Under the table, Ryan took her hand and squeezed it. She was grateful for that bit of reassurance.
“I thought the point was to sell some paintings,” Bellini said. “I’ve done that, and I will continue to do so.” He laughed a breathy laugh, placed his hands on the table, and fidgeted with his diamond pinkie ring. Gen noticed that his watch was Cartier. Did people even wear watches anymore in this age of smartphones? “In fact,” he continued, “You’ll be stunned at the price I got for Cambria Pines III.”
She stared at him. “Cambria Pines III? That one wasn’t for sale.”
Bellini made a dismissive sound, something short and breathy. “I know you said that, but …”
“Kendrick wanted to keep that for his personal collection. He didn’t even want to show it, but I assured him that it wouldn’t be sold.”
“Yes, but …”
“You need to cancel the sale,” Gen said.
“I can’t.” Bellini adjusted his French cuffs. “The original buyer has resold it.”
“Wait.” Gen pressed her palms onto the table top, her fingers spread. “You’re telling me that the painting we agreed would not be sold has already been sold twice?”
Bellini shrugged and gave her a tight little grin. “I’m a very good businessman.”
“What you are is an assho—”
Ryan squeezed Gen’s knee sharply, cutting off the expletive. She took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
Bellini was chuckling—an infuriating laugh that belittled Gen and her petty little concerns about things like integrity. She wanted to punch him in the face, then step on his stupid round glasses.
“Ryan, men like us understand the realities of business, do we not?”
Okay, now the bastard was trying to team up with Ryan, the rich, business-savvy men against the emotional, irrational girl.
“Well, what I understand is that if a man gives his word, he should keep it,” Ryan said mildly. “That’s how I do business.”
“That’s how I do it, too,” Gen agreed.
“The problem with working with an unknown, small-town gallery owner,” Bellini said, carefully straightening his napkin on the table, “is the inevitable naiveté.”
The blood pounded in Gen’s ears as the phrase seeing red took on new meaning for her. “That’s just … I … Excuse me for a moment, would you?”
She stood, smoothed her dress over her hips, and walked toward the ladies’ room with as much calm and dignity as she could muster. Once inside, she let out a roar, kicked the wall until her toes hurt, then slammed a stall door a few times for good measure. A woman in a Chanel suit hurried out of a stall at the far end of the room, gave Gen a frightened look, and then hurried out without even bothering to wash her hands.
Gen pressed a hand to her forehead, looked toward the ceiling, and took a series of deep breaths. She took another moment to find her inner serenity, then returned to the table to face Bellini.
“So, what are you going to do?” Gen and Ryan were walking the five blocks back to their hotel after the meeting with Bellini. The weather was warm, and the sky was a shade of grey that Sherwin-Williams might call “morning fog” or “moonbeam.” Fifth Avenue was busy with traffic and pedestrians, with towering buildings to their right and the vast, green expanse of Central Park to their left.
“Well,” Gen said, “the first thing I have to do is talk to Gordon. He didn’t want to sell the painting. I told him we wouldn’t sell it. I promised him.”
Ryan shrugged. “I don’t see how Bellini could sell it without Gordon’s consent. Legally, he’ll just have to return the money to the buyer, won’t he?”
“Legally, sure.”
“But?”
“But, it’s complicated. For one thing, Bellini’s powerful in the art world. If Gordon pushes the issue and makes him refund the sale, then that’s a really big, important bridge to have burned. And the buyers are likely key collectors.”
“More important bridges,” Ryan said.
“Yes. And art collectors talk to each other. And when they talk, they’re not going to frame it as them having bought an artwork that wasn’t for sale right out from under the artist. They’re going to tell it from their point of view.” She shook her head grimly. “By the time the talk circulates, Gordon’s going to be seen as a petulant, self-important asshole. Which he certainly can be, on occasion. But still.”
They walked through the midafternoon crowds of businesspeople in crisp suits, tourists in jeans and souvenir sweatshirts, and vagrants with their worldly belongings in shopping carts. The city smelled like car exhaust, cigarette smoke, and urine.
“This isn’t just about the painting,” Gen went on. “It’s about Gordon’s career.”
“So you’ve got to talk him into letting it go,” Ryan said.
“I think I do, yeah. And that really sucks. It’s his painting. If he wants to keep it, he should be able to keep it.”
“Listen,” Ryan said. “Let’s get your mind off it. We’ll get back to the hotel, change into comfortable clothes, and then we’ll do something fun. Act like tourists. You’re free the rest of the day, right?”
“Yeah. I just have to make a very uncomfortable phone call to Gordon Kendrick.”
“Okay. You’ll do that, and afterward, we’ll … hell, I don’t know. Visit Rockefeller Center.”
She grinned at him. “You really want to visit Rockefeller Center?”
“Hell, yeah. This might be work for you, but it’s my vacation. I want to see the sights.”
“All right.” She put her hand in his, and she felt a warm swell of happiness as their fingers intertwined. “Let’s see the sights.”
After Gen talked to Kendrick—there was some yelling by him, and a good deal of commiserating and placating by her—she and Ryan changed into jeans and comfortable shoes and went back out into the city. They walked through Central Park, visited the Statue of Liberty, and then had dinner at a trendy café overlooking New York Harbor. They would have gone to MoMA, but Gen said she’d thought about art enough for one day.
Of course, having lived in New York, she’d seen all of the sights before. But it was different seeing them with Ryan. His enthusiasm was infectious. As angry as she’d been earlier in the day—as demoralized as she’d felt—she still found herself laughing and smiling as she toured the city with him. They held hands and marveled over the view of the skyline. They ate and drank and talked. They kissed as they looked out from inside the statue’s crown.
Later, tired and happy, they made love on the hotel bed until late into the night. Contented, Gen fell asleep in Ryan’s arms. She wasn’t thinking about Antonio Bellini, or about Gordon Kendrick, at all.
Chapter Twenty-Nine