Flirting With Forever by Gwyn Cready (new books to read TXT) 📕

who was making her friend Seph’s life miserable over at Pilgrim Pharmaceuticals. Poetic justice? A little more of that in this world would certainly be appreciated, Cam considered, thinking for a long moment of the unexpectedly intriguing bristle of Peter’s beard and of a dark, stubbled Batman pul ing her from the crevasse—

“Who are you moving?” Jeanne dumped the mail on the corner of her desk.

In her mind, Cam flung the keys and caught Batman’s gloved hand, al in one graceful movement. “Oh, Catwoman.”

“Catwoman?”

Cam frowned, the spel of her daydream broken. “Catwoman? Why did you say that?”

“Because you said it.”

“I did not.”

Jeanne made a deep sigh and rol ed her eyes. “Could you please sleep with one of them again? I think your brain is turning into mashed potatoes.”

“Is that the sort of thing you’re learning in that online biology class of yours?”

“Yes, the teacher has asked us al to come to the next webcast dressed as naughty little lab assistants. Do you think that’s a problem?”

“I think you’re going to have more fun than I am tonight.”

Cam pressed the Catterman square next to Bolton, then picked up Bal and put him and his wife on either side of Sister Rose. Sister Rose was the city’s biggest Pitt Panther fan. She and Bal could talk col ege footbal to their hearts’ content.

Cam rubbed her eyes and reached for the mail. A large manila envelope slipped off the top of the stack. Probably another book. She grabbed a corner and tore. It was an ancient copy of The Burlington Magazine, a much-revered British fine arts monthly. This was the issue from 1932 that had the image of Peter and the four Ursulas. She prayed the picture would be clearer than the tiny blurred scan she’d received. The painting, long held by a wealthy private col ector, had not been seen in public in several generations. Cam herself had never seen it, even in print.

This would provide her first real look at one of the most revealing of Peter’s paintings.

She pushed the table diagrams to one side and slipped a finger under the cover careful y. The yel owed paper crackled. The cover had no picture, only the words “The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Il ustrated & Published Monthly” in a turn-of-the-century font and, below that, a table of contents, which she scanned for a reference to Peter.

to Peter.

The author of the article was a viscount, likely the man her research said had owned the painting in the thirties, and the title nearly made Cam fal off her chair: “Lely’s Love Story.”

Cam flipped to the first page of the article, leaned back in her chair and began to read. By the time she reached the end, everything she thought she knew had changed and the one thing she did know was that she had to find Peter.

45

Peter flung the brush down in disgust. The painting he’d begun the day before, despite its flawlessness from a technical standpoint, lacked the spark that would lift it from the realm of craft to that of beauty. The word his teacher had used was hout—“wood” in English. No life. And he knew why. He was wracked with guilt. No matter what Campbel had done or was about to do, she hadn’t deserved what he’d just done to her. He hadn’t been the one to expose her to the reporter. That was her doing. It was clear her life was something akin to a platter ful spinning tops, perennial y ready to explode into chaos. But her life was also her own, and if what Mertons said was true, Peter had changed it for the worse.

Was losing a child you had never known the same as losing one you had? Was there a gradient to such a loss?

He kicked himself. Who was he to judge?

Peter had told himself he’d come here to protect Ursula, but he had also come to protect his reputation. And he had been wil ing to go so far as to put a