Chapter 221: Taking It Out on Him

"Really?" I asked as I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Sure…" he replied as he smiled back at me with a mischievous spark in his light blue eyes.

He’s crazy and so reckless. I knew that but still this is something else altogether…

"I don’t even know what to say or what to do. This is crazy, Hayden," I mumbled softly before sighing loudly.

I have never felt so overwhelmed like this before.

"Some of my friends and other business partners asked about your work too, and of course, I utilized my perfect sales skill to pitch your talent to them. Guess my hard work paid off. These people are loaded so you can rip them off with whatever price that you want," Hayden said with a proud laugh.

"Why did you do that?" I asked before rubbing my temples.

This is all too much. He could have checked with me first on whether I was ready for this.

"To help you find clients for your work. Why else?" Hayden said with a shrug.

It was apparent that he couldn’t understand why I was so distressed about all this.

"There’re so many requests for commissions now that I don’t know how to start…" I admitted shamefully.

Unfortunately, none of the courses in my university has ever taught what to do when you got more requests that you can handle. I had no idea what I should do first.

"Don’t panic. Why don’t you read through some of the requests first?" Hayden suggested.

"I already read through some of them. They’re all asking for portraits because that was what you showed them and put on that magazine cover," I said followed by a depressed sigh.

"Not just the magazine cover. The article is also posted online on websites and social media," Hayden said with a proud smile.

I knew that he was doing his best to help but this is all too sudden for me to handle. Getting exposure for your artwork is what most artists dream of but I still didn’t feel ready to handle this much stress and workload. Suddenly, it felt like everyone had high expectations of me and I wasn’t sure if I could meet their expectations.

Most of all, if I failed at this, Hayden would probably be very disappointed in me.

"You do realize that if they’re requesting for portraits, I may have to meet some of the clients in person if they request for a live portrait session, right?" I asked Hayden.

Perhaps it slipped his mind for a second there that I was still under house arrest based on his orders. I wondered if he knew that some portrait work was done with the person posing live in front of the artist.

"Is that so? What are you going to do then?" Hayden asked as his eyes widened innocently at me.

"Why are you acting like this is my problem?" I snapped at him in disbelief.

"Because it is your problem…" Hayden said with a careless shrug.

I can’t believe this. He got me all this attention and more work requests than I can possibly handle. Then when I need to leave the mansion to complete my work, he acts like the fact that he’s keeping me locked up in here isn’t his fault. This is insane…

"You can’t be serious…" I muttered as I started to boil over with anger.

"When you have too much work, you prioritize. So, since you can’t leave this mansion, I suggest you start by prioritizing the work that doesn’t require you to leave this mansion. For instance, there’s got to be requests in there for portraits based off the client’s photo or something. So, work on those and turn down the rest," Hayden suggested calmly.

None of this seemed to bother him at all. He probably doesn’t realize how stressed out I was feeling. I also felt bad about turning down client requests just because he won’t allow me to meet them face to face to paint them.

"I don’t know if you’ll understand this, but I just feel bad that I have to turn clients down because I’m not able to meet them face to face to paint them. It’ll probably disappoint them…" I mumbled my complaint.

"You’re not allowed to leave this mansion. Work on the requests that don’t require face to face interactions first. You can work on the rest when you’re allowed to leave," Hayden replied unfazed.

"And when would that be?" I asked as I glared at him.

Hayden turned and stared back at me. His blue eyes cold and I knew that he was angry.

"When I say so…" he replied before heading for the door.

As far as he was concerned, this conversation was already over. I bit my lower lip as I watched him leave. The door opened and closed with a loud slam. I closed my eyes and breathed in a deep breath before holding it.

We got into a fight again…

Hayden’s probably in a super bad mood right now so approaching him to talk to him now would probably be a bad idea. I should wait till he cools down a bit. I guess I had to get a grip on my emotions too. The stress, excitement, and all the worry were really getting to me. I flopped down onto the seat in front of my computer as I tried to gather myself together again.

I shouldn’t have taken that out on him. I knew that he was doing his best to try to help me launch my career as a professional artist. His plan worked way better than I had ever dreamt possible, and I got both recognition and commission requests for my work. It was just a shame that I couldn’t leave this mansion which meant that I couldn’t live up to my client’s expectations.

Because of my frustration, I decided to take it all out on Hayden. He must be feeling very hurt because of me.

I wondered how long I’ll be stuck in here for. When can I go out? Hayden hasn’t told me anything about that. Maybe I should try to find a good moment to ask him about that. As for now, I had no choice but to follow Hayden’s suggestion of going through all the request and seeing which ones I could fulfill without meeting the client in person.

--To be continued…