Adrian waited until Caroline had safely made her way into the main gallery before he checked his phone. She seemed unsteady on her feet, but he didn’t know if that was due to the shoes or the wine, which she was drinking very quickly.
His last messages were still the ones from Tamsyn, a few hours previous:
Tamsyn:Ran into Mike McMurtry last night
Tamsyn:Told him you’re looking for new gallery rep
Tamsyn:He said you’re a *rat bastard coward*
Tamsyn:And you should call him
Tamsyn:You owe me
Tamsyn:Bring GOOD wine to my opening
Adrian had not yet replied. His initial reaction had been one of dizzying relief, because that was the first solid lead he’d had in months. Mike’s gallery had been the first to show his work out of art school. He’d done very well there. The man was fair and reliable and well-connected. Of course, Adrian had thought the same about Nora when she lured him away with the ultimately slim promise of a higher caliber of co-exhibitor, but Mike had never let him down.
Only as he digested the idea of going back to the gallery he’d left at twenty-six did the larger implications begin to swamp him. Getting kicked out by Nora and then slinking back to his prior space was hardly the narrative he wanted for his career. And there was the guilt too, because leaving Mike’s gallery for no better financial terms had not been a brilliant move in the first place, which reflected poorly on Adrian. He’d never apologized. He hadn’t actually spoken to the gallery owner in years. If Adrian did call Mike, he’d probably need to start by saying he’d been utterly thoughtless to quit without warning at the end of his contract, leaving Mike in the lurch.
Guilt was a familiar emotion these days. He’d spent the past week dividing his time in a very unproductive way: about one quarter thinking of ways to maneuver Caroline into bed, closer to two-thirds feeling bad about the first quarter, and that left... well, Tom was correct that Adrian did not do a lot of higher math these days, but that was not a large proportion left for painting.
He’d thought of asking her for a little more distance in their interactions, but what possible reason could he give? She hadn’t done anything inappropriate. The problem was entirely inside his own head. What would he say?Would you mind standing a few feet away and not looking at me? I’m having intrusive thoughts about your thighs andalso being between them.He had most of his life ahead of him in which he’d have to control himself around beautiful young women who were not interested in having sex with him. There was no time like the present to learn how.
Caroline popped her head back into the hall.
“They have a Monet in here!” she advised him. She checked over her shoulder. “A whole roomfull of Monets!”
He unexpectedly grinned at her enthusiasm as he followed her into the small side gallery.
“Is this your first time seeing one?” he asked, accompanying her to a large painting of summer poppy fields.
“Yeah, the European rooms are always super crowded,” she said, beaming at the masterpiece.
Adrian couldn’t help but tell her about the piece, even as he feared he was slipping into Obnoxious Art Guy territory.
“It’s a scene from his estate in Giverny,” he told her. “That’s where all the water lilies were painted.”
“Where’s that?”
“Northwest of Paris.”
“You’ve been there?”
He nodded. “Of course. I made the pilgrimage during the summer I spent in France. After my sophomore year.”
Caroline sucked in a deep breath, no doubt taken with the idea.
“Can we go see it? Is it nice in the winter?” she asked, turning her face to him. Her green eyes were wide and tentative. It was the first time she’d brought up the subject of going to Europe that winter since he’d misled her about the setting of December’s Art Basel fair, and he’d convinced himself that she’d forgotten about it.
“I don’t think Normandy is best appreciated in December, no,” he stalled, putting his hands back in his pockets.Spending that much time with Caroline on planes and trains and, God help him, at hotels, was probably not the best plan.
She licked her lips. “So is Switzerland better in December, then? Is it because of the skiing? Because I don’t know how to ski—”
He turned away, hiding his expression in his study of the poppies.
“No, not because of the skiing. But, Caroline, what would your family think of you heading off to Europe with me? You could go on a school program, with people closer to your own age.”
Her face darkened. “It doesn’t matter what they think. And why wouldn’t I be safer with you than with a bunch of strangers?”
