Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(161)
“What am I doing?” I shot back, a fistful of dresses in each hand. I stood there wishing I had something to throw, feeling my skin going slick and hot with anger.
“What… You just snuck in here to take them the second I was out of the room?? You had no right--”
“Well technically I had every right,” he shrugged.
“No!” I yelled. “Those weren’t… Those aren’t…”
I forced myself to stop, dropping the clothes on the bag and walking toward him deliberately, concealing as much of my uncontrollable fury as I could.
“The new paintings aren’t done,” I explained, impressing myself with the even tone of my voice.
“They’re sold,” he said simply.
“They can’t be sold because I didn’t authorize you… or anyone… to sell them.”
He gave me a wink. “Oh yes you did.”
“NO.”
“Well I hate to quibble, but I am your authorized agent. I have the right to sell anything you make.”
“And you stole those paintings from Bridget!”
“Oh please,” he rolled his eyes. “You never got around to even giving them to her.”
“They were promised to her, Declan! That means something!”
“It doesn’t mean anything, actually. If she never took possession of them--”
“I promised her!”
He sighed impatiently. “OK, listen, you really have to up your game, here. This isn’t Grandma’s County Art Show anymore. This is the big leagues. These are serious collectors. Giving them to Bridget would be… a step backward. I saved you that mistake.”
“You saved me!” I repeated, incredulous.
“Yes, and you should consider thanking me.”
I bark-laughed, the veneer that held back my emotions shredding into splinters all around me.
“Thanking you? For what? For tricking me? For lying to me… setting this whole thing up because you knew I would never say yes?”
“Well that’s true, right?” he shot back. “You would never have said yes. What choice did I have?”
My mouth opened and closed like a fish. I felt like I was fighting a ghost, a fog, pounding my fists against thin air.
“Oh my god, there is no way to make you understand,” I mumbled, shaking my head helplessly. What good was it to try to explain? “When is Jackson getting here?”
He shook his head. “Jackson’s gone.”
“What? Gone where?”
He held his hands out, palm up, as though it was obvious. “Gone. Defeated. Given up. On to new adventures. Asta la vista.”
“What? Why?”
He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Because you made your decision. You picked this,” he waved his hand around the studio air.
I shook my head as though to clear it. “I didn’t pick this, exactly. I was just… I was working. Which he understood. We talked about it. I didn’t pick you. I didn’t pick you over him.”
Declan shrugged, smirking maddeningly.
“I didn’t pick you, Declan.”
“Whatever. In any case... you’re here, and he’s gone.”
My hands flapped at my sides. It really was a blessing I didn’t have a handful of knives at that particular moment. “For how long?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed, obviously wanting this to be done with. “Forever? That’s my guess.”
“Not possible,” I retorted defensively. “He’ll be back.”
“Hah,” he scoffed. “For what?”
“For me.”
“Not likely,” he chuckled, his fingers scraping at an invisible dimple on the plaster wall. “Jackson’s never fought for anything in his life. He just gives up. The guy’s just… terminally apathetic. He floats. Our father even held him back in school for a year so I could be next to him to kick his ass into caring about something. Anything. But it never took. Things don’t really matter to him the way they matter to people like us.”
“I am nothing like you,” I hissed, my eyes wide with shock.
“Oh, aren’t you…” he chuckled, cocking his head to the side. “Don’t you just love the way people look at us? Doesn’t that energy just… whoosh… fill you with a thrill?”
“No idea what you mean,” I lied.
“Oh yeah, right,” he drawled. “Like it or not, you and I are very much alike. You think I am ruthless? I think you’re ruthless. It’s one of your most adorable qualities.”
“I am no such thing!”
“Oh aren’t you? I seem to remember you trotting Jack and I around your living room just to humiliate that Kevin guy. Tsk tsk tsk. That was brutal, Mar.”