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Remy flinched, and I immediately regretted it.

“Sorry. That was unnecessary.”

“But not untrue.” He turned back to the painting. “These are good, Rowan. Properly good. I was prepared to lie if necessary, but I don’t have to.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve already told three people I’ve known you since you were six.”

“Trying to establish yourself as an early influence?”

“Making sure they know I was here before you became famous and insufferable.”

“I was always insufferable.”

“That’s true.”

For a moment, it felt almost normal. Close enough that I could see the shape of what we’d once been.

Remy glanced across the gallery to where Pascal was talking to Belinda. “He looks good in a suit.”

“He looks good out of one as well.”

He laughed. “I walked into that.” He raised both hands in a defensive gesture. “Just for the record, I do not flirt with Pascal and never will.”

“It wouldn’t matter if you did,” I said with a smile born of absolute certainty. “Pascal would never look elsewhere.” I paused. “Unlike a certain other person.”

Remy sighed. “It’s a shame that the bars aren’t quite thick enough to keep Tyler from being here with us.”

“It is,” I agreed.

He turned his attention back to the painting in front of us. At first glance, it was abstract—darkness gathered into the suggestion of a figure, two points of red buried within it, and streaks of gold breaking through the black. Whatever anyone else might see in it, it represented my salvation when I’d been at my lowest. No, I wasn’t going to sell it.

“This is my favorite,” Remy said.

“Mine too,” I admitted.

He squeezed my arm before moving off in search of a drink. We weren’t at the hugging stage yet.

“Rowan.”

I turned to find Donald Wentworth approaching. Despite the rather odd footing we’d started on, with him discovering me in his house convinced he might have killed my mother, we now got along well.

I smiled. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“And miss the chance to see what all that dabbling has produced?”

“I might have understated how seriously I took it.”

“I think you did. People who dabble produce questionable watercolors of coastal villages and force them on relatives at Christmas.” He swept a hand toward the gallery and the twenty-four paintings it contained. “This is beyond dabbling.”

“I stand corrected.”

“As you should.”

He studied the nearest painting with the practiced eye of someone who’d spent his life dealing in art. His opinion shouldn’t have mattered more than anyone else’s, but it did.

“You’re talented,” he said eventually. “Very talented. How many have you sold?”