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

A late dinner after the gala. Bal and Packard announcing the gift of the Van Dyck. The debut of Jacket’s new work. The board to convene the next day to elect the new director. Everything was heady and effervescent, and even if she hadn’t gotten that bolt that would tel her this was the right decision, Cam had decided she would give Jacket the answer he wanted to hear. Who gets a bolt in these energy-conscious days anyhow, she thought. Al you real y need is that steady, consistent hybrid hum to know you’re on the right track.

She nodded, and her heart made a wavering skip. He would move from the studio into her room that night.

Cam picked up her phone. “Hey, what’s up, Mr. Bal ?”

“Cam! You fox! How did you keep this hidden from me?”

“Pardon?”

“Here I thought you’d keep your old friend up-to-date on whatever you found.”

“Mr. Bal , I’m not fol owing you.”

“Come by, my dear, and we’l celebrate together. Hurry, though. I think my buddy at Artforum tipped the press. This is going to be huge—mostly, I suppose, because it is huge.” He gave a hearty laugh and hung up.

She looked at the phone, confused.

“What’s going on?” Jacket asked. “The old guy sounded excited.”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

40

Cam pul ed into Bal ’s stately driveway and rol ed her Accord to a stop. There were several cars there, none of which appeared likely to belong to Bal , who favored Bentleys and long, low Italian sports cars. A man stood talking on his cel phone in the yard.

Curiosity increasing, Cam jerked her hand brake and opened the door. The man in the yard pul ed the phone from his ear as Cam walked by. He was a guy who did stories for Pop City, the online city magazine. He’d done an interview with her a while back when the book sold.

“Hey, it’s The Girl with a Coral Earring, ” he said amiably.

“Oh, wait. It’s got a different name now, doesn’t it?”

She cringed a little. “Yes. The Artist and the Angel of the Street.”

“I wish I read historical stuff.”

“Hey, I don’t need you to read it. I just need you to buy it.”

He laughed and pointed toward the former stable.

“Everyone’s around back.”

Everyone?

Everyone?

She nodded her thanks and cut through the English garden Bal and wife had designed to complement the Tudor house and made her way to the massive brick out-building that ran along the north edge of the property. Bal had replaced the wooden carriage doors with a deceptively secure set of sliding ones. Cam pressed the bel and waited while two roving cameras turned their steely eyes in her direction. She smiled, waved, and a moment later, Bal ’s voice crackled to life on the speaker.

“There you are, my dear. Come in.”

The bel box made an unobtrusive click, and the door gave way.

She could hear the buzz of voices atop the narrow set of stairs to Bal ’s office. Rather than interrupt, she stepped around the Klee and the Kel y he had leaning against the wal of the darkened entry hal and walked toward the huge, wel -lit gal ery-cum-warehouse.

The change in lighting made her gasp unexpectedly, but when her eyes adjusted she saw why. Every wal , every ledge, every nook held a stunning white painted canvas.

Not just white. There were occasional undulating waves of black line and flashes of orange, and the white was not just white but a silky, warm, soft white, like gardenia petals, that made her want to leap onto the canvas and rol in it. At first she thought the works were identical in execution, despite the fact some were rectangular, some were square and the sizes ranged from three-by-four or so to wel over ten-by-ten. But, no, each painting held a different piece of the puzzle, a different nuance of the artist’s message. In some the lines were curved, in others the lines were angular, and in stil others there was no line at al . Then there were the intriguing swatches of orange in two or three of the canvases that seemed intended to shock. And the sheer number of canvases! There had to be forty paintings here.

She was dimly aware of the opening of the security door behind her and the Pop City guy stepping in. He was stil on the phone, and while she was whol y focused on the