He finally gains enough common sense to leave. But not without stomping his way out, acting far too childish for a man who has grandchildren.
The moment he’s gone, I look at the guests around us. I fake a smile, even though my body hums with rage.
“Now that that’s handled, let’s get back to the reason you’re here. The pieces are flying off the walls, so if you see something you’re interested in, make sure to find an employee to help you purchase it.”
The group of people milling around us begins to chatter, but I don’t listen to them at all. I’m already busy pulling Pippa through the group of people until we’re safely out of sight in my back office. The door slams behind me, shaking the walls of the old building.
The door is barely shut before I’m pushing Pippa against it, my eyes roaming over her body. “Did he hurt you?”
She shoves against my chest. “What? Get away from me, asshole.”
My vision begins to clear as I regain a sense of reality and no longer see red. “Did he hurt you?” I repeat, backing away from her until I bump against my desk. I undo the button of my jacket, placing my hands safely in my pockets as I wait for her to answer.
“No, of course not. He was just being a demeaning prick.”
“He’s an asshole.”
She laughs. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“What happened?” I was busy selling one of Margo’s—Beck’s wife—pieces for the highest price one of her pieces has ever sold for when I heard the commotion from across the room.
Maybe costing me the sale, I left Jared Stingmore and his wife immediately to go see what was happening. I’d gotten close enough to hear Jason call Pippa a stupid bitch when I started to see red. When he called her worthless, I was moments away from grabbing onto his collar and dragging him out by his neck to prove who the worthless human in the scenario was.
Pippa glares at me as I stare at her right back. Her chest heaves with angry breaths. Mine does, too. The problem is she looks at me like I’m the one who’s done something wrong.
“I didn’t need your help. I had it handled,” she snaps, completely ignoring my question.
I chuckle under my breath because while she was handling it, he wouldn’t have left until I told him to. And even when I did, he argued. “Sure you did, shortcake.”
A loud, aggravated noise comes from her throat. It’s something between a growl and a shriek. “Stop calling me that!”
“What did he say to you?” I press, needing to know what the hell happened. I’ll ask his dimwit little friends, too, but first, I want to hear it from her.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“Why? So you can use the same insults as him against me?”
My jaw snaps shut. Damn. Her words hit deep. Because they aren’t completely out of line. I’ve been a dick to her. Numerous times. Because she gets under my skin in a way I haven’t experienced before.
Pippa rolls her eyes, reaching for the door.
“No,” I hurriedly say, reaching out to stop her but thinking better of it. Maybe I should let her go. Jason is gone and surely not coming back. I really shouldn’t care anymore what she has to say.
“I know I’ve been an asshole, but I’d never call you the help. Or worthless. Or stupid or anything that he said because they’re all lies. You’re none of that. You’re—”
“I don’t need you to tell me what I am, Camden. I know what I am. His words don’t matter.”
Her words cause me to pause because they weren’t what I was expecting. Was she really not hurt by what he said? I blink, trying to figure her out. She’s like staring at an abstract painting. Just when I think I can make out what she is, I notice something else that shifts my entire perspective.
“No, they don’t matter. But I need to know.”
I’m beginning to accept that she won’t tell me and I’m going to have to get the story from someone else when she takes one hesitant step closer to me. “It all started because I ran out of food. He said you needed to hire new help, and, well, I won’t let someone insult me. You know that very well.”
I laugh because it’s true. “I’m sorry he said those things.”
Pippa’s eyes search my face. I wonder what she sees in me. What she thinks of the man standing in front of her. I stuff my hands into my pockets to give them something to do.
“I never thought I’d hear those words come from your mouth,” she teases. “Even if you were apologizing on somebody else’s behalf instead of your own.”
I’m about to open my mouth when her eyes catch on something in the corner. “What’s this?” she asks, closing the distance to the small table with the sculpture on it.
“Oh, just a piece I’m debating about selling in the gallery,” I answer, feigning nonchalance.
“Can I touch it?” she whispers, her eyes trained on the piece in front of her.
“I don’t think the artist will mind.”
10
PIPPA
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen something so beautiful that it took my breath away. I’m speechless, allowing my finger to gently run over the carved curves of the statue.
It’s of a couple, but only from their waist up. They clutch one another so delicately, so fiercely, that it’s obvious they’re in love. You look at them and it seems like something is trying to keep them apart, but they’re clinging to each other so tightly, like they won’t let anything come between them. The way her back arches, it appears as if some outside force you can’t see is pulling her from him.
“This is stunning,” I whisper, running my finger along their outstretched arms.
“You think?” Camden keeps his voice poised, but I can feel his gaze hot on me.
“Why isn’t it on display out there? It would sell immediately.”
“The artist doesn’t want to sell it.”
I look at him in shock. Who wouldn’t want to sell this masterpiece? I don’t know anything about art, but it’s so intricate I have to imagine so many people would want it. “Do you know why?”
Camden swallows, his eyes staying locked with mine. I don’t know what’s more perfect to look at, the slopes and planes of the statue or the slopes and planes of his face. His features are so perfect that they deserve to be forever carved in stone.
I forgot I’d even asked him a question, too focused on tracing his cheekbones with my gaze, when he speaks up. “No.” He sighs, looking away from me to the statue in front of me. “I don’t know why.”
“Well, I think you should get them to change their mind.”
His shoulder brushes against mine as he takes a step next to me. He smells different than any other man I’ve been around. It’s expensive but earthy and warm. It’s a smell that I don’t think I could ever grow tired of. It’s overpowering but in a good way. A way that slowly overwhelms your senses but not in the way where you’d get a headache.
“What about this makes you think it should be sold?”
I feel disarmed having him this close to me. Every other time he’s been near, we’ve been in the middle of fighting. It feels off to have him so close and things be civil between us. At least as civil as things could ever be between me and him.
I look back at the statue, welcoming the reprieve of getting lost in the perfect proportions that are his face.
“The moment I saw this, I could feel the emotion between the two of them. I think the little details of the statue add up to depict this beautiful and tragic love story. At least that’s what I gathered from it.” I shrug, trying to act nonchalant. “But what do I know about art?”
He looks at me—and I mean really looks at me. He stares at me so intently that it makes me shift uncomfortably on my feet. It seems like time stops around us as we stare at one another. “That’s exactly what I got from it.”