Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Morning came with an annoying blast of sunlight through the curtains, which Jake had forgotten to close the night before, and the weird sound of a French police car in the distance. There were a dozen more reasons he could have been irritated and woken in a mood, Hélène Rénard being chief among them.
But Jake couldn’t ever remember being happier as he woke with Rafe’s scent all around him and their naked bodies pressed together under the crisp, white hotel sheets. Before he even opened his eyes, Jake smiled, stretching and reveling in how good his life was.
This was it. Waking up with Rafe in Paris was the pinnacle of all the things he didn’t deserve but had somehow found in his life. He was happy, regardless of who had posted what on social media the day before or how quickly he and Rafe had dashed off to a foreign country. Everything was as wonderful as the gentle sound of Rafe’s snoring next to him. No amount of fame or renown could possibly be better than this.
Well, maybe it could be better if he and Rafe had time to do something about the morning wood he sported. As Rafe sucked in a long breath and groaned awake, Jake definitely weighed the pros and cons of forgetting about Hélène entirely and just spending a romantic weekend in Paris, preferably in bed. He was certain Rafe wouldn’t want that, though.
Hélène’s duplicity mattered to Rafe. Gaining recognition in the glass world mattered. Whether Rafe was fully aware of it or not, he was ambitious. There was nothing wrong with that. Jake wanted to succeed, too. But if the Hawthorne family had taught him one thing, it was that the scale and timetable of success wasn’t always the fast pace and meteoric rise that some people thought it was.
“Good morning,” he said, propping himself up on one arm and grinning down at Rafe as Rafe finally opened his eyes.
Rafe made the most delicious sound deep in his chest, then mumbled, “Morning,” in return.
“How’s the morning breath situation?” Jake asked, brushing his fingers through the hair on Rafe’s chest.
Rafe worked his mouth for a moment and licked his lips, then shook his head and said, “No. Definitely not.”
Jake laughed and flopped back onto the pillows as Rafe pushed himself out of bed and headed to the bathroom. It was all just so perfect, so relaxed and natural. It was everything he’d ever wanted.
Once Rafe was finished in the bathroom, Jake took a turn. As soon as he’d peed and brushed his teeth, he went back into the main part of the room, looking for his morning kiss. Rafe was already dressed and packing things away in his backpack, though.
“If we get to the hot shop before Hélène, she won’t be able to shut the door in our faces and lock us out,” he said without looking at Jake.
Jake sighed and moved to pack up his overnight bag. Every dream faded in the morning anyhow. At least with this one, he stood a chance of getting to repeat it later. Hopefully every day.
He caught Rafe as they headed for the door and pulled him into an embrace, stealing his kiss then.
“We can do this,” he told Rafe, looking him straight in the eyes before kissing him again. “It doesn’t matter what Hélène throws at us. It doesn’t matter if we’re able to convince her to mend her ways and retract the pictures she posted or if she calls the police on us.”
“Oh, God, the police,” Rafe said, his eyes going wide.
Jake smiled and rested his hand on the side of Rafe’s face. “It doesn’t matter because the two of us are together. That’s our work. We came up with it together, and we can come up with another brilliant idea tomorrow if we have to.”
Rafe relaxed into a smile, then grabbed the sides of Jake’s head so he could plant a searing kiss on his lips. “We’re in this together,” he said.
It was exactly the kind of pep-talk the two of them needed. They checked out then left the hotel, retracing their steps from the night before as they headed up to Hélène’s studio. Paris was grey and dingey, which wasn’t what Jake had expected of the city of romance, but he still felt the love. Morning commuters mingled with street cleaners and rushed pedestrians crowded into boulangeries as they strode up the street, hand in hand.
They popped into one of the boulangeries for croissants and coffee right before reaching the Rue de Charenton, which made Jake even more paradoxically happy.
“Fuck me! Everything I’ve ever heard about croissants in Paris is dead accurate,” he said, his mouth full with his last bite, as they strolled with pretend casualness toward Hélène’s building. “That was amazing.”
“It’s the butter,” Rafe said, stuffing the paper his croissant had been wrapped in into his pocket and glancing around anxiously. “French butter is the best in the world.”
“I’ll say it is,” Jake said, keeping his voice deliberately relaxed.
They peeked through the chips in the blacked-out windows again, and when they were satisfied that Hélène wasn’t there yet, they turned and leaned against the wall, finishing their coffees and watching people hurry past on their way to work. There was a fair chance that Hélène wouldn’t show and that Janice had the wrong address, but if Rafe was willing to wait, then Jake would wait with him.
He would wait until the end of time if Rafe wanted him to. He owed Rafe more than he could say, and if it was the last thing he did, he would make everything up to him. Not just horizontally. He was already thinking of new projects and new glass collaborations they could experiment with once they got home.
Home. Hawthorne House was home. Jake couldn’t remember ever having a place that felt like home to him. Of course, claiming that home meant securing a visa, which was where the whole mess they were in started, but he’d worry about that problem later.
After waiting for an hour, just as Jake was ready to throw in the towel, Rafe suddenly stood straighter. Jake followed him, and when he glanced past Rafe down the road, he caught his breath at the sight of Hélène walking quickly toward them.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded when she was close enough to hiss the words.
“Just paying a visit,” Rafe said with a triumphant smile.
Jake caught his courage and took it further with, “We just thought we’d hop down here to Paris to take a look at this new collection you posted about yesterday. It looks like a fabulous new technique that’s sure to take the glass world by storm.”
Hélène stared at them, her lips pressed together so tightly that it made all the wrinkles around her mouth stand out. “Go away,” she said. “I have nothing to say to you.”
She pushed past Rafe to unlock the door and rushed inside. She tried to slam the door on them, but Rafe moved fast and wedged half his body into the space to stop her.
“If you do not go away, I will call the police,” she said. “I will tell them you have assaulted me.”
“We’re both gay,” Rafe said, muscling the door open all the way, but staying in the doorway as Hélène moved deeper into her studio. “It’s well known that both of us are gay. You can try to accuse us of something, but it won’t stick.”
“Non?” Hélène asked, like she was daring them to try. “The tide of public opinion has turned against men who take advantage of women.”
“Has it turned against thieves who steal intellectual property from their fellow artists?” Jake asked, stepping past Rafe and into the hot shop.
Rafe closed the door and he and Jake followed Hélène to the far end of the shop as she peeled out of the long, lightweight coat she’d been wearing. She threw it over a battered cabinet, then turned to face them.
“No one will believe you if you accuse me of anything,” she said, planting her hands on her hips and tilting her chin up.
Jake could already see which way the wind was blowing. As Rafe stepped closer to her, taking her attention, he pulled out his phone and tapped until he was recording their conversation, then subtly put his phone on a nearby table, then immediately moved away from it.
“What?” he asked, drawing Hélène’s attention. “Say that again?”
Hélène laughed. “No one will believe two pitiful men like you if you accuse me of stealing your ideas. Ideas?” She laughed. “When I visited your studio I saw nothing but amateurish rubbish barely worthy of a gift shop.”
Jake ignored her jab, but Rafe tensed. Hélène had hit a nerve. Rafe didn’t have enough confidence in himself, and if they weren’t careful, Hélène would take advantage of that.
“Rafe is one of the most brilliant glass artists of our generation,” Jake defended him, stepping closer to Hélène. You knew that from the start. You recognized his name when we ran into you in London last week. You were familiar with his work, and you knew that if you could pass it off as your own, you’d be celebrated.”
“This is ridiculous. I do not need to copy some lesser artist’s work to pass it off as my own. I am Hélène Rénard,” she said with almost comical flare.
Jake smiled. Flare was a product of insecurity. He knew intimately that the bigger the lie, the stronger the bravado had to be.
“It doesn’t matter who you are,” he said. “Stealing is stealing. Admit it. You asked Rafe to demonstrate the technique for our English countryside pieces so that you could replicate it here in your hot shop and take all the credit.” If he could get Hélène to admit to what she’d done while he was recording the conversation they would have what they needed to expose her to the art world.
“I would never do such a thing,” Hélène insisted.
“Really?” Rafe said, crossing his arms. “Is that what you told Todd Renfield? Or all the other young artists whose ideas you stole?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Hélène said in a stiff voice. Her face flushed deeply, proving that she did know, but the recording wouldn’t capture that.
“What about Tabatha Waite?” Jake took a wild stab in the dark. “Did you steal her work, too?”
Honestly, he had no idea if Hélène knew who Tabatha was. Jake had worked with her in Los Angeles. Tabatha’s work had been extraordinary, but she’d suddenly given up glassblowing entirely right around the time Hélène had presented a new show at a gallery in Lisbon.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” Hélène said, her eyes wide and defensive, hinting that Jake had guessed right. “I do not know who you are at all. You are a nobody, a nothing, who does not have a single shred of talent.”
“No talent?” Rafe said, grinning like they’d already won the point, which Jake felt they were far from doing. “Then what’s this?”
Jake had been watching Hélène like a hawk. He hadn’t seen Rafe move to the side of the room, to a large shelving unit that held all sorts of random but gorgeous pieces of glass. Jake wasn’t sure what he was up to until he reached behind a spikey swirl to bring out the English countryside plate that Hélène had stolen from them.
“Non!” Hélène shouted, moving forward. “Do not touch that! Everything on this shelf is mine, my work.”
“I remember making this,” Rafe told her. “I remember every bit of it, including the flaw on the back that happened when Jake took it out of the annealer.”
Jake’s heart raced. He strode over to join Rafe and Hélène at the shelf, grabbing his phone along the way. He immediately stopped the vocal-only recording and switched to taking a video, not trying to hide what he was doing.
Hélène was too busy trying to grab the plate from Rafe to notice. “Give that back,” she said. “That is mine. I made it.”
“Really?” Rafe asked. “Then tell me where the flaw is.”
“It is…you cannot…there is no flaw,” she said, her breathing shallow and panicky.
Rafe turned to Jake and presented the plate to the camera. “It’s right here,” he said, pointing to the work as Jake recorded.
Suddenly, Hélène realized what was going on. “Give me that!” she said, trying to reach for Jake’s phone. “I do not allow photographic equipment in my studio.”
Plenty of artists didn’t allow their work to be photographed, but that definitely wasn’t Hélène’s reason for trying to snatch Jake’s phone.
“How much of this is stolen work?” Jake asked, turning his phone to the shelves and getting as close as he could with Hélène trying to snatch at him so that he could record as much of the work as possible. “Who here recognizes this work?” he asked as if he were doing a live video. “Does anyone else see work that Hélène Rénard stole from them?”
“No, please, no!” Hélène shouted, bursting into tears.
They had her. Jake knew the moment she started crying. Whether it was real or fake, they’d managed to corner Hélène exactly as they needed to.
“Please,” she said, hiding her face in her hands. “I will remove the post about your work. I will say it was a mistake, that I photographed the wrong things, posted the wrong photo. I will post another saying that the work belongs to the two of you. Please.”
Jake could have jumped up and down in triumph. They had her. Not only would she admit the work wasn’t hers, she would be cornered into launching him and Rafe into the upper circles of the art world.
“You’ll do all those things,” Rafe said, gesturing for Jake to turn off the recording.
Puzzled and a little wary of cutting off the recording right when they could have convinced Hélène to confess to a lot more, Jake did what Rafe asked and lowered his phone. He nodded so Rafe would know it wasn’t recording anymore.
“You’ll do all those things,” Rafe repeated to the still-crying Hélène, though her tears seemed more for show, like she was trying to soften their hearts, “and you’ll do something else for Jake.”
Both Jake and Hélène glanced at him in confusion. Rafe sent Jake a look that begged for his trust, then turned back to Hélène.
“Jake wants to move to the UK,” he said. “He wants to set up permanent residency there and apply for a British passport as soon as he’s able. The best way for him to do that is through a Global Talent visa.”
Jake’s eyebrows shot up. The best way for him to do that was through a fiancé, then a spouse visa.
“But in order to apply for the Global Talent visa he needs three letters of recommendation from leaders in his field,” Rafe went on.
“Yes, yes,” Hélène said, eyes bright. “I will write him a recommendation. I will be passionate and convince them to grant the visa.”
“He needs at least two of those letters to be from British artists,” Rafe went on. “I know you have contacts in high places.”
“I do,” Hélène said, frantic with the hope that she could save herself. “I know…I know Liam Reeves, Graham Muir, Angela Jarman, and more. I will contact them immediately to recommend you. They, too, will write glowing letters for you. Please.” The last plea was directed toward Rafe.
Rafe glanced at Jake. “You’ll have everything you’ve wanted and you won’t have to marry me to get it.”
Instead of being thrilled and relieved, Jake’s heart dropped. If Hélène remained true to her word, which was still anyone’s guess, since liars rarely followed through on their promises, he’d be able to secure a much safer visa than his original plan. On top of that, Rafe wouldn’t have to put himself in danger.
Maybe Rafe didn’t really want to marry him after all. It was entirely possible that he’d hatched this plan for Hélène to be the key to him getting a Global Talent visa from the start. Not only would Rafe get the worldwide recognition he deserved for his art, he could remain a free man. Steve could come back into the picture along with as many other men as Rafe was interested in.
It didn’t feel like Jake was getting what he wanted at all, even though he was.
“Well?” he asked Hélène, pushing his hurt to the back of his mind and focusing on the important things in front of them. “Will you do it? Will you post saying you made a mistake and giving Rafe credit for the English countryside glass, and will you help me with my visa?”
“Yes, yes!” Hélène shouted. “Delete the video and I will help.”
Rafe laughed. “We won’t be deleting anything until after you’ve posted your retraction and Jake has the letters of recommendation in his hands.”
Hélène made a sound of frustration, but it was clear she knew she was beaten. “Alright,” she said, switching from defeat to bitterness. “I will do this thing. But if you go back on your word, I will make certain that neither of you is ever taken seriously ever again.”
Rafe glanced at Jake, victory in his eyes and in his smile. He was gorgeous when he was fighting for what was right. Jake only wished that he could feel truly a part of the victory. It wasn’t a real triumph unless he and Rafe were together. He nodded back to Rafe anyhow.
“Good,” Rafe said, facing Hélène again. “Now why don’t you give us a little tour of all the work in your studio just like we did for you? I think it would definitely be in everyone’s best interest if we knew where all of these brilliant ideas came from.”
Hélène glared at Rafe so intensely that Jake was surprised he didn’t burst into flames then and there. He had the right idea, though. They weren’t the only people who had been affected by Hélène’s lies. The others deserved a right to defend themselves, too.
But as they pored over the shelves, photographing every piece as Hélène tried to make excuses and defend herself, the upper echelons of the art world didn’t seem all that appealing to Jake. The only art he wanted to make might be sold at Hawthorne House’s Renaissance Faire or online in a pedestrian craft store, and the only renown he cared about was for Rafe to want him.