“Where are we going?” I asked.
“It’s a secret,” Jake said.
“Right. Somewhere awesome.”
“Come on,” he said, taking my elbow. “I can’t wait. You’re going to stop everybody in their tracks.”
“Stop who?” I asked, but he only led me to the elevator, winking in secrecy.
There was no limo downstairs.
“We’re not going far,” said Jake, but he didn’t tell me where.
We walked down the street slowly. I rested my hand on Jake’s arm, but the heels didn’t bother me all that much. Not now that I was walking by his side. As we walked, heads turned to stare at us, both men and women.
I felt so confident with Jake by my side. As we turned the corner, I realized that we were on the street of art galleries. This was where I hung out on my days off, pretending that I had enough money to buy any of the painting that hung inside.
“Do you see it?” he said, stopping in front of a gallery window.
I looked inside and my heart skipped a beat.
“Oh my. Oh my,” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to say. “Oh. My.”
It was my painting. My paintings. A whole wall of them. The sign in front of the shop said Show Opening.
“No,” I said, gripping Jake’s hand with all my strength. “It’s not—”
“It’s your show.”
My lips trembled. My own gallery show? I shook my head.
“You didn’t… you did this?”
“I did this,” Jake admitted, laughing slightly at my reaction. “I put some of Kage’s stuff in there as well, just so you know. A week of your stuff will almost fill a gallery, but not quite.”
I saw one of the Kage paintings hanging inside on a wall, right next to mine. I swallowed hard. To have my stuff on display here—next to Kage—was just incredible. As much as I tried, I couldn’t let it sink in.
“Come on. Let’s go inside.” Jake tugged at my hand.
The attendant inside the door handed us glasses of wine and plates of cheese. I ate and drank as Jake led me around the gallery, but I couldn’t taste a thing. All I could do was stare at the paintings—
My paintings—
He had taken my paintings and put them in a gallery. And people—oh, God, people were walking around and looking at my work, talking about the pieces. Women in cocktail dresses and men in suit jackets, sipping wine and looking at my pieces like they were real art, not just something on the side of a subway car.
I swallowed hard. Conflicting feelings ran through me as I took in the people at the show. Then Jake took my arm and led me around a corner to the main gallery wall.
I stared at the wall, my mouth slowly dropping open in horror.
It was the painting we’d had sex on. There, up on display for all of New York City to see. My eyes traced the handprints, the dark red stain.
“How could you?” I asked Jake.
“How could I…” He arched his eyebrow at me. “Oh. That. I had them deliver it while you were in the tub. Just in time, too. I hadn’t decided what to put up as the main exhibit.”
My cheeks nearly burst with color.
“That’s not—I didn’t paint that for anyone else!”
“Oh, don’t worry. That one’s not for sale. It’s only on exhibition.”
“Only on exhibition?” I hissed.
“What on earth are you so upset about?” Jake asked, taking me by the arm and suavely leading me forward. “Really? I can’t put it on exhibition?”
“Tell me it’s not under my name.”
“It’s not under your name.”
“Is it under yours?”
“Let’s see,” he said. He gestured to the wall next to the painting.
“First Love,” I read. “By Unknown. K&L Studios.”
I turned to him with a question on my face.
“Kage and Lace Studios,” he said, kissing my temple. “I rather like your name.”
“Are you serious?” My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t understand Jake’s satisfied expression. I felt like everybody in the room was looking at us, staring at me. Like they knew that I was an impostor. Like they knew that the painting I was standing under was impossibly obscene.
“I can’t… why are you doing this?” I asked in a low voice.
“I thought it would make you happy?”
I wanted to scream. I wasn’t his wife or his girlfriend. I was an escort, someone he’d picked out at a birthday party to keep as a playtoy. He shouldn’t have done this. It was all so overwhelming, and now… to have him put up this painting for everyone to see…
I stammered as I tried to make my thoughts into words for him.