“Has anyone ever been able to talk you into anything you didn’t want to do?” He winks at me, and then heads to the door. “And beautiful work here. Even if it is a bit beneath your talents.”
My stomach flutters with excitement. Though my job is now to manage this gallery, my first year out of college was spent helping a man curate collections for private investors. I loved every part of it—the travel, the thrill of chasing down privately owned collections and making offers with more zeroes than I’ll ever have in my bank account in my entire life.
I might have done it forever if I hadn’t found myself as in love with my boss as I was with my job. Tate Andrews looked at me like I was the most beautiful woman on the planet and treated me like I was special and fascinating. He taught me more about the art world in that first year I worked for him than I learned in all four years of undergrad as an art major. He made every day an adventure, and I was madly in love with him. Unfortunately, so was his wife.
I’m confident Tate would’ve happily had a torrid affair with me, but he was never going to ask his heiress wife for a divorce. He said he didn’t want to walk away from the money, and I didn’t want to be anyone’s mistress. I moved to Jackson Harbor to escape temptation, but I miss that job.
Despite myself, I even miss the way Tate navigated the ethical gray areas of being an art dealer who specializes in hard-to-find originals.
Nelson’s request makes me think of the promise I made to Colton, but I’m already making mental lists about where I can research Bauer’s Discovery collection and what I need to confirm before moving forward.
Levi
“My fucking father.” Colton’s staring at his phone. He’s antsy, itching for another adventure when we agreed to stop. Hell, I’m itching too, but the money we make in our little side jobs becomes a dangerous commodity where Colton’s concerned. Too much of a good thing, and he goes off the deep end.
Gambling. Drugs. And then it’s all gone and more, and we’re making another deal with the devil to bail him out. Nelson’s a big man in town, but he has expensive hobbies and friends in low places. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Nelson McKinley intentionally turned his son into an addict just so he’d have Colton to do his dirty work. And there’s always dirty work.
“What’d he do this time?”
“He has something he shouldn’t.” He meets my eyes. “We’re going to have to take it.”
My eyes go wide. “Excuse me?” I don’t like the idea of stealing from Nelson. I’d rather stay on the good side of a man powerful enough to make people disappear.
“Come on. Don’t pretend you’re above it now.”
“We agreed we were done. Remember?”
He tosses his phone onto the couch beside him and leans back. “I thought you liked the thrill.”
“Maybe I’ve grown up.”
He grunts. “Sure you have.” Standing, he stretches his arms over his head and yawns. “Are you going to tell me you’re not even a little curious?”
“About stealing from Nelson? Nah.”
“It’s more like stealing from Ellie,” he says, watching me.
I stiffen at his girlfriend’s name. I’ve never seen Colton as serious about anyone as he is about her. It’s been three months since I met Ellie at that fundraiser. That night, I never would have guessed that he could make it this long with one girl, but there’s something special about Ellie. He knows it, and I know it. “Why would you want to do that?”
He shrugs. “Let’s just say it’s something Nelson will benefit from her having. Something she doesn’t know how to get rid of herself. Are you in?”
“Fuck no.” But it’s a lie. I was in the second he said her name. Because like it or not, I want to know more about Ellie Courdrey. And if Colton wants to steal something from Ellie that’s tied up with Nelson, it means she’s gotten tangled in Nelson’s world, and Colton’s trying to protect her.
Despite all logic, I want to protect her too.
Ellie
“You’re sure nothing else was taken?” Nelson asks.
“As far as I can tell.” I squeeze my eyes shut for a beat. When I open them, Nelson’s are hard on me, blazing with accusation. Who did you tell? Why did you fuck this up?
“What about cash? Did you check the register?”
I shake my head. “I do our deposits after I lock up every night. I never leave cash on the premises.” We rarely deal in cash anyway, but there is the occasional tourist buying a cheap print who will hand over a few twenties rather than their Visa. “We’re lucky they didn’t take anything else. At least we don’t have to get the cops involved.” Because we can’t tell the police about this.
Nelson squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Lucky,” he mutters.
I fold my arms across my chest, and the silence reverberates between us, heavy with his disappointment.
I don’t know how much I just lost him, but I’d guess it’s a number that involves at least seven digits. His investor was so desperate for Bauer’s Discovery collection that he’d have paid anything for it. He was about to close a deal worth millions. I was about to get a commission with six figures. I could have finally helped my mother in a big way and put the rest in savings so I’d never again have to put another artist’s name on something I painted.
“The alarm didn’t go off,” Nelson says quietly.
My cheeks burn. “I must have forgotten to set it.”
“And the security cameras?”
“I hadn’t checked them in a few days. I had no idea they hadn’t been running properly.”
His hands ball into fists at his sides. “Jesus Christ, Ellie. I trusted you with the job.”
“At least they didn’t steal anything real.”
“You think that fifteen million you just cost me wasn’t real? You’d have thought it was all kinds of real when you took your cut.”
I look away, my cheeks heating in shame. Not shame for losing the deal—because fuck him—but shame for being complicit in the deceit. I should never have agreed to it. Every day I worked on this project, I wanted to call Nelson and tell him I was out, but I was in too deep. It was too late.
“Any chance it could have been the investor?” I ask, grasping at straws.
“You think my investor came here from South Africa, broke into the gallery, and stole the paintings?”
I turn up my palms. “Nobody else would have known what we had.”
“He didn’t even know we had it here. As far as he knows, we’re still cultivating the collection,” he says through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry. It was a mistake.”
“Yeah. It was. And maybe it was my mistake to trust a gutter rat with my gallery.”
I want to spit in his face. I’m well aware I don’t come from the same social class as this man, but he’s never rubbed it in my face before.
“Hell, maybe you did this.” He stalks toward me. “I know your conscience was giving you fits. Maybe this is your way of getting out of our deal. Or maybe Colton’s behind this. Maybe he’s trying to get back at me for being a shitty father. Daddy never loved me. Boohoo.”
I press the keys into his hands. “Maybe this is my way of quitting.”
“You’re not walking out that door,” Nelson says.
I shrug. “I can’t work for someone who doesn’t trust me. You don’t trust me anymore, and I don’t blame you. I’m sorry about the paintings.”
“What are you going to do, Ellie? Work the register at McDonald’s? Go back to Dyer and move in with your mom?”
“You’re being a dick. I’m sorry about what happened, but I don’t know what else I can do.”
“Lock up.” He tosses the keys onto the counter. “That is, if you remember how. I’ll call you in a few days. We’ll talk again then.”
“Don’t bother. I’m not doing this anymore.”
“I will call you.”
“Don’t bother,” I say, but he’s already walking out the door.
I wait until he’s in his car and driving away, then I pick up my phone to call Colton. My boyfriend. The man who kept me drunk on orgasms and lust all night while someone broke into my gallery.
“Yeah?” His voice is rough from sleep.
“We need to talk.”
“Can it wait? I was up pleasuring a goddess all night.”
I bite my lip. “We need to talk about the paintings you stole.”