4. Cassian
CASSIAN
Jordan stands in my office doorway with his tablet, rattling off tomorrow's schedule like he's reading a grocery list. "Nine AM with legal, ten-thirty with the design team, lunch with the VP of European operations?—"
"Cancel lunch."
He blinks. "Sir?"
"Reschedule. Push everything after eleven."
"May I ask why?"
"Research."
His expression suggests he wants to ask more but knows better. Jordan's worked for me long enough to recognize when a conversation is over. He makes a note on his tablet and disappears back into the hallway.
I pull up the Arts & Culture Daily newsletter again. Read it for the fifth time since last night, making sure I didn't hallucinate her name into existence.
Amara Campbell. Lead artist. Sapphire Studios.
The words sit there, black text on white screen, refusing to be anything other than real.
I close the email and open a browser. Type her name into the search bar.
The results load slowly, like the internet itself is hesitating. Then they flood the screen.
Gallery listings. Exhibition history. A profile piece from Artforum three years ago about an emerging artist working under the name A.C.
Monroe—abstract work exploring memory and erasure.
There's a photo. The image quality is mediocre, shot at some warehouse show in London, but I'd recognize her anywhere.
Same curly hair, same dark skin, same expression of someone who sees through every surface to the truth underneath.
She's been working. All this time, she's been out there creating, exhibiting, building a career under a name I never thought to research.
I click through to her portfolio. The website is clean, professional, and password-protected for most of the content. But the public gallery has enough.
Abstract pieces, oil on canvas. Vivid reds bleeding into earth tones, negative space carved out like wounds.
There's violence in the work. Controlled chaos, barely contained emotion rendered in texture and color.
I remember the paintings she made in college—beautiful, technically perfect, but safe.
These are different. These come from somewhere darker.
One piece stops me cold. Untitled, oil and mixed media, dated two years ago.
A figure dissolving at the edges, half-present and half-erased, surrounded by fragments that might be memories or might be debris.
The color palette is bruising—deep purples, muted golds, that dark shade of red that looks like old blood.
I stare at it until my eyes water.
This is what she's been doing. While I've been running Black Lake, sitting through pointless galas, letting Raylin orbit my life like a satellite that won't deorbit, Amara's been creating work that matters. Work that cuts.
I swallow thickly and close the browser.
The photograph in my wallet calls to me. I've looked at it so many times the edges are soft, the image fading in places where my fingers have worn away the finish. But I pull it out, anyway and study her face as if I might find answers in the pixels.
Where did you go?
Why did you leave?
And why the hell are you coming back now?
The office feels smaller suddenly. Fifty floors up, glass walls overlooking Manhattan, and I can't breathe properly. I pocket the photo and grab my jacket.
"Jordan," I call on my way to the elevator. "I'm out for the rest of the day."
"But the design meeting?—"
"You handle it. Send me notes."
The elevator doors close on his protests. I ride down in silence, watching floor numbers descend.
Sapphire Studios is in Tribeca. Twenty minutes by car, less if traffic cooperates. I could go there right now. Walk in, ask to see Katheryn Caldwell, find out when Amara's arriving, ambush her the moment she walks through the door.
But that's insane. Stalker behavior. The actions of someone who hasn't processed six years of silence like a rational adult.
Instead I go home.
The penthouse is quiet. Huge windows, furniture I barely remember buying, a kitchen I never cook in. I pour two fingers of scotch and stand at the window, watching the city move below.
I wonder if she knows I've been looking for her. If she vanished on purpose, if she's been hiding, if coming back now means she's finally ready to face whatever sent her running.
Or if she has no idea I'm still here. Still thinking about her. Still carrying her photograph like some kind of pathetic talisman against the possibility that she never existed at all.
My phone buzzes. A text from Raylin.
"Dinner tomorrow? There's a new place in SoHo everyone's talking about."
I don't respond. She'll take silence as maybe, will keep pushing until I give her a hard no, and even then she'll find ways to reframe it as temporary reluctance instead of permanent disinterest.
Raylin wants what she's always wanted. Marriage, security, the social validation of being Mrs. Griffin. She doesn't see me. She sees the empire, the name, the life she thinks she's entitled to because we've known each other since childhood.
I've never loved her. Never even liked her particularly. But she's persistent, and persistence wears people down if they're not careful.
Another text arrives. This one from James.
"Hudson gala was productive. Got three solid artist contacts for you. Want me to set up meetings?"
I type back quickly. "Hold off. I've got a lead I'm following first."
"Anything I should know about?"
"Not yet."
I pocket the phone and finish the scotch.
Amara's work is brutal. Gorgeous and brutal and exactly what my father wants when he says disruptive. She doesn't make art to decorate living rooms or match sofas. She makes art that demands something from you, that refuses to let you look away.
Black Lake could use that. A collaboration with her would be magnetic—fashion meeting fine art, commerce meeting culture. The press would lose their minds. The designs would sell themselves.
But that's not why I'm going to find her.
I'm going to find her because I've spent six years wondering what I did wrong. Six years replaying our last conversation, searching for the moment I missed, the thing I said or didn't say that made her vanish. All these years of carrying this ache like a bruise that never heals.
And now she's coming back.
I open my laptop and pull up the Sapphire Studios website. There's an events page listing upcoming exhibitions. Hers isn't scheduled yet, but there's a note about a private preview gala soon—invitation only, donors and collectors and industry insiders.
I can get an invitation. Money opens doors, and I've got enough of it to open any door I want.
I close the laptop and walk back to the window.
The sun's setting, painting the Hudson gold and orange. The city glows. I press one hand against the glass and think about her—dark curls catching light, paint on her hands, that laugh I haven't heard in years but can still summon perfectly from memory.
Amara in a college courtyard, arguing with me about some pretentious art theory I'd half-understood from an elective I took to fill credits.
She'd called me out, gently but thoroughly, and I'd fallen for her right there.
Not because she was beautiful, though she was.
Because she was real. Because she didn't care about my name or my money or the empire I'd inherit.
She cared about the work, about making things that mattered, and she expected everyone around her to care just as much.
We were together for eight months. Best eight months of my life. Then she disappeared, and I've been trying to figure out what the hell happened ever since.
The photograph is still in my pocket. I pull it out one more time.
Her smile, halfway to a laugh. Paint-stained shirt, wild hair, eyes that saw through everything.
"Where did you go?" I ask the empty room.
The photograph doesn't answer. It never does.
But soon, Amara will.
And this time, I'm not letting her disappear.