"Someone really likes you," Claudia says, leaning over my shoulder to peer at the book. "That's incredibly romantic."
I tear my eyes away from the book, glancing over at her. “Was there a card? A return address? Anything?”
She shakes her head. “Maybe it’s your secret admirer,” she teases, and I knowexactlywho she’s talking about.
Because I suspect him, too.
The takeout order was generic enough, but this is a clear signal. Who was there with me at the Caravaggio exhibit? Who talked for hours with me as we walked through it and had coffee afterward? Who seemed like someone who doesn’t takenofor an answer easily?
Alexander Volkov, that’s fucking who.
“It’s not romantic. It’s creepy.” I push the book to the other side of my desk, but I feel like it’s staring at me. It’s a message, I know it. And even if he sent it because he’s thinking of me still, just as I’m thinking of him, that means he looked up my gallery.He looked intome. It’s persistent, but it also makes a shuddery feeling run down my spine, as if I’m being watched.
When Claire leaves, I grab the book and shove it into a drawer, my fingers prickling where I touched it. I want to take it home and give it a place of honor on my bookshelf, but every time I look at it, I’ll think ofhim.
And I don’t want to think about him. I want toforgethim.
But on Monday, flowers arrive.
They're waiting at the gallery when I get there in the morning, a massive arrangement of white peonies and deep purple irises. The combination is unusual, and it takes me a moment to realize why they look familiar.
Then I remember: I sold a painting last week, a contemporary piece by an up-and-coming artist. The painting featured a woman in a white dress standing in a field of purple flowers. Peonies and irises, exactly like these.
I sold that painting to a private collector in London. The sale was confidential, handled through encrypted emails and wire transfers. The only people who knew about it were me, the collector, and the artist—and apparently, whoever sent these flowers.
This time, there is a card. It says only:Something so beautiful deserves to be seen.
There’s no signature and no name, not even initials. Just those five words in elegant script. My fingers tremble when I take the card to look at it, and I nearly drop it on the floor.
Claire comes out of the back a moment later and sees me standing in front of the flowers, staring at them like they might suddenly reveal their secrets. "Okay, now I'm jealous," she says. "Whoever this guy is, he has excellent taste."
"Yeah.” My voice sounds distant even to me. "Excellent taste."
I spend the rest of the day trying to focus on work—on the auction we're preparing for and the clients who need my attention. But my eyes keep drifting to the flowers, the way they seem to watch me from across the room.
The next morning, I go for my usual run in Central Park, trying to clear my head. It's early, the sun just starting to rise, casting long shadows across the paths. I've been running this route for years, and I know every turn and hill, every bench and lamppost.
Today, it feels different.
I can't shake the feeling that someone is behind me as I get further along the path, matching my pace, staying just out of sight. But every time I glance over my shoulder, there's nothing unusual there. Just other runners, tourists with cameras, couples walking hand in hand. Normal people doing normal things.
The feeling persists, a prickling awareness at the base of my skull that makes my heart race faster than the exercise warrants. I push myself harder, running faster than I usually do, taking turns at random to see if the feeling follows.
It does.
By the time I make it back to my apartment, I'm breathing hard and my legs are shaking. I tell myself it's just the run, pushing myself too hard, just paranoia from too many late nights and too much stress. I take a long shower, trying to wash away the unease, and I almost succeed.
Until I check my mail on the way out of the apartment to work.
There’s a small package inside. A prickling feeling runs down my spine as I reach for it, my heart beating too fast all over again. When I open it, I nearly drop the box.
There’s a bracelet lying on the velvet inside of it. It’s clearly very old, Art Deco in style, made of platinum and diamonds.It’s kind of piece that belongs in a museum or on the wrist of someone's grandmother. It's exquisite and delicate—clearly vintage and clearly expensive.
There's no note this time. Just the bracelet, gleaming in the fluorescent light of the mailroom.
I slip the box into my purse, my stomach twisting with unease as I mentally tally up the growing list of gifts. The book, the flowers now wilting in a vase, and now this bracelet that likely cost whoever is sending these gifts an even more obscene amount of money than the first edition. I go over them all in my head as I walk outside to catch a cab, trying to make sense of it all.
Someone is watching me. Someone knows what I like, what I want, what I do. Someone has been paying very close attention, and they want me to know it.
