"Exactly." His eyes held mine with that unsettling intensity. "You understand the mechanism."
"I've seen variations of it." Not often—I was careful about which clients I accepted—but often enough to recognize the fingerprints. "The art world is perfect for money laundering. Subjective pricing. Private sales. A culture of discretion that makes bankers look like gossips."
Something flickered across his expression. Surprise, maybe, at my matter-of-fact assessment. Or approval.
"What I need," he said, "is someone who can identify inconsistencies in provenance. Someone who can spot the tellsthat distinguish genuine authentication from convenient fiction. Someone who can look at a gallery's inventory and determine which pieces are legitimate and which are... pipeline."
Someone who could do what I did for Victor Harmon, but in reverse. Instead of authenticating real works, I'd be hunting for the fake documentation that made dirty money look clean.
"I won't ask you to do anything illegal," he added, and his voice was so careful, so measured, checking in with me to make sure I was following, giving me space to process—
My chest ached with sudden, confusing guilt.
I was attracted to this man. I was achingly attracted to this man—could feel it in the way my skin prickled when he shifted closer, in the way my breath caught when our eyes met, in the visceral awareness of his physical presence. Every nerve in my body seemed tuned to his frequency.
And two nights ago I'd called someone else Daddy.
What kind of person did that make me?
The guilt tangled with the overstimulation, tangled with the fluorescent buzz I'd been fighting since I walked through the front doors. The whiteness of the room seemed to press in from all sides. The lights felt like needles in my eyes. My thoughts fragmented, scattered, refused to organize themselves into coherent patterns.
Too much. It was all too much.
"—documentation from Geneva," Maksim was saying, his voice reaching me as if from underwater. "The gallery there has been particularly cooperative with the sort of authentication that doesn't bear close scrutiny—"
I needed air. I needed out. I needed Ghost against my legs and my weighted blanket and the familiar smell of my studio.
I stood abruptly, chair scraping against the concrete floor. The sound was too loud, too sharp, and I flinched away from it.
"Miss Hart?"
I stepped backward, trying to find space, trying to breathe. My heel caught on the edge of a display platform I hadn't noticed—some pedestal for showcasing smaller works that had no business being in a walkway.
The fall happened in slow motion.
Arms windmilling. Stomach dropping. The certainty of public humiliation—falling on my ass in front of this beautiful, dangerous man, confirming every suspicion he must already have about my inability to function like a normal person.
Then his hand caught my elbow.
His arm slid around my waist.
He pulled me upright and against him in one smooth motion, like it was nothing, like catching falling women was something he did every day.
For a suspended instant I was pressed to his chest. Close enough to smell his cologne—warm, woodsy, expensive in a way that wasn't overwhelming but grounding. Close enough to feel the heat of him through my silk blouse, the solid reality of his body against mine. Close enough to see his eyes widen with something that looked almost like recognition.
"I've got you," he murmured.
His voice dropped to something low and gentle. Something intimate. Something so exactly like the voice I imagined when I read Lis's messages that my breath caught and tears pricked at my eyes and I nearly—
"Breathe, Auralia."
My name. He said my name like he was tasting it. Like he was learning it. Like he was keeping it.
"You're alright," he continued, still in that low, steady voice. "I've got you."
The tension I'd been carrying since I walked through the gallery doors dissolved, replaced by something warm and terrifying and entirely too much.
He was holding me.
