“Furniture doesn’t make me money. This place is an investment—one I can live in so I don’t have to pay rent.” I shrugged. I wasn’t being entirely honest. I could rent this place out and live somewhere a lot smaller, but there was something about that tile in the kitchen, about the way the sun came through the huge living room windows in the afternoon, something about the sheer amount of space that made me want to stay. It was almost as if living here would lead to something better, something happier.
Angie had her hands on her hips. “Seriously, you need some stuff. Like vases. Or pillows. Something to make the place . . .”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve hired an art consultant and we’re going to a gallery this evening.”
Angie scrunched up her face. “A what consultant?”
“Someone who’s going to find some pictures for the walls.” I nodded once as if I’d just presented her with a royal flush in poker. She couldn’t complain about that.
“Because art is an investment, right?” She rolled her eyes.
“So?” I shrugged. “Doesn’t mean it won’t look nice.”
“I think it’s a good idea, but you can’t just sit on your beat-up sofa in this huge apartment with expensive art on the walls. If you’re going to do it, go for it.”
“I don’t care if it looks weird.” Angie was being a little hypocritical. She was notoriously careful with her paycheck. “Surely all that matters is that I have what I need.”
“Need? You don’t need an apartment on Park Avenue or five bedrooms or two kitchens. But that’s okay. All I’m saying is relax a little.” She pushed me out of the way and I followed her into the kitchen where she began opening and closing cupboard doors. “You’ve earned it. You don’t have to be overly indulgent, but get some things that will make your life more comfortable. This is New York fucking City. If such a thing as an art consultant exists, there must be someone who buys furniture for rich dudes like you.”
“My life is very comfortable.” Was she serious? “This is Park Avenue, for Christ’s sake.”
“Okay, what about when you bring women back? You can’t fuck them on a mattress you threw on the floor,” she said as she hopped up onto the counter.
“I’ve never brought a woman back to my place. Why would that change now?”
“That’s because you’ve always lived in a hovel,” Angie said, staring up at the ceiling as if she were checking for cracks. “Now you don’t have to be ashamed of where you live.”
“Hey, I’ve never been ashamed of where I live. I’ve always paid my rent—that’s nothing to be ashamed of. And I don’t bring women back to my place because it means I can get up and leave any time I want. There’s no way that’s going to change.”
“Just think about it. Please,” she said.
I would, but only because I trusted Angie. Still, I wasn’t planning on changing my mind anytime soon. I didn’t need things to make my life better.
The more you had, the more you had to lose.
Chapter Two
Grace
Glancing around the gallery, I couldn’t help but grin. There was a lot of preparation still to be done before guests started arriving tonight, but things were shaping up and I was so proud and excited that my gallery was holding its first exhibition.
I whipped my head around at the tinkle of the bell that sounded every time anyone came into the gallery. My best friend walked through the door, ignoring the people buzzing about everywhere, and came straight over to me.
“You know you’re not the painter, right?” Harper asked, looking me up and down.
“I’m touching up the walls where they’re scuffed,” I said, holding a can of white paint and a paintbrush. “And I don’t want you resting on your laurels.” I nodded toward a broom in the corner. “We don’t have long. Get busy.”
I needed the first exhibition in my newly opened gallery to go well. I was prepared, but the adrenaline racing through my veins had me jumpy. I glanced around the large white space. The catering staff were in the process of setting up and two pictures still rested against the walls.
“I need to decide where to hang those,” I said, putting down the paint by the door and pointing at the two paintings. “But I can’t decide where they should go.” Yesterday, the order had seemed so obvious. Today I kept changing my mind—I wanted everything to be perfect.
“Does it matter?” Harper asked, her face totally blank. “We don’t want his shitty work to sell anyway, do we?”
I chuckled and a layer of stress lifted from my body. Harper was right, part of me wanted this exhibition to bomb. The artist I was featuring this evening had been my boyfriend up until about four weeks ago, when I’d returned to the gallery to find him fucking his assistant. In my office. He was no longer my boyfriend. Unfortunately, I was still going to have to spend the evening telling everyone how special his art was.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been disappointed by a boyfriend. I liked men with talent. Painters, musicians, writers. At school, I’d always done work for extra credit, and as an adult dating struggling artists was the same. Being a girlfriend came with additional responsibility—encourage and support your man until he makes it big. The upside was supposed to be I’d be there when he did. Except they never made it big. Until Steve. He was the first guy who, when I told him how talented and amazing he was, there was no voice at the back of my head saying, “Really? Is he good or do you just like banging him?” Steve was going to have a glittering career.
I hated that his exhibition at my gallery would be the start of it.
Unfortunately, opening Grace Astor Fine Art had taken more money than I’d expected and I couldn’t afford to take a craft knife to his canvases and kick his cheating ass out of my life.
The bell tinkled again and Harper’s sister-in-law, Scarlett, stepped into the gallery. “This is so exciting,” she said as she hugged me and then Harper. “Shame about the artist.”
“Hey,” I said. “You can’t say that. I need the place to be a sellout. I have this quarter’s rent to pay next week.”
It didn’t matter that Steve was a dick. I still had to make a splash with this exhibition. I’d already sold a Renoir my grandfather had left me to open this gallery. It had broken my heart; he’d often told me stories of the girl in the painting as if it were me, off having adventures of my own in Paris. Letting go of it had nearly killed me, but my grandfather had left me a letter in his will that said the Renoir should be used for my own adventures, whether they be in my imagination or in real life. So I’d sold it with his blessing but a heavy heart. Still, this gallery was my real-life adventure and something I’d been working toward since college. I wasn’t about to let me or my grandfather down.
“You can always ask your dad,” Scarlett said. “If it gets too much.”
Things were tight, but not that tight. I just needed tonight to be a success.
“She’s not asking her father,” Harper replied for me. “She’s doing this on her own.”