind of man gives without asking? And what did he really want in return?Because nothing—nothing in her world—ever came without a cost.