Page 88 of Flirting with Forever

“Yes?” His face broke into a smile so big it made her heart hurt.

“Yes, I’ll tell you after the gala,” she said, nearly unable to get the clarification out. What chance did she have, looking into eyes like that? She might as well just tell him yes now.

“Brilliant,” he said and meant it.

He hugged her tightly. She felt the ring, still on its chain, press into her chest.

Thirty-seven

“Cam.”

She jerked, realizing Lamont Packard was speaking to her. “Sorry. Just thinking about the opening.”

The senior staff was standing in the north gallery, admiring Packard’s arrangement of the exhibition’s opening room. The theme was “Behold: Love Through the Eyes of the Artist.” What were the odds Packard would have put the Carnegie’s most important Lely, Louise de Penancoet, the Duchess of Portsmouth, right next to Jacket’s Lornacopia?

“Do you have a minute?” he asked.

Out of the corner of her eye, Cam caught Anastasia’s pinched face. “Sure,” she said gleefully.

“Great. Everyone else, off to make our usual Carnegie magic. We’ve got a little over twenty-four hours before the gala. Let’s make everything perfect.” He clapped his hands and they dispersed.

Cam’s stomach began to churn. The look on Packard’s face did not exactly say promotion. He waited until the last of the staffers had drifted out.

“What’s up, boss?”

Packard’s brows knitted. Cam felt faint. Almost every dream she’d had about her future included running a museum, this museum. And absolutely no vision of her future had included reporting to her sister.

“You know the nominating committee met on Tuesday—”

“But the Lely book has sold! And the Van Dyck one? A complete misunderstanding. My publisher announced too soon. You know the artistic mind. Things hadn’t quite gelled. And don’t forget the new gift. Two-point-one million bucks. Right here in our hot little acquiring hands.”

“Cam, Cam, Cam.” Packard held up his palms. “You’re still a candidate. The committee just has a few questions.”

“About what?”

Packard sighed. “Look, you know you’d be my choice. But you know Adele Fitcher—”

Cam groaned. Fitcher was a conservative old biddy with a boatload of money—the worst sort of conservative old biddy.

“She doesn’t like your book.”

“Has she read it?” Cam asked.

“She’s read about it.”

“Great. An uninformed backstabber. Hope she posts a review at Amazon too.”

“You know most of the board members don’t mind. In fact, a number think it’s just the thing to inject some interest in the masters—sex ’em up a little. Let ’em think it was like backstage at a Mötley Crüe concert. Stretch the truth a little.”

Cam coughed. Packard and his similes.

“But Adele doesn’t like the sex. She thinks it cheapens our image and is tacky and unnecessary.”

“I can see why Mr. Fitcher happily dropped dead at age forty-nine.”

“Cam, her opinion carries a lot of weight.”

“Let me ask, did she happen to read about the two-point-one-million-dollar Van Dyck in Meddling Old Crank Quarterly as well?”