“So bossy.” Her nose wrinkles adorably. “I'll send it, I promise.”
I went to her sketchbook. “What are you working on?”
She shows me a 3-D sketch of a room, with various paintings on the walls. It's completely unlike the abstract work I recognized from her paintings.
“That's the layout of the Whitmer, at least, it's what I've seen in photos. I'm sketching out some of the ways I might display my paintings. There's at least one more piece I want to finish and display, the one with the red beryl. If the rock crusher is installed in time, though, I'd love to do something new with the diamonds you bought. I just have to figure out the size and how it'll fit with the paintings I already made.”
“I talked with the contractor today,” I assure her. “It should be ready in a week.”
She grins. “Thank you. Really.”
Something warm blooms in my chest. “It's nothing.”
“It's not nothing, but I won't try to argue with you,” she says.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out, seeing a new email from Jack about a press release with Pages.
“Go ahead,” Maura says. “I'm sure you have a zillion emails to answer.”
I settle back against the couch. “Zillion is not a real number.”
“Not yet,” she says. “Isn’t Sequel supposed to be an innovator, though? Figure it out.”
I chuckle and turn my attention back to my phone. Apart from Jack’s email, there are a number of calendar invites from my assistants to review.
Maura repositions slightly on the couch, so her thigh brushes against mine in a warm, pleasant pressure. We settle into our work, her sketching as I answer emails, a quiet intimacy blooming between us.
21
MAURA
From the outside, the Whitmer Gallery is just as beautiful as the artwork inside. The two-story building was designed by an acolyte of Frank Lloyd Wright, and its clean lines look warm and welcoming in the gray Toronto spring. I should be itching to walk inside, especially since I forgot my gloves this morning, and my fingertips are tingling with cold.
Instead, I'm frozen outside. Staring at that beautifully designed door, completely incapable of reaching for the handle.
My meeting with Sydney Meyer starts in ten minutes. I'm early, like my father always said you should be for business meetings. Early’s going to turn into late real fast if I stay here, my whirling thoughts stopping me from walking inside.
I just feel completely in over my head. I've never had a meeting with a gallery head before, let alone one so influential and important. What if I say the wrong thing? What if the questions I ask her are naive and stupid? What if she figures out immediately that I’m a fraud? I just wish I had someone with me to have my back and give me the confidence that I don't feel myself.
I didn’t have to come here alone, I remind myself. Brinley would have happily showed up as my cheerleader-slash-minion if I asked. At breakfast this morning, James even offered to drive me to the gallery and join me at the meeting.
I raised my brows. “Don’t you have a meeting on your schedule?”
He waved a hand. “It’s just a weekly meeting with my assistant to go over my calendar. I could reschedule it.”
“No, go back, rewind. Are you seriously telling me you scheduled a meeting about yourschedule?”
His blue gaze was coolly amused. “Yes.”
“So when wasthatmeeting scheduled? Did you have to schedule a meeting to plan all your scheduling meetings? This is just turning into a real Russian doll situation.”
“I’d be happy to drive you,” James said, sipping his decaf coffee and ignoring me. “Just let me know so I can tell Taylor.”
“Nah. I don’t want to make the poor guy have to find a new color label for when he schedules your chauffeur duties. The rainbow is getting exhausted.”
James shrugged. “Fine. Good luck today, then.”
The truth is, it would have been nice to feel my husband’s quiet confidence right now. But I knew I needed to do this by myself. I want to feel like myself, not just Mrs. Keller. I'm not just some important man's wife. I'm an artist.
