“No.” He brushed his palm against the back of his head and glanced toward the door, eyeballing the distance to the exit. “I’ll let you two catch up.”
“I want to hear about your new project,” Alma complained. “And you know that’s not something I say very often, so you should probably take advantage of my interest.”
Rafael blew out a breath. “Can’t even tell you about it. It’s top secret.” He glanced at Grace, who seemed lost in thought.
“Come on,Raf,” Alma scolded, emphasizing his Americanized nickname. “You know you can’t resist talking about yourself for an hour, and you know you want to impress Grace with all your ‘ultimate luxury escapades’ shit.”
At the sound of her name, Grace’s head jerked up, and their eyes met. He couldn’t believe it for a moment, how he was filled with the same feeling he’d had the first time he met her, that she couldseehim somehow.
“What is it that you do?” Grace asked politely.
Alma was correct that he was great at talking about himself, at spouting whatever bullshit sounded good, whatever made him look impressive. But he didn’t think he could do that now, for some reason. Not with Grace looking at him like that.
He cleared his throat. “I’m building a company that—uh—helps clients to cultivate curated cultural experiences.” He didn’t feel the need to mention his miserable finance job in the States or his father’s disappointment when he decided to leave it for something “frivolous.” No, disappointment wasn’t the word, actually. More like,wrath. Rafael needed to focus on the future, though. He needed to focus on what he was building, not the thing he’d finally worked up the courage to abandon. “It’s for elite events and exhibitions throughout the region.”
Grace smiled. It was the first time he’d seen her smile in this new life—the life where they were both adults, and they both lived in Spain. “I don’t think I know what that means,” she admitted.
“It means he makes a lot of money helping rich people throw fancy parties for other rich people,” Alma said with a wink in Grace’s direction.
“Not parties,” Rafael objected.
Grace stared at him.
“Well sometimes parties,” he conceded.
She nodded and looked as if she might say something, but she didn’t.
“What’s the latest bourgeoisie extravaganza?” Alma asked.
Rafael didn’t want to tell her. He realized the irony here, that he’d always thought his sister was a ridiculous party girl with no ambition, and now she was a biologist developing some DNA sequence something—he could never understand the details—and he was…planning parties. It was not how he imagined things would turn out, and he didn’t like talking about it in front of Alma, who seemed to think it was all some hilarious joke. Even more, he didn’t want to talk about it in front of her friend, who was still staring at him with those big, sad blue eyes, waiting for him to explain this thing that had somehow become his life’s work.
At least his new project was impressive, there was no denying that. He wasn’t sure how to handle it yet. He hadn’t quite figured out the details, but it was cultured and sophisticated and everything he’d always valued so much since his pig-headed elitist father had expected it of him.
“Well, it’s top secret, like I said, but it’s not a party. It’s more of an event space for upscale exhibitions.”
“Huh?” Alma said. “What kind of exhibitions? You’re saying the vaguest words possible.”
Rafael’s eyes darted between them, and he realized both women were frowning at him with the same wrinkled up foreheads. He found himself lowering his voice to an almost hushed tone and felt like an idiot. This is what he did, after all. Sell the experience, make it sound special and appealing and confidential. He didn’t know why he was doing it with his sister and her friend. “We have a new client that has one of the largest personal collections of Picassos in the world. He wants to find a way to share them, but without selling them to a museum or just letting people into his home. Essentially, we’re trying to create a space for them where he can invite guests or other people could host certain events in this miniature underground museum that will house his collection.”
He saw Grace scrunch up her nose and had no clue what it meant, so he kept explaining.
“It would be a secret, though, something special. Invitation only. People lucky enough to get asked to these events would have a chance to see the artwork, but the public wouldn’t even know about it. It offers the intimacy of being invited into his private collection without him having to do the hosting.”
Again, Grace looked annoyed, like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t speak.
“That sounds kind of cool,” Alma said, but Rafael couldn’t help thinking she looked unimpressed.
“We still have a lot of details to figure out, but I think it could be amazing.”
“The Nahmads?” Grace asked at last.
“Pardon?”
“The Nahmads own the largest private collection of Picasso’s work. They’re billionaire art collectors, and sometimes they put on their own exhibitions.”
“Oh,” Rafael said. He supposed it was within her field of study, so it probably made sense for her to be aware of that kind of thing. “Um, no, not them.”
“That gives me an idea,” Alma said. “It’s Picasso stuff?”
