Suddenly weary, she stalked to the opposite end of the couch and sat. Pulling her legs up to her chest, she rested her chin on her knees. She couldn’t afford to tell him the truth. But he wasn’t going to leave this alone. So she had to find another solution.
“Talk to me,” he pressed.
She stared at the flames as they flickered in the fireplace. “Why?”
“Because as much as you don’t believe me, I care.”
“Why?” she asked again.
He rubbed his palms over his thighs. “We’re practically family.”
She shook her head. “Is that how you really feel? That we’re family? That you’re some big brother figure to me?”
He hesitated, and the silence filled every corner of the room. Tension built.
“Yes,” he said, his voice hoarse.
She stared him down. “You want me to be honest with you. Yet you’re willing to sit there and tell me you think of me as a little sister?” she challenged. The man was either lying to her or to himself.
“This isn’t about me,” he began.
“Do you see why I don’t feel like showering you with honesty? You can’t even be honest about that. Something we both know is true, and you still can’t admit it.”
Her phone rang from the pocket of her hoodie, and she yanked it out. It wasn’t a number she recognized, but the area code was Chicago.
Without an explanation, she bolted from the room.
“Hello?” she breathed, hurrying into the kitchen.
“You want to explain to me why my top client isn’t returning any of my calls?” Rajesh Thakur, her annoyingly needy agent demanded.
Remi’s shoulders sagged, and the hope that had built inside her deflated like a punctured bounce house.
“Why are you calling me from some random number?”
“Bigger question. Why is Alessandra Ballard answering some random number instead of the last eleven calls from her agent?”
“Did it ever occur to you that I don’t want to talk to you?” she hissed, peering over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone.
“Bro, did it occur to you that I don’t care?” Raj, as he was known in the art crowd, was immune to digs and insults. He dressed like a mob boss, spoke like a recently graduated fraternity brother, and demanded VIP service everywhere he went. As long as he was negotiating his clients’ fat commissions, he didn’t care what anyone had to say about him.
Brick appeared in the doorway and strolled over to the refrigerator. He leaned against it, arms crossed, and watched her, openly eavesdropping. She would have stepped outside, but it was fucking dark out there.
“What do you want?” she asked Raj.
“To tell you to snap out of this little meltdown funk and get your ass back here. We should be plastering your face all over the blogs.”
“I’ve seen what they’re writing. There will be no face plastering,” Remi said, glaring at Brick.
He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. She returned it with a middle finger.
“Negative attention is still attention,” Raj insisted in her ear. “And in this case, it’s paying off big. Ask me how.”
She blew out a breath through gritted teeth. “You’re the worst. How?”
“First, tell me I’m the world’s greatest agent, and you want to up my commission to twenty percent.”
“No.” As a baby, untested artist, she’d surprised Raj by battling him down from his standard twenty percent to a more palatable fifteen. He secretly respected her for it.
“Your motherfucking genius agent just sold Once Upon a Dream.”
Remi spun away from Brick’s weighted stare. “Wait. What? That wasn’t even in a gallery yet.”
The piece was huge and complex. Her best yet. It was a wild fever dream of color. It came to being after she’d asked a DJ friend to mix two of her favorite songs together. She’d finished it just before the show at the gallery. Just before the night that had changed everything.
“No gallery, no gallery commission,” Raj crowed.
“Raj, that painting was in my apartment.” Her apartment was a minimalist, white loft with high ceilings, tall windows, exposed ducting, and wood floors. While it was exactly the kind of place Alessandra Ballard would have been expected to have, it hadn’t ever truly felt like home to Remi.
Sure, the light was great for her work. But no amount of comfy furniture or cozy throws ever made it feel warm.
“I’ve been watering your plants and drinking your booze since you pulled the runaway act. You’re welcome, by the way. Anyway, with all this press about the accident, your name and your paintings have been splashed all over the fucking place. So when a tech guru from Silicon Valley in town for a conference came sniffing around for a Ballard original, I took her to your place. Don’t worry. I hid your laundry under the sink first.”
She’d left the place a wreck. Paints, brushes, drop cloths everywhere. She’d packed in a whirlwind, leaving discarded clothing and toiletries scattered across every flat surface.
“I feel violated.”
She sensed rather than witnessed Brick’s reaction. When she glanced over her shoulder, he was standing, hands fisted at his side, a scowl on his handsome face. She shook her head at him.
“The price tag will make that go away,” Raj said with confidence.
“I doubt that,” she said dryly.
“The whole behind-the-scenes, art-in-its-natural-habitat thing added a few pretty G’s to the asking price.”
“What was the number?” she asked.
“A hundred thousand dollars.”
Remi’s knees went weak. She took a shaky step toward the table and gave up, sinking to the floor. “What did you say?” she asked, rubbing two fingers to the spot between her eyebrows that felt like it was going to explode.
“Your first six-figure price tag, bro,” he said smugly. “They only go higher from here.”
Her head was spinning.
“Remington,” Brick growled.
She ignored him.
“Is that the dick who answered your phone the other night?”
Her gaze slid back to the man in question. “Oh, it better not be.” The glare she leveled at him should have made him weak in the knees, should have at least had the survival instinct to cover his crotch kicking in.
Instead, he doubled down and stared back. “Get. Off. The phone.”
“Raj, I have to go murder someone.”
“I expected a little excitement out of you. But I guess that’s what I get for representing temperamental pains in the asses. You’re out of good wine, by the way.”
Remi disconnected the call and climbed back to her feet.
“Did you answer my phone, talk to someone, and not tell me about it?” She congratulated herself on how deadly calm she sounded.
The man didn’t even have the good grace to look embarrassed.
“I did. You were passed out. I thought it might be an emergency. Who made you feel violated? Was it that Rajesh guy?”
“How dare you!” she snarled. “I don’t even know what to yell about first. The fact that you keep invading my privacy—”
“You’re in my house.”
“That can be remedied,” she said, striding for the doorway.