Chapter 6
BABS
I arrive early. As I always do. It’s the only way to enter these events without flashing bulbs and shrieking first names from men I’ve never met holding cameras I’ve learned to ignore.
The gallery doors haven’t opened yet, but the valet is already stationed out front.
He straightens as I pull up in my coupe, recognition flickering in his eyes.
Not because of me, necessarily, but because of what I represent.
Money.
Donor money.
I step out before he can reach the handle.
“Ms. Barrett.” He nods, almost reverent. “Welcome.”
“Thank you.”
I hand him the keys and reach for my clutch.
The dress I’ve chosen hugs me like a second skin.
Black silk, sculpted bodice, low open back that dips to the base of my spine.
The neckline is sharp and angular. No necklace.
Just a pair of black diamond drop earrings that caress my skin and make me feel sexy.
A single vintage matching cuff bracelet winds around my wrist, feeling more like armor than jewelry.
My hair is swept into a loose chignon. Not severe. Not soft. Just precise. Everything is deliberate. It has to be.
Eventually, I’ll be in front of the cameras, certainly for the ceremony, and need to look my best. Rarely do I take a bad photograph, thanks in part to my fabulous stylist, my own sense of couture, and a stunning jewelry collection that rivals most museums. The curator meets me just inside the entrance.
“Babs. You look fab.”
“Like a woman funding your entire three-floor gallery opening?” I cut in, just enough ice to remind him where he stands.
Gallery owners can be equally finicky and flighty as the artist they represent. However, Anton has a reputation for being more business-minded than showy. A trait I respect, as I’m hoping for a sizable return on my investment.
He laughs, flustered. “Exactly like that.”
I offer a polite smile, nothing more.
“I’d like a few minutes alone in the main space before the crowd arrives, Anton.”
“Of course.”
He disappears with a string of apologies. I’m left standing in the atrium, the click of my heels echoing against polished stone as I make my way into the gallery proper. The exhibit is quiet and loud. Bright lights and blank faces.
Canvas after canvas lined in soft gold light. Abstract. Modern. Emotional. Everyone will pretend to understand them later. They’ll use words like moving and inspiring while sipping overpoured champagne and gasping at the various works.
I stand in front of one. A burst of color knifed through with angry brushstrokes. The artist’s statement claims it represents a woman split by expectation. I smile at the irony. Relating more to the statement than the work itself.
Modern works are a whimsical project of interest. My home is lined with Picassos, Giacomettis, and the kind of haunting portraits that don’t ask to be understood, just obeyed.
This kind of art would never hold its own beside their brilliance or jaw-dropping price tags.
Which is why I fund it here, where I’m allowed to play.
To indulge in the lighter, more reckless side of taste.
Behind me, I hear the first sound of camera shutters outside. The vultures are circling, ready to splash my guests’ names in the papers. It’s what they count on. What I count on to reap the rewards of my labor.
I glance at the piece again, knowing what they’ll all say.
That’s brilliant. It speaks to them. It’s brave.
None of them knows what brave looks like.
Not really. Brave is walking into a room full of people who expect you to smile like your ex-husband didn’t humiliate you publicly.
Brave is showing up anyway. Brave is sipping champagne, smile plastered to my face, pretending I’m bulletproof.
Brave is texting a boy far too young, and knowing part of you meant it. And brave is standing here, in the quiet, waiting to see if he shows up.
Waiting to see if he still looks at you like he did on the court and later in the parking lot. Brave is entertaining the idea of having a younger plaything, as my ex does. The hypocrisy is not lost on me.
“Babs, are you ready?”
Anton appears to my right, his hand hovering in the air between us, wanting to touch and refraining.
Before I can answer, he snaps his fingers.
A server with a trayful of champagne is beside us in a flash.
Anton plucks two with theatrical flair, already handing me one like we’re about to toast the closing bell at Sotheby’s.
“To legacy,” he says, raising his glass to clink the edge of mine. “Yours in name. Mine in curation. And the art that will outlast us both.”
The server shifts beside us, still holding the tray like he doesn’t know whether to stay. Anton waves him off with the flick of a hand.
“That’ll be all, thank you.”
Then he turns back to me, glass still poised, already basking in the glow of his cleverness.
My lips brush the rim, but I’m not drinking.
A move I mastered years ago to keep a level head at charity events.
Never letting the alcohol flow so continuously as to lose my faculties, as many in upper society do.
“Legacy,” I echo, voice smooth as the champagne I don’t bother tasting.
Anton smiles like I’ve validated something important. He always does this, offers statements dressed as compliments, assuming I’ll applaud the cleverness.
I don't.
He glances around the room like he owns the air inside it.
“I thought you might like the placement of your name near the entrance. Visibility without vulgarity.”
“How considerate.”
“I am, aren’t I?” He sips, pleased with himself. “I did warn them you prefer discretion. That’s what makes you so enduring in this city. You know how to leave just enough mystery behind.”
He means it as a compliment. I take it as a caution. His gaze slides to the far end of the gallery.
“And just in time, the crowd begins.”
I follow his line of sight without moving my head. The doors are opening. The invited guests are spilling in. A pair of society wives is fluttering in, wearing jewels loud enough to signal their arrival. Behind them, moving slowly and entirely unaffected, is Hollister.
My breath catches before I can stop it.
He’s in a black suit, collar open, sandy blonde hair tamed but not styled, as if he got halfway ready and dared someone to call it unfinished.
There is an air about him. Walking with purpose like someone who doesn’t need to be announced.
In all fairness, he doesn’t. Everyone in this town knows him.
Know of the Harrington name and legacy wealth.
His eyes scan the room once, and even though he doesn’t look at me.
I feel it.
The pressure of it. The knowing and remembering.
I set my glass down, untouched. Anton doesn’t notice.
He’s too busy nodding to a passing donor, already preparing his next soundbite for the press.
I watch the shift in Hollister’s stance when he finally spots me.
Slight and controlled, just a tilt of the head and a flare of tension behind his jaw.
No smile, not yet, but he’s coming over.
Every part of me, every trained muscle of restraint, begins to vibrate with desire.
I shouldn’t feel this way about him. Yet it’s undeniable. The more he’s orbiting my world, the more he consumes my thoughts. The last couple of days, since our match at the club, he’s been present, more than I’d care to admit.
Catching my thoughts drifting toward him and rereading the text messages we’ve exchanged. Since the match, true to his word, he’s left me alone. Given me space, which I needed and despised at the same time.
What I didn’t count on is how he makes me feel young again.
Alive. A second chance at youth, not saddled with raising a baby and figuring out how to be a wife and mother.
Not that I regret my family. I don’t. Yet, part of me has always yearned to have a redo.
Where I lived a life for me, before I lived a life for everyone else.
It’s an unspoken regret. Words that will never be uttered past my lips.
But deep down, the resentment is there. Surprisingly, Hollister Morgan Harrington III, with his blue flame gaze and ruinously cocky smile, is chipping away at it.
Daring me to live outside the life I have.
Think of possibilities that could exist beyond charity tennis matches, charity galas, and lunching at the club with the ladies.
“Good evening, Ms. Barrett.”
His voice slides in low. Confident and intentional. It is perfectly timed and close enough that I feel the reverberation in my body.
“Ah, Mr. Harrington!”
Anton swoops in before I get a chance to respond. Making fast apologies to the small, less wealthy donor to swoop in on a whale of an art investor.
“Anton Prathmore. I’m the curator of the gallery. Welcome.”
His voice pitches up as if he’s spotted royalty.
It’s only a matter of time before he signals a photographer to take their picture together.
I hardly blame him. Any Harrington in the society pages attending an event is good for business.
I would want the same if I weren’t already preoccupied with wanting the source, Hollister himself.
He doesn’t flinch when shaking hands, so trained for moments like these that reflect instinct.
Yet his gaze remains on me, dragging down from my face and sliding over my body with such intensity and heat that I raise my hand to my necklace, forgetting I’m not wearing one.
The action doesn’t go unnoticed under his scrutiny, and the corner of his mouth lifts slightly. Knowingly.
“What a surprise! I had no idea you were coming, or I would have had the guest list—”