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

Cam blinked. What had come over her sister?

“And they should love it,” she went on. “It’s a damned fine painting. Exceptional, real y. Any museum in the world would accept it as a Lely. Hel , any museum in the world would accept it even though it’s not a Lely. The only trouble is, I know the sitter’s you.”

“Me?” The freight elevator ding-ed and both women moved a step farther away.

“It’s pretty obvious, Cam. Jacket saw it. I did, too. And that’s the real reason I’m going to keep quiet. You just don’t get that sort of feeling from an artist with any sitter. He loves you, Cam. You have a way with men I’l never have. Even Jacket loves you, and you just dumped him. That painting’s a good, pure thing, and Peter’s love is a good pure thing. I won’t be a part of ruining either one.”

“Thank you, Stacy.”

Anastasia threw her arms around her. “Which isn’t to say I’m not going to get the directorship, you know.”

Cam laughed and hugged tighter. “I know. Game on.”

Anastasia pul ed away. “There. Now it doesn’t matter that the paint looks too new. It doesn’t matter that the canvas has been stretched too careful y, or that the style is not quite right. No one wil ever know the painting is a fake.”

Cam froze. Mrs. Fitcher, the old biddy from the board, gazed at them, mouth agape, from the elevator.

58

Thirty minutes later, Cam slammed the door of Packard’s office, leaving Packard, Anastasia, Dunevin, Bal and Mrs.

Fitcher behind her.

Jeanne stopped the game she was playing on her phone and jumped to her feet. “What can I do to help?”

“It depends. Do you stil have that business card for the

‘We Hit Old Biddies’ firm?”

Jeanne nodded toward the door. “What happened in there?”

“Oh, the usual. Even though there’s no signature and no record of it in Lely’s documents—er, the real Lely, I mean, the Lely who painted in 1673—the composition, theme and color choice point to authenticity. In that case, especial y with a situation as sensitive as this, experts usual y take a general y positive-but-not-yet-definitive point of view.

However, Mrs. Fitcher happened to overhear the museum’s leading expert of Restoration-era art say it’s a fake. Since then, Anastasia’s done everything she can to backpedal, and when Mrs. Fitcher has pushed her, she went mum—”

“Anastasia?”

“She’s real y trying to cover for me, bless her heart. It’s hard for me to believe it myself.”

“Hard for you to believe? Traveling through time? That’s hard to believe. Anastasia being kind? That’s impossible.”

“Yeah, so Anastasia’s stayed mum and Bal won’t let anyone, including Packard, who’s getting real y nervous, look at it.”

“Now what?”

“Who knows? Either way, I’m stil going to be out of a job tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to leave me with the chain-mail Czarina, are you?”

“She’l change. You’l see.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Where’s Peter?”

“In your office. At least he was fifteen minutes age.”

Cam flew to her office. The disputed Lely painting was tucked behind her door, but Peter was nowhere to be seen.

She trotted down the hal .

“Are you looking for the hottie with Johnny Depp eyes?”

a col ege student on the catering crew asked.

“I, um … maybe.”

“Old?” she said, and realized her mistake and flushed.

“Older than you, I mean.”

“That’s the one.”

“He told me to tel you he’s with Ada.”

Cam laughed. “Thanks.”

When she stepped into the gal ery, Peter was not, in fact, with Ada. He was eyeing a smal painting in the corner, next to a couple both looking at their BlackBerrys.

Cam watched him for a moment, the line of his back, the tilt of his head as he considered the work before him, the luxurious gleam of light on his hair. Could she remember al that? Could she lock it up in a place where the memory would sit, unmuddied by events, longing or grief, for her to unwrap like a cherished holiday ornament to fil her heart when it was empty?

As if he felt her presence, his shoulders relaxed and he turned. He beamed as she approached, and the other couple drifted off absently, stil working their keyboards.

“Ah, true love,” she said as Peter watched their egress.

“I have observed practices which have raised a considerable number of questions for me.”

“You and me both. It’s a religious thing.”

“In truth?”

“Cult of the Self-absorbed. Every member’s a one-person church. So, what are you looking at?”

He stepped aside to let her see.

“Ah, the Bonnard.” It was one of the many paintings Pierre Bonnard had done of his wife. In a bathroom as luminescent and richly colored as a Matisse, Pierre’s wife, Marte, lay peaceful y stil in her shimmering bath.