“All that ends up where?”
“All that ends up on the canvas,” she whispers. Jesus, it’s adorable. “It’s a problem,” she says in a clearer voice, “because people won’t be interested in the same subject forever.”
“I’ll buy every piece.” I mean it. I don’t want any of them in anyone else’s home. “I’d buy the artist.”
“What?”
“Come back to my house with me. I’ll show you my art collection. I’ll make it worth the trip.” I want her so much it hurts, and it’s a long shot, I know it is. But there’s a slim chance she could agree, and anyway, money is all I have to offer. It’s the only way to have good things in the world. It’s the only way to keep them safe. “I’d pay what you’re worth.”
Daphne jerks out of my hands and rounds on me, blinking like she’s woken from a deep sleep and found herself in a nightmare. She puts her hand to the collar of her dress and grips it tight. Her hand is shaking. She’s the one who’s lost control now. Too late to get it back. Her face is shadowed again, her body backlit by the gallery lights. Her dress is a similar shade to the deep sea behind her.
“No.” One step back, and then another. “I’m not selling you any more paintings. And I think you should leave.”
She’s already in flight. Daphne sweeps the beaded curtain aside, the sound in disarray, and they slap against the doorframe. I force myself not to go after her. I concentrate on the pools of gallery light and shadow. Corners of canvas and knots in the wood floor. A door slams.
And Daphne forgets.
She forgets that she’s supposed to be living nearby, not upstairs, and her footfalls are heavy on the stairs at the side of the gallery.
They pause halfway up.
I can still taste her. Still feel her in my hands.
She’ll be thinking of me. Is she frozen there on that step, her heart pounding? Listening with everything she has?
I make my footsteps purposefully loud on the way to the gallery counter, stopping only to scrawl a note on a stolen page from the pad and collect my coat. I don’t hesitate on the way to the front door. I don’t stop at the display wall with the Peter Clay piece. I don’t stop for anything, because if I do, I’ll lose control. I’ll go to where Daphne Morelli is trembling on the staircase. I’ll take what I want from her.
The lock on the door flips easily under my hand. The door opens without a fight. I’d half-hoped they wouldn’t, but the gallery makes no effort to keep me inside. It lets me out into the night. A cold wind blows, rustling stray litter on the concrete.
I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave Daphne Morelli behind. It’s not sensible to leave something so precious all alone, where anyone could get to it. Walking away from the gallery feels wrong, like walking through water. Fuck me. It’s even less sensible to get attached. Far more dangerous to feel anything about anyone. But I do. Light pollution hangs in the sky like an orange stripe, blocking out the stars.
I need to know more about her. I hate to leave her. Each thought goes into its own separate frame, all in a row, where I can see them. Where I can keep them in line.
Leaving is a foolish thing to do.
I won’t be gone long.
Chapter Eight
Daphne
It’s too bright in my room when I wake up. I don’t think it counts as “waking up” if you feel like you haven’t slept. I roll over in the bed and cover my face with the sheet. Too bright, and too early. White light like snow pours in the window and tries to get in through the sheet.
Obviously, I forgot to close the blinds last night. My face heats and I pull the sheet back down to breathe. He for sure heard me running up here, stomping up the stairs, and then stopping when I realized what I’d done. If he didn’t know where I lived before, he does now. And after Robert followed his part of the security plan, which is to never tell anyone that I live upstairs.
Leave it to me to blow it.
I swipe my phone from the bedside table and peer at the screen. No new messages. None from Eva, or Leo, or even Sophie, who sometimes stops here when she wants a break from running wild all over the city. The quiet is weird. But it’s what I wanted, right? Some space to be a grown adult. Though part of being a grown adult is knowing when you’ve made a mistake, and I have definitely made a mistake with Emerson.
It doesn’t matter that nothing has ever felt as good as his hands on mine. As his mouth on mine. It was a mistake. A foolish, reckless mistake.
I know what Leo would say if I called to tell him what happened. He’d be worried, and he’d pretend not to be worried. I would try to keep things surface-level—one of the gallery customers found out where I live. Then he’d demand to know who it was, and how they found out. And I wouldn’t name names, because…
Because I liked the way he tasted. I liked how warm he was, and how interested he was, and I wanted to see that particular blue-green shade of his eyes while he looked at me. Under no circumstances am I supposed to like those things, or invite them at all, but they happened, and I liked it.
On top of that, he scared the shit out of me.
And when people hurt me, when people scare me, when Leo finds out about it, he doesn’t let it rest.
The security people have already been extra visible this week. If I admit that a man came into the gallery and scared me—and then kissed me—they wouldn’t stay across the street, they’d move into my living room.
The phone rings in my hand. It startles me so much I drop it and it hits me in the collarbone. “Ow,” I scold, and then I pick it up and answer it.
“Hey, Daphne.” It’s Robert. “How are you?”
“Good. I’m good.” I sit up and prop the pillows behind me. It feels weird to talk to Robert when I’m in bed, but at least when I’m sitting up I can pretend to be more professional. “Did you need something before my shift this afternoon?”
“Just—” He clears his throat. “How did the showing go last night? You guys had already headed out when I got back.”
“It was fine.”
“Yeah? What did he say about the pieces?”
Across the street, the windows of the security apartment reflect back my own uncovered windows. “He thought they were good.”
Also, Robert, I told him I wouldn’t sell him any more paintings. I told him he should leave. I told him that because, in addition to kissing me like no one’s ever kissed me in all my life, he suggested he wanted to buy me.
The thought of saying all that makes me want to crumple into a ball, pull the blankets back over my head, and die.
“He must have, judging by the note.”
My palm goes slippery on my phone case. “What note?”
Robert laughs a little. “He left a note here on the counter. It says—D.M.’s work is underpriced. Tell her I’m offering fifty thousand. Per painting.”
A hundred thousand dollars for two paintings. Anger builds behind my shock. He’s taunting me now, offering an amount that makes my refusal seem petty. He’s going to sweep it aside with his money and pretend I never refused him.
“No, I don’t think so.” I steel myself for Robert’s disappointment, because there’s no way. There’s no way I can accept this. No way I can sell to him and give Emerson the impression that I’m for sale. It’s bad enough I let him touch me for so long. It’s bad enough I let him kiss me. It’s bad enough I wanted it, and he could tell. “I don’t want to sell to him.”