Page 10 of Flirting with Forever

“Thank you. Did I happen to mention her real name is Stacy?”

“Thirty or forty times.”

“Eeeeerrrrgggg! And now she’s stepping on my donor territory. What sort of a person does that?”

“I dunno. The same sort of person who would force someone to claim a guy drew on a Rembrandt when he didn’t?”

“Beside the point.” Cam started to finger her eyelashes, a reaction to stress she’d been unable to shake since childhood. She knew it made her about as attractive as a junkie six hours past hit time. “Do you think that Van Dyck painting is going to be enough? I mean, the donation’s practically in the bag. Do you think that will be enough to convince the board I’m the right person for the directorship?”

“I know they’ll be bowled over by your granitelike self-confidence.”

“I’ve got to get that book sold.”

“Thatta girl. Where do we stand on that rewrite?”

“‘There once was a man named Van Dyck.’”

“Oh boy. I’d say too many late nights texting Britain’s favorite bad-boy artist, Mr. Lucite and Blueberries. I’m assuming that kiss was a thank-you for the help on a painting you gave him.”

Cam tucked the chain that held the ring farther inside her blouse. The last thing she needed was Jeanne thinking that she was stupid enough to consider Jacket’s offer to reconcile. Especially now that she was considering it.

“It was nothing. And as far as the book is concerned, it’s done from a fact standpoint. I don’t know, though. This editor wants me to sex things up a bit.”

“Sex and artists?” Jeanne shrugged theatrically. “Well, if you think you can find a connection…”

And it did not in any way mean she was falling for the guy again, despite that gravelly Brixton baritone that still made her toes curl, and that kiss…

“Cam?”

“Huh? Oh, right. I mean, no. Not too many late nights.” Jeanne was shooting a “Don’t tell me you were a fool and fell for his load of crap again” look in her direction.

Most important, however, kissing Jacket did not mean she was going to sleep with him. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Hence the “I’m not as easy as you apparently think I am” look she was firing right back at Jeanne. It was the kind of light-saber clashing that could only come from two friends long accustomed to each other’s foibles, and Cam, with the moral high ground of having not actually yet been a fool, clearly held the upper hand. Oh yeah, Jeanne was getting the message. She most certainly was getting the message.

“That mustard in your eye?”

“Gah!” Cam stomped to her desk. “And stop calling him ‘Mr. Lucite and Blueberries.’ He does ‘reapings.’”

“Oh, is that what they’re called?”

Jacket had wowed the art world ten years ago with his portraits that started on the upper corner of a canvas as a traditional oil painting then grew into pieces of fruit and other everyday items encased in small cubes of plastic, bound together, extending outward toward the viewer and sometimes reaching the floor. Cam hadn’t loved it then, though she understood his vision. What she had loved was his motorcycle boots, tight jeans, and damn-the-world attitude—especially when he’d led her into the ladies’ lounge of the Fulham art gallery where they’d just met for a “Fourth of July fireworks meets the ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus” encounter in an empty stall.

His recent work had become almost a parody of itself, though, with the painting and canvas chucked entirely and the rest reduced to stacks or sometimes just single cubes of plastic. In truth, “Mr. Lucite and Blueberries” wasn’t that far from the truth.

Cam grabbed her mug and went to the coffeemaker, dejected. Then she remembered it had shorted out yesterday, right in the middle of the Caffè Verona. The sides had melted into a depressing shade of toasted marshmallow brown and that corner of the room still smelled like burnt socks. Why did it always rain on the unloved?

“So he’ll be bunking with you?”

Cam looked to see if Jeanne had served this up with a hefty side of judgment. She hadn’t.

“It’s only a month or so, just until the exhibit opens. He’s trying to finish one more piece for it.”

“I know exactly what piece that is.”

“And don’t forget the loft is half his.”

“Just make sure he stays on his side of the line. Oh God!” Jeanne’s gaze was riveted on her screen.

“What?”