27. Amara
AMARA
The gallery space hums with controlled chaos.
Sapphire Studios has been transformed for tonight's exhibition—my exhibition—and I can barely recognize the space I've been working in for months.
Track lighting casts precise beams across white walls where my pieces hang, each one positioned with the care usually reserved for museum installations.
The air smells like fresh paint and lilies from the arrangements Katheryn insisted on placing near the entrance.
My stomach churns.
"Breathe," Katheryn says from beside me. She's in burgundy silk, hair swept up, looking every inch the art world power player she is. "You're about to have the night of your life."
"Or I'm about to vomit on very expensive shoes."
"Please don't. I just had these resoled."
I smooth my dress for the hundredth time. Black, simple, fitted enough to look intentional but not so tight I can't move. My natural hair is pulled back, silver hoops in my ears. Paint still faintly visible under my nails despite scrubbing.
The centerpiece dominates the main wall.
My peony installation—three-dimensional mixed media built from the white peonies Cassian sent me a long time ago, the ones I tried to throw away.
Petals preserved in resin, layered with acrylic and oil paint, creating depth that shifts depending on where you stand.
The piece is called Preserved. Katheryn said it was too on-the-nose. I told her that was the point.
"Two minutes until doors open," someone calls from the entrance.
Cassian's coming. I know because he texted this morning. "See you tonight."
The doors open. People flood in—collectors, critics, other artists, socialites who treat gallery openings like performance art themselves.
Faces I recognize from press photos, names I've only read in magazines.
They move through the space with wine glasses and judgmental eyes, studying my work with expressions ranging from genuine interest to polite confusion.
Katheryn steers me toward a cluster of collectors near the installation. Introductions blur together. Handshakes, compliments that feel too effusive to be real, questions about technique and inspiration that I answer on autopilot while part of my brain scans the crowd.
He's not here yet.
An older woman with white hair and statement jewelry stops in front of Preserved. She stares at it for a long time, head tilted, wine glass forgotten in her hand.
"It's devastating," she says finally.
I freeze. "Sorry?"
"The piece. It's devastating in the best way." She turns to look at me. "You're the artist?"
"Yes."
"The flowers are real?"
"They were. Now they're immortalized."
"Trapped," she corrects gently. "Beautiful but trapped. That's the tension, isn't it? Between preservation and suffocation?"
My throat tightens. "Something like that."
She nods, satisfied, moves on to the next piece. Katheryn catches my eye across the room, raises her glass slightly. You're doing great, the gesture says.
More people filter through. A journalist from Artforum asks about my time in Barcelona. A gallery owner from Chelsea wants to know if I'm taking on commissions. Someone's assistant hands me a business card and says their boss is very interested in discussing future collaborations.
The noise builds—conversations layering over each other, laughter, the clink of glasses, shoes on polished concrete. My work surrounds me on all sides, pieces I created over months of fear and fury and stubborn hope that maybe this would work, maybe I could build something here that mattered.
Then I see him.
Cassian stands near the entrance with June's hand in his. She's in a navy dress with white flowers, hair gathered in two puffs, face lit up as she takes in the gallery. He's in a dark suit that probably costs more than my rent, hair styled, the bruises from the accident finally faded.
My heart stops and restarts in the space of a breath.
June spots me first. She waves with her whole arm, too excited to remember gallery etiquette. Cassian says something to her that makes her nod seriously before they start moving through the crowd.
"Mama!" She reaches me first, throws herself at my legs. "This is so cool! Your art is on the walls like in a museum!"
"That's the idea, baby."
"Daddy said I have to use my inside voice and not touch anything but it's really hard because I want to touch everything."
"I know. But you're doing great."
Cassian stops beside her, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable. "Hey."
"Hey." I straighten up, June still clinging to my dress. "You came."
"Obviously." His eyes move to the installation behind me. Recognition flickers across his face. "Are those?—"
"The peonies you sent. Yes."
He stares at the piece for a long moment. Whatever he's thinking doesn't show on his face, but something shifts in his posture. Softens, maybe.
"You kept working on the piece," he says. "It's beautiful."
"Thanks."
"Can I see the rest?"
I nod. We move through the gallery together, June between us, her small hand reaching up to hold both of ours.
People notice—eyes tracking our movement, whispers starting in our wake.
The artist and the billionaire and the daughter everyone's seen photos of.
We're a spectacle even when we're trying not to be.
But June doesn't notice. She stops in front of each piece, asks questions, makes observations that are half accurate and half pure imagination. Cassian answers patiently, crouches down to her level when she points out details I never intended but can't unsee now that she's named them.
We reach a piece near the back. Abstract, violent reds bleeding into blacks, white trying to break through. I painted it the week after the hospital, after Cassian nearly died, after I realized how close I'd come to losing him permanently.
"This one's angry," June says.
"What makes you think that?"
"The colors. They're fighting." She looks up at me. "Were you angry when you made it?"
"Yeah, baby. I was."
"At who?"
"At a lot of people. Including myself."
She considers this. Then she turns to Cassian. "Do you ever get angry at yourself?"
"Sometimes."
"What do you do about it?"
"Try to fix whatever I messed up. Apologize if I need to. Make better choices next time."
June nods like this is profound wisdom. "That's what Mama does too."
Katheryn appears at my elbow, saves me from whatever emotional spiral I'm about to fall into. "Amara, Lucian Griffin just arrived. He's asking for you."
Cassian straightens. "My father's here?"
"With several board members from Black Lake. They're near the installation."
Cassian and I exchange a look. He reaches down, scoops June up onto his hip.
Then, we navigate back through the crowd.
Lucian Griffin stands in front of Preserved with three other people in expensive suits, deep in conversation.
He sees us approaching, says something that makes the others step back.
"Amara." He extends his hand. I shake it, his grip firm and brief. "Extraordinary work. I've been studying this piece for ten minutes and I'm still finding new layers."
"Thank you, Mr. Griffin."
"Lucian, please." His attention shifts to June, expression softening in a way I didn't think was possible for him. "And this must be June."
She studies him with the unnerving directness only children possess. "Are you my daddy's dad?"
"I am."
"Does that make you my grandpa?"
"It does."
"Do you have horses?"
"Several."
"Can I meet them?"
Lucian glances at Cassian, something passing between them. "Absolutely. We'll arrange a visit soon."
June beams. Cassian sets her down but keeps hold of her hand. She immediately starts asking Lucian rapid-fire questions about horse breeds, what they eat, if they bite, whether pterodactyls would've been friends with horses.
Lucian handles it better than expected. Answers seriously, doesn't talk down to her, even smiles once when she declares that horses are the second-best animal after squids.
"I need to steal Amara for a moment," Katheryn says, touching my elbow. "Collector at nine o'clock wants to discuss purchase terms."
I glance at Cassian. He nods. "We'll be fine. Go."
The next hour blurs into negotiations and networking. Three pieces sell outright, two more get serious inquiries, and someone from the Times corners me for an impromptu interview that I handle with more grace than I feel. By the time I surface for air, the crowd has thinned slightly.
Cassian and June are sitting on a bench near the back wall, heads bent together over her sketchbook. She's explaining something with wild hand gestures. He's listening like she's delivering groundbreaking scientific research.
I stand there watching them, this moment crystallizing into something I want to remember forever. My daughter and her father, existing together without my mediation, building their own relationship separate from the mess of history between Cassian and me.
Lucian appears at my side. "She's remarkable."
"She is."
"Takes after her mother, I think."
I glance at him, surprised. Lucian Griffin doesn't do compliments, at least not the personal kind.
"The collaboration is back on," he says without preamble. "Full support from the board, revised timeline starting next month. Katheryn has the details."
My breath catches. "What changed?"
"Two things. First, your work is incredible.
This exhibition proves you're not just talented but culturally relevant.
Second—" He pauses, watches Cassian and June across the room.
"My son loves you. Genuinely, not the performative version wealthy people mistake for emotion.
And he loves that little girl like she's his entire world. Which she is."
I don't know what to say to that.
"I made mistakes," Lucian continues. "Prioritized reputation over people, let fear dictate strategy when I should've trusted my initial instincts.
But I'm correcting course now. The collaboration happens, on your terms, with full creative control.
Black Lake provides resources and distribution. You provide vision. Everyone wins."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." He extends his hand again. "Welcome to the family, Amara. Officially this time."
The handshake feels like a treaty signing. When he walks away, I stand there processing what just happened while the gallery hums around me.
Katheryn materializes with a glass of champagne. "You look like you need this."
I take it, drain half immediately. "Lucian just told me the collaboration's back on."
"I know. He told me an hour ago. I was waiting for him to tell you first." She grins. "We did it, Amara. Everything we've been working toward, it's happening."
"We did." The words feel too small for what they're holding.
"Now go be with your family before June convinces Cassian to buy her a pony."