I ran my tongue around my mouth. His eyes followed.
“You need some help.” He leaned over and softly kissed the top of my lip—a gentle, slightly parted-lip kiss that left me weak and hot and flustered. “Got it.” His voice was a husky rumble.
“Uh, thanks,” I mumbled like a moron. It was as if he’d sucked the brains out of my head as well as the cappuccino foam off my mouth. That simple little kiss had turned me to mush.
“Let me take you to dinner tomorrow.”
I sat there, zombified, unable to form a thought, much less a word.
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”
I started to nod, then I saw a curtain move in his bedroom. I looked up to see Jillian standing in the window, watching.
“No,” I said. “It—it’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“It just is.” I scampered out of the car and fled to the safety of my grandmother’s house before he could kiss me again.
•••
Later that afternoon, my phone rang as I was sorting through the dishes in Gran’s dining room buffet. I fished it out of the pocket of my jeans and answered it.
“How’s it going down in Dixie?”
It was my friend Kaitlin from New York. She and I had both been art majors in college, and I’d been a bridesmaid in her wedding. We’d somewhat drifted apart after she married, moved to New York, and had a child—we mainly stayed in touch through social media—but she knew about my jobless dilemma, and she’d promised to keep her ear to the ground. She had a part-time job with a prestigious art foundation and was well connected in the artworld. I briefly filled her in on what was happening with Gran—and with Matt.
“Well, girlfriend, you need to speed up the housecleaning and forget the hunky neighbor, because I’m calling with great news,” Kaitlin said. “Art Consulting Inc. is looking for a new associate, and they want to talk toyou.”
“What? Where did you hear this?” Art Consulting Inc. was a major player in the exclusive world of art advisors who helped large corporations, wealthy clients, and museums acquire investment art. Associates dealt with extremely wealthy, well-connected clients—the kind of clients my ex-husband had tried—unsuccessfully—to pander to.
“From the director of the Chicago office. She called me to get your number.”
“How on earth did she get my name?”
“From Mrs. Harris Van Dever. Apparently you made a wonderful impression on her when she visited your and Kurt’s gallery.”
Technically, it had been “our” gallery, but since Kurt had disdained my input, I never felt any real ownership.
“By advising her not to buy the Rantlon piece?” I asked.
“Exactly.”
That move had driven Kurt insane. One of the doyennes of Chicago society and a major benefactor to several museums, Mrs. Van Dever had come to an opening at our gallery. She’d been debating between purchasing a piece by another up-and-coming artist at another gallery and the Rantlon at ours. When she’d specifically asked me which piece I thought would appreciate the most, I’d given her my honest opinion. Kurt had been so angry I’d feared he’d become physically violent.
“AC’s director is Ms. McAbbee, and she’ll be calling you soon,” Kaitlin said. “Hope, this is a dream job. Great salary, benefits, bonuses, travel—everything anyone would want. And you know how rare that is in the art world.”
I did. It was like finding a Van Gogh at a garage sale.
“I immediately called my contacts,” Kaitlin continued, “and they specifically wantyou, because Mrs. Van Dever is such a huge client.”
I found it hard to wrap my mind around the concept. “Any idea when this job would start?”
“I think that’ll be negotiable, but, girl—you’d be crazy not to hop on this as fast as you can. I can think of a hundred people who would sell their mothers for this opportunity. It’s amaze-balls.”
“If it’s true.”
“Oh, it’s true, all right. Call me back after you hear from them.”
