Seventeen
Amelia
It takes us the rest of the day to catalog all the art, and we’re well into the evening before every piece has been checked, signed for, and moved in. The Crozier guys agree to return tomorrow to help install it.
Before the insurers close, I take a copy of the manifest to my office, doing my best to put an appraisal together.
I’m used to dealing with the likes of Amiento and Quek, artists whose pieces sell for five to ten thousand, not art at this level.
Twenty pieces, and my estimates put it somewhere between one and one-point-five million.
The insurance alone is as much as my monthly rent. But at these prices, I’ll more than cover all my costs by selling just one of these pieces at the exhibition.
This Bastien Fournier has been amazingly generous. Did Van Wyk blackmail him or chop off his finger? Who the hell agrees to sixty percent commission?
I have to know who he is, who I’m accepting all this art from, and I pull up a browser, typing his name into the search.
He’s a frigging billionaire, and the owner of a company called Cadrion Holdings, which owns three others: Apex Advanced, a tech company; Sentinel Risk, a security company; and Northbridge Capital.
The company behind the gala.
Van Wyk talking to Serranto, then telling me he was security for Northbridge. Threatening me with a corporate espionage suit.
I’d thought it was a bluff, but with that pull, he probably could’ve done it.
And now, in the space of two days, he’s fixed all my problems, massively boosted the reputation of my gallery, and potentially made me a hell of a lot of money along the way.
I hate that I have to accept anything from him, but not so much that I can bring myself to turn it down. It’s not just Sierra’s job and my gallery, my parents’ belief in me, my dreams. It’s the art we’ve already unpacked. It calls to me. It’s beautiful. It’s stunning.
By the time we call it a day, it’s late and I’m exhausted, but it’s a good kind of tired.
There’s now hope where there wasn’t any, and a collection of art that has me drooling.
Whoever chose it from Fournier’s collection has impeccable taste.
It goes together so easily, sculptures and wall work both, that I can’t wait to get back in the morning and lay it all out.
The exhibition is going to blow their minds.
I can’t wait for Serranto to read Jordan Fletcher’s review in Time Out. Assuming Van Wyk stopped at a finger and didn’t cut off something more… necessary.
Shit, did he? Do I even want to think about that?
Has that monster killed a man, and if he has, is it on me?
I didn’t want him dead, I wanted him gone. Yet, if he is… Lucy is free. I’m free. The world is a fractionally better place.
The more I think about it, the less bothered I am. Is that wrong?
Apparently not, because I’m hungry. I stop at a grocery store and get enough for dinner tonight, along with a bottle of wine. There’s so much to do tomorrow that I can’t afford to drink all of it, but I sure as hell need a glass. Or two.
Reaching my apartment door, I juggle the bag in one arm, fishing out my keys with the other. It’s a graceful dance, one I’m used to. Door open with foot. Bag pressed to the wall. Light switch flicked. Door closed.
“Good evening. How was your day?”
I spin in shock, the bag falling, paper tearing, contents spilling out. Van Wyk is sitting on the couch, in what was the fucking dark, inside my apartment despite the high-end premium locks I chose at a three-hundred-dollar same-day weekend installation charge.
He stands up. “Don’t worry, I’ll get that. My fault for surprising you.”
I can only look on, gaping, as he walks toward me. Black slacks, black long-sleeved shirt that hugs his toned frame. Moving like the panther he is.
Adrenaline kicks in and I step to the dresser, pulling open the drawer, grabbing my gun. Van Wyk doesn’t seem bothered when I point it at him in the double-handed grip Lucy taught me. He simply bends, picking up the torn bag with most of the contents, then collecting the rest.
“Salmon, mushrooms, pasta… the wine is fine. Shaken, but not stirred.” He quirks an eyebrow at me. “I’ll cook this. Give me half an hour. Why don’t you take a bath?”
I jab the gun forward. “Get out, goddammit. Get out of my apartment, or I swear to God, I’ll shoot you.”
“Were you thinking of baking the salmon or flaking it into a sauce?” He walks back into my kitchen, completely ignoring me.
“Last chance, Van Wyk. I mean it.”
“Call me Lukas,” he says, unpacking the contents onto the counter. “Ah, there’s cream. A sauce, then?”
I take a pace forward, flicking off the safety. The click is loud; he can’t have missed it. “It’s perfectly legal to shoot you as an intruder in my house.”
“With a gun you don’t have a license for?”
How could he possibly know that?
“I don’t think that’s what the authorities would focus on,” I grind out. “Do you want a bullet in the fucking leg?”
He makes a half turn, looking back at me. At me, not the gun, like the weapon I’m pointing at him has no effect whatsoever. “You’ve had a long day. Go and run a bath. I’ll let you know when it’s ready. Shall I bring you a glass of wine?”
“I’m not taking a goddamn bath.” I blink, shaking my head. Why am I even entertaining a conversation with him? “Count of three. One.”
“You can take a bath, or I can cuff you to the taps and wash you myself.”
“Two,” I say through clenched teeth.
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that what you’d prefer?”
“Three.” I brace myself, aim carefully, then pull the trigger.
The click is a hell of a lot louder than the safety was, but there’s no gunshot. Of course, the chamber is empty. Lucy’s best-practice. I’m half in relief, half in disappointment. I don’t want to shoot anyone, even him, but I worked myself up to it, and now there’s nothing.
“Amelia,” Van Wyk says, the tone carrying warning. “Don’t try my patience.”
Fuck this guy.
I aim again, readying myself, and shoot him in the leg.
Except I don’t. The weapon clicks again. And again, when I pull the trigger for a third time.
Empty. It’s fucking empty.
I know I left it loaded. I know I did.
“That’s earned you a punishment for later,” he says, turning back to the food on the counter.
I open the dresser drawer, taking out the box of 9mm rounds. It’s empty.
“Where the hell did you put my bullets?”
“Don’t worry about it. Get in the bath. Go and relax.”
“Relax?” I echo, my voice high and tight. He’s insane. He’s absolutely fucking insane. “You want me to… how the hell do you… Relax?”
“Yes. Do that. This wine isn’t quite cold. Would you like an ice cube?”
“An ice cube?” I can only stare in disbelief at his broad back, that damn shirt stretching across his shoulders. He’s not even looking at me.
“Yes. You can’t drink a Sauvignon that isn’t chilled.”
“No, of course not,” I say scathingly, like we’re in some upscale restaurant somewhere and he’s the fucking sommelier. Not a man who has, yet again, invaded my home without consent, and is in the process of cooking me dinner.
I don’t understand what’s happened to my life. This is past surreal. This is… a nightmarish hallucination. It has to be.
He’s chopping an onion so damn fast that the knife makes a sharp staccato on the board. Is he a chef? Is that why he knows his way around knives?
No… he’s security.
“Are you still there, Amelia?” he asks without looking around. “If I don’t hear that bath running in ten seconds, then I’ll have to assume you want me to do it for you. Then dinner will be delayed.”
I swallow hard. He threatened to cuff me to the taps and wash me himself. I know him well enough to know that’s exactly what he’ll do. He doesn’t say things without follow-through.
The one promise he’s made that he hasn’t kept was keeping Serranto away. And now there’s a severed finger in the dumpster halfway down the alley behind my gallery.
“Five seconds,” he prompts.
“I’ll take a bath,” I reply, my chin up even though he can’t see. “But I’m doing it because I want to, not because you’ve asked so nicely.”
I glare at his back even as I walk through into my bathroom, turning on the taps and scowling at the mirror.
At least I’m alone in here.
That man. He has to be the most aggravating creature I’ve ever met. How does he get off, ordering me around in my own damn apartment? Walking in here—being in here before I’ve even gotten home. How does he do that?
Premium-grade locks my ass. Five hundred bucks I’ll never see again.
I dump half a bottle of bath foam in the water, the bubbles rising up like a jasmine-scented volcanic eruption. There’s no lock on the door. He’s going to walk in here with a glass of Sauvignon, and I’m going to be covered even if it’s with suds.
Stripping off my clothes, I climb in with a sigh. The hot water is a comfort I need after the day I’ve had. If Van Wyk wasn’t in my apartment, I’d take a book in here and probably fall asleep. It’s soothing, but I can’t relax, not with him in my apartment.
I’m too angry, anyway. How dare that man?
The door opens without warning of his footsteps, he moves so silently. There’s a glass of wine in his hand, a single cube of ice floating within.
“Can I get you anything else?” he asks as he sets it down on the shelf beside the bath.
“Some alone time for the next… fifty years.”
“Cute.” He reaches over and boops my nose, so damn fast that I jerk away only after he’s done it. “Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes, unless you’d like longer?”
“That’ll be fine,” I mutter. I don’t want to linger in here anyway.
He leaves me in peace, except how can it be peace when he’s still here?
And I know what won’t happen. We’ll have dinner—no doubt that’ll be as awkward as hell—and then he won’t leave. He’ll be here, I’ll be here. Is he going to sleep on the couch? Is he going to forget the punishment I apparently earned by trying to shoot him with my empty gun?
No to both questions.
Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have tried to shoot him. No—maybe I should’ve hidden the gun better, so he couldn’t find it. Or checked it had goddamn bullets in it. In hindsight, it was a little light, but it’s not like I’ve held one all that often. Still felt pretty damn heavy to me.
I glance at my pile of clothing, my phone in there somewhere. I could call the police.
And say what? That a man has broken into my apartment (without any damage), stolen all the bullets to my illegal gun, and could they please come quickly, because I want to eat the seafood pasta he made all by myself?
Jesus. There’s no defense. None whatsoever.
Maybe I could try saying ‘no.’ Maybe I could say I’m tired. Maybe I could say I don’t want to be fucked. Or punished.
Maybe he’ll listen. Somehow, I doubt it.
For some strange reason, I’m halfway through using my razor before I realize what I’m doing. My thoughts were elsewhere, and I’m working on automatic. That’s the reason, I tell myself. It’s not that I want to be smooth for him. It’s that I…
Shit, I don’t even know anymore. He saved my gallery. He got Serranto off my back. He lay in bed with me, talked about his wife, stroked me to sleep.
He’s cooking me dinner, right now, smells filling the air with hints of chili and lemon.
I finish with my razor—for me, not for him—and throw it into the sink. It bounces on the lip, ricocheting onto the floor. Typical.
I’m so done with today.
Except I’m not. I still have to deal with him.
I pull myself out of the bath, not caring how the water sloshes, and towel myself off. Pick up the razor and set it carefully on the side. Eye my clothes. They’re all dirty. My silk bathrobe is on the back of the door, the one he pulled off me on his first visit here.
What I really need is a suit of armor, but I don’t have one of those. Or maybe a lockable chastity belt. But then he’d have no compunction about using my mouth.
Damn it. Now I’m thinking about sucking him. Done that already.
And now I’m aroused. I hate that I’m aroused. I’m standing here, naked and smooth and wet, and the son of a bitch is turning me on merely through anticipation. Why can’t I resist him? Why won’t he take no as an answer?
Angrily, I pull on my robe.
This is worse than when we met at the gala, or the first night he came here. Because now, after all this, after what I know of him, after what he’s done… now, part of me actually likes him.
That’s the admission that hurts the most.
But I like that he cared enough to save my gallery. He didn’t need to do that. I like that he’s in there, cooking right now. He doesn’t need to do that, either. He could’ve just barged in here, bent me over the arm of the sofa…
…Not a thought I need right now.
I like that he’s dealt with Serranto, though I need to ask him what he’s done. I need to know if Serranto will come for his revenge, or target Lucy.
And if I’m honest, I like that he stayed with me the other night, didn’t force himself on me, talked to me and held me until I fell asleep. I like the way he moves, I like his body. I even like his civility and his ever so dry sense of humor.
Now that I think of it, I can’t remember ever seeing him smile. The odd sadistic chuckle, but no smiles.
Is that because his wife died? Is he happy?
Damn it. Now I want to make him smile. What the hell is the matter with me?
“Dinner’s ready, Little Stray,” he calls from the kitchen. “I’m plating up in one minute.”
Little Stray. Because I wandered in somewhere I shouldn’t, and he claimed me.
He keeps calling me his. Is that what I am?
I tie my belt tightly around my robe, and go to face down the man I can’t seem to escape.