With Gavin safely back at his table, I turn my attention to Harrison. I wake up my iPad and show him some more of my highlights. I’m proud when I scroll through them. My entire life in artfully staged exhibitions and happy buyers. “And if you want, I can do a mock catalog for the sale we would do for you.”
Usually I would have done the catalog before meeting with a potential seller, but I didn’t want to be too presumptuous, since Harrison hasn’t actually told anyone he wants to sell yet.
He flips through my iPad photos himself, nodding along here and there. The waitress comes with our tea, and I add milk and sugar to distract myself from the anxiety of watching him judge my life’s work.
“This is great work, as always,” Harrison says.
I smile at him, hoping this is a prelude to him giving us his collection. This sale wouldn’t just make the market take us seriously; it would make Dad take me seriously.
Harrison leans in closer, lowering his voice. “And I am selling off a large part of the old collection. Make the catalog and I’ll decide who to go with.”
I’ll take it! “When do you want the catalog by?” My mind is already spinning, going through different ways I can present the collection.
“A week, if that’s not too little time? Now that I’ve decided to sell, I want to move quickly.”
“No problem at all.”High-maintenance man, you just took away my sleep for the next week. “If you wouldn’t mind sending a list of the items you’re thinking about including in the sale, I can make a theme, exhibition layout and catalog for them.”
“I’ll email you a list.”
“Perfect. I look forward to showing you the finished product.”
“I look forward to seeing it. But I still have meetings with other auction houses.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
And then it’ll be that much sweeter when I beat Gavin Carlyle.
Chapter Two
“Sonia! I neeeeeed you,” I yell when I get into my office, toeing off my very high heels the second I get in the door, pausing for a second to dig my toes in the plush carpet.
I love my office. I don’t remember exactly what the walls look like, since all the vertical space is now covered with bookshelves, all overflowing with catalogs from our sales and our competitors’, and books on art history. With the occasional antique vase or small statue.
There’s a comfortable leather couch to one side, that I might have used as a bed after one or two or a hundred and fifty late nights at the office.
But the desk is my favorite part of the office. It’s two separate oak pieces made in 1870 from England, with elegant curved legs ending in lion paws. I put the two desks together to make a modern L-shaped desk out of the beautiful older pieces. On top of them is a slightly newer desktop computer, with a laptop next to it.
Just behind the desk, my windows look out over Central Park, a lake of green resting peacefully between metal and glass shores. It’s one of the best views in Manhattan, and I love looking out over my city.
Plus, if I get the angle right, I can creep on my neighbors. And they liveverydramatic lives.
Moment of admiring my own office over, it’s time to get back to being a titan of industry. I collapse at my desk and wake up my computer. Fifty-seven new emails...in the last hour. And at lunch, no less. So much glamour, these auction houses.
“Sonia!” Sonia’s my cousin, and also my right hand. And my best friend. She wears a lot of hats.
When I came back from college, Dad gave me a vanity title, executive vice president of special events, but he forgot to actually give me any special events to lead. I carved out a space, pilfering duties and creating shows where I could until I made the job into something I wanted to do. Sonia was one of the first people I stole for my fake department, and I couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone other than her.
We grew up close, since she was born only a few months after Ajay and me. Her parents came with Mom and Dad when they moved to New York to set up this international office. But five years in, they left the States to run Loot headquarters back in India because of some emergency no one remembers now. They decided Sonia should stay in the States with us, because of the opportunities she could get here.
Sonia wasn’t happy about her parents’ decision, so one day I grabbed her pillow, Minnie Mouse suitcase full of books, and a change of shoes, and moved them into my room.
But Sonia was really hurt when her parents left, and at first she was in no mood for my attempts at bonding. After numerous s’mores in our pillow forts, she warmed up to me. Or she wanted the s’mores train to keep on coming to the station and faked liking me.
And then we became inseparable.
We all spent so much time together, family and friends called Sonia, Ajay and me the triplets. It didn’t hurt that Sonia looks more like my twin than Ajay, from our long, thick wavy black hair to the shape of our noses, to our chocolate brown eyes.
“You rang, your annoyance?” Sonia walks into my office, notebook in hand. She closes the door behind her and jumps on my couch, said notebook at the ready. She’s been in the office all morning, so her heels are long gone.
