“I don’t know what you said to them,” she muttered as she smoothed back my hair. I stifled what felt like sobs in my chest and tried to just focus on her words. “But you did it, girl. You really did it.”
I pulled back and smiled up at her. With the gallery lights behind her and her extreme heels, she looked gorgeous yet slightly terrifying, like a mythical creature of some kind.
“I’m as amazed as you are.”
“For sure,” she agreed with a sassy quirk of her painted eyebrow. “But, uh--”
I backed up and stared at her, instantly wary. “But what?”
She wrung her hands in front of her chest and pulled a face. “The buyer wants to see them in place before she commits.”
“No, Bridge!” I shook my head fiercely as all my excitement drained out of me.
“Yes! You’ll take them on Saturday, and it will all be fine!”
“Tomorrow, are you kidding me?”
“Well…” she shrugged helplessly.
“So you marked them all sold. All sold… and they are not sold?”
“I’m sure you’ll sell them,” she said quickly.
I glanced back over my shoulder at the crowd of people milling in the breezeway, gazing at paintings they thought they couldn’t buy.
“You just locked me out of sales I could be making right now, Bridge! Look over there! None of those people think my paintings are available. I could be selling to actual buyers!”
“Well… I mean, you could be… Or not.”
“Fuck you.”
“Listen, I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “The Burkes set it up and I didn’t feel like I could say no.”
The Burkes. Nice. More men who just as happy to drive you bankruptcy, I thought bitterly. You have got to stop listening to your stupid sex drive.
“You’ll do it, right, Mar?”
“What fucking choice do I have?” I hissed and whirled toward the front door, stalking across the floor as fast as my heels would let me go. Somehow, that brief moment of success and safety left a hole when it left, even bigger than the one that had already been there.
My purse jangled, and I rummaged through it as I walked out the front doors, finally finding my phone at the bottom.
I miss u -Kevin, came the text.
I stared at it for long minutes as I stood on the corner in downtown LA under the changing streetlight. Green, yellow, red. Green, yellow, red. Finally I just slipped the phone back into my bag and started into the crosswalk, aiming for home.
###
TRUSTED
Billionaire Brothers - Book 2
Meg Watson
CHAPTER 1
SATURDAY MORNING, I rolled over into a trapezoid of bright yellow sunlight on the sheets and was immediately sizzling. The summer felt as unrelenting as a prison sentence.
The far side of the bed was empty as usual. I ran my hand along the sheets and traced the outline of Kevin’s absence again and again until my palm went numb from the friction and the gesture became an abstract sworl.
As I rolled over, a bright reflection caught my eye. The tiny diamond M pendant that Declan and Jackson had given me the night before brought back all the memories of the gallery in a rush. At first I grinned shamelessly and my hips resonated with the sensory memory of Jackson and Declan walking arm and arm with me through the gallery… Jackson’s breath on the back of my neck when he placed the pendant on me… and the sensation of being utterly taken over in the dark, metal boat. It had seemed like a dream I had been waiting for my whole life.
But then I remembered I am not that kind of girl. Cringing shame flooded me like a tidal wave and I rolled over and moaned into the pillow. I was supposed to be a professional, and I had acted like… Well, like a professional something, I guess. What would they think of me? Suddenly I wanted a shower. Maybe I could just move away? New name? Go blonde?
I imagined them high-fiving each other like locker room teammates over their mimosas or squeezed pomegranates or whatever it was billionaires had for breakfast. They probably did this sort of thing all the time, and I had cartwheeled like a class-A bimbo right into the middle of whatever game they were playing.
I groped on the table for my cell phone and texted Bridget with my eyes closed.
R U awake?
Holding the cell to my chest, I tried to push the images away. A voice in my head kept saying It’s not that bad, come on, and then the judgey part of me shoved another reminder of just how bad it was. Two at once, remember? the judgey part said, and then played a little mental video clip of that part of the night complete with sounds, sensations and an encore presentation of hot, clenching wetness between my legs. I kicked my feet against the sheets until they billowed around my calves.