NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THAT IS THE ugliest thing I have ever seen. Lena leaned forward and squinted at the tiny white sticker in the corner of the painting. Five thousand dollars? Tie a paintbrush to my cat’s tail and she’d do a better job. She shifted on the bench. The sounds of the party echoed loudly from the floor below. Sipping her wine, she wrinkled her nose. Cheap chardonnay.
She didn’t want to be here, which was why she was hiding out on the second floor of the City Gallery. She wanted to go home. Take her shoes off and put pajamas on. Drink some wine that didn’t taste like battery acid. She straightened with a sigh. Might as well get it over with. Dr. Eliot Rutledge, famed neurosurgeon, very old money Charleston—and her first of many clients—was waiting for her.
Footsteps on the hardwood floor caught her attention. A man ambled slowly around the corner, looking at the art exhibited on the walls. Lena cut a glance in his direction. He didn’t fit with the suit-and-cocktail-dress crowd downstairs. His beige linen pants were slightly wrinkled—and that shabby white dress shirt. No. Just no. His dark blond hair was long and tied in a ponytail with a length of leather. A neat beard covered his face. He leaned down, looked at a price tag and whistled. Lena smiled.
“Pretty pricey, huh?” he asked, sliding down on the bench beside her.
She looked directly at him. Damn. That is a fine-looking man. The hair and beard couldn’t hide his high cheekbones and eyes so blue they almost didn’t look real. White teeth appeared as he grinned at her. Her stomach went quivery under that bad boy grin. She looked away and sipped more wine. She didn’t do bad boys anymore.
He gestured at the painting in front of them. It was an abstract, not quite as dense as a Pollock but not as minimalist as Munch. Slashes of red and blue, smears of purple and yellow. “What do you think of this one?”
She shrugged. “Not my style, to be honest.”
“Ah, man. I saw you sitting up here instead of being downstairs with all the mingling and small talk and I thought to myself, now, there’s a woman who doesn’t go for polite society bullshit. Thought you were up here seriously contemplating the meaning of art.”
She tried her perfect one-eyebrow-arch-and-glare trick. “Did you, now?”
All that got her was another of those inappropriate thought-provoking grins. “Indeed I did.”
“I think it’s ugly,” she said, taking another drink. “I think my friend’s nine-year-old could do better.”
His laugh echoed off the narrow corridor. “But one of those people downstairs will buy it.”
“Probably.” She stood. “Excuse me, but I have to find someone.”
“Ah,” Eliot Rutledge said, as he walked around the corner. “You’ve met. Wonderful.”
Lena looked from Dr. Rutledge to the man smiling up at her from the bench. “No,” she said, ice cubes practically dropping from the word. “We have not met.”
“Lena, this is our artist.”
A hot spark of anger flared in her chest and spread to her cheeks. The man stood, still smiling, and held out a hand. “Matt. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lena.”
“Did you know who I was when you approached me?”
“Nope. Just a happy accident.”
She stared at him until the smile melted from his face. A long string of profanities pushed against her pressed lips. Breathe. Just breathe.
“Matt asked for a recommendation. Told him I wouldn’t have anyone else in the city watch after my portfolio.”
“Thank you,” she said automatically. She turned back to Matt. Gave him her iciest smile. “I’d be happy to discuss this with you. In my office. During business hours. Call my secretary and make an appointment.” She turned to Dr. Rutledge. “Eliot, it was good to see you.”
As she rounded the corner to the stairs, she heard Dr. Rutledge’s voice. “Did you make her angry? I’d recommend not doing that anymore.”
Smiling as she pushed through the doors out into the perfection that was Charleston in October, she nodded. That’s right. Don’t piss me off. Her condominium was a short walk away along Waterfront Park. She ambled past tourists and college kids. There was still light in the sky and it was a perfect sixty-five degrees. Maybe she’d go for a run. Or maybe she’d collapse on the couch, order some Vietnamese and binge-watch something. Her phone vibrated in her purse. She fished it out. Sadie. Her best friend. The woman she called sister. Her finger hovered over the screen. Completely tired of talking to people for the day, she was sorely tempted to dismiss the call.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Your mother is what’s up.”
Lena smiled. At least she wasn’t the only one being tortured by her mother. “What’s she done now?”
“We went to look at dresses. I swear to God, Lena. I’m going to get married in jeans and a T-shirt just to spite her. You should have seen the dresses she begged me to try on ‘just
