The Note by Natalie Wrye (the read aloud family .TXT) 📕

help but to venture on the thought that my life might be as lacking as Drew accused Nancy’s of being.

I haven’t been on a proper date in longer then I can remember, the constant need to work to make the rent squeezing out any possibility of a social life left.

It’s my fault really.

I turned down my ex-roommate Kayla’s offer of assistance when she left to live with her boyfriend-turned-fiancé because my pride was too big to say yes. Too big to admit that I needed help.

In more than ways than one.

I mean, here I was on a beautiful night in this beautiful dress in fantastic company…

Nothing more than a pauper. Pretending.

Expensive Manhattanites in their Monday-best were drinking and dining at standing tables set with plates at five hundred dollars a pop, with my art on the walls, watching over it all.

There’s a subdued amber warmth from the lights now hitting the wide, white walls of the smaller room, and the insides of my tummy ties into knots as I realize I’m inside alone, accompanied with nothing but the thoughts that my work might not be good.

That I might not be good enough.

Lord knows I’d never been.

Hell, the last time I’d felt home in my skin was when I was with a complete stranger. One I’d freaking stolen from!

I shudder, even now in the gallery bathroom, staring over the solitary mirror with cloudy eyes as the memory rocks me where I stand. Touching the edge of my bottom lip, I resist the urge to imagine his kiss when I suddenly hear the loudspeaker announcing the start of the auction.

I exit the bathroom, now amidst the thickening crowd that has grown exponentially since I left, looking for Drew or Nancy’s face. The auction for my portrait starts at five hundred dollars and the flutter that hits the pit of my stomach turns into frantic flapping the moment I see my painting, no longer on the wall, but displayed at the very front of the dully lit room.

Shit. My painting is being auctioned off first.

My hands clutch at my stomach to calm the nerves when I hear the auction amount rise to one thousand dollars.

I glance over just in time to see Drew bid on my portrait, an obvious show of support to drive the number skyward, and I secretly wish he could see my smile. But then the number rises.

Two thousand. Three thousand.

Four.

An art lover in the crowd pitches a final bid of five thousand dollars on my portrait, and the bare skin at my nape starts to sweat, perspiration slowly sliding down my skin as I wait, listening to the auctioneer at the top of the room, calling out over the crowd.

“Going once…” He hesitates, his hand held high, his neck stiff beneath his glossy black bow tie. “Going twice…”

I inhale a sharp breath, ready for his final announcement when suddenly a voice shouts out from the thick of the crowd.

“Ten thousand dollars.”

The packed gallery breaks out into a hushed murmur, a rumble of voices careening like a slow wave through the crowd. My heart seizes, my breath shallow as the announcer looks over at the anonymous bidder whose face I can’t see.

The auctioneer blinks twice. “We have a new bid,” he exhales excitedly. “Anyone else?” He lets the silence linger for a few tense seconds. “No? Then, it’s going once.” A beat. “Going twice.” Another. “Sold!”

The word rings out, and so does applause, the appreciative clamoring of the gallery starting slow and building.

I can barely feel my body. Excitement has me tingling all over.

Especially when the auctioneer motions towards the man in the center of the crowd.

“Would you like to claim your beautiful prize now, sir? Or would you prefer to wait?”

I don’t see the motion of the man in the crowd, but his answer must be “yes” as the auctioneer steps aside. As the winning bidder makes his way to the elevated platform at the apex of the room, all I can see is his navy suit, dark shoulders, staunch demeanor.

Tall and sophisticated in a suit that looks nearly painted on, I find myself breathing heavily, practically panting as he strolls casually—almost painstakingly towards my painting.

He reaches the platform. And then he turns.

And it is as if someone has shut off every synapse in my swirling mind.

My blood runs cold. Or hot.

And I can’t think. Or feel or breathe or make the damned distinction of up from down.

Not when his eyes clash with mine.

The Big Bad Wolf. In the flesh. No longer a dream.

But there’s nothing “fairytale” about the frosty gaze he’s giving me right now, nothing mythical in his stare.

Mr. Big Bad Wolf reaches the front of the room and fixes me with a stare that says everything I can’t. A stare that calls me the criminal I was with him just two days ago.

Holy. Shit.

I was wrong.

I did show up to the exhibit on time. Just in enough time to fall into the karma that was waiting for me.

Chapter 10

NOAH

Seeing the look on Sophia’s face when the announcer shouts her name gives me more goddamned satisfaction than I can remember feeling in a long time.

After discovering her self-portrait in the gallery this afternoon before our tux fittings, I was only too shocked, dismayed and rather pleased to discover that the portrait, according to the gallery owner, would be up for auction this very night.

And the utter shock on the sultry waitress’s face, the absolute confusion written on her features, is enough to thrill me more than even sex.

A shame, considering all the women I’ve been with, despite what Jase thinks.

In the five years since I’ve been away from New York, and hell, the two days since I’ve seen Sophia, I have tried.

I’ve tried to think about other women. Spend time with other women. Sleep with other women.

Or woman, rather—Becky Callahan, being the only, after she prematurely forgave my hotel abandonment.

But my encounter with one twisted thief has tainted every interaction with the opposite sex