Page 51 of Apparently, I’m A B!tch

Chapter27

Tristan

Saturday night

I hadto rent a tux for this, and I wasn’t exactly happy about wearing it. It wasn’t the most uncomfortable I’d ever been, but it was close enough. Though, that may have had more to do with the way Rochelle pressed against my side as we walked through the event.

Her arm hooked with mine, her cleavage exposed, as she nestled against me. We strolled slowly through the Briggs-Gallagher showing, with her steering me toward another group of artists, agents, collectors and curators. She listed off names and introductions as if every person she came across had been a lifelong friend at some point.

I barely had a chance to see the collection. The medium was photography, a selection of raw, unfiltered, candid shots of women in the military. People floated by in the brightly lit, immaculately lacquered and tiled room, clustered together while they drank flutes of champagne, chortling out laughter that tinkled alongside their glasses.

The artist herself was here, and Rochelle brought me to meet her, introduced us and then swept me away before I could dare to ask any questions. I still wanted to know how she managed to capture such emotion in her images, but, even now, Rochelle was edging me into another group while eagerly calling out to a friend of hers.

“Kenny, darling Kenny? Oh, there you are! Come here, come here. Come and meet one of your teachers.”

A bald, shorter man with hunched shoulders and a thin, seventies-style mustache grinned up at me through orange-tinted sunglasses. He looked more like a film agent than he did an artist, but people assumed I looked more like a personal trainer than an artist myself, so who was I to judge? He held out a hand and leaned toward me as I shook it.

“This is my darling Tristan. Tristan Kashif. He’s one of your teachers you know, and quite the talented painter. I was thinking of putting him alongside you in the group showing in September. What do you think?”

Kenny’s smile stiffened as we shook hands, his gaze shifting from me to his friend. “Oh, do you know, Rochelle my dear, I believe I’ve seen Mister Kashif’s work. Carlos, my EA, has spoken to me of him, and has shown me a few of his pieces. And I do think having him within our group showing is a splendid idea.”

She let go of me long enough to clap her hands together and breathed out, “Marvelous.” Then something caught her eye and she gripped onto Kenny, muttering in his ear, “Is that him? No. He wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, yes, that… is definitely him.”

I looked in the direction they were staring, but all the suit-clad men had blurred into a black and white pile. I let out a breath and closed my eyes. I should’ve been enjoying this. Rochelle brought me to a career-making event and had somehow wrangled a group showing for me with the director of the ArtBox. This was big stuff, huge. Everything I thought I wanted, and I’d gone out with her only twice now.

But it was all so hollow. Watching these people take such little interest in the art itself was frustrating. And it was more than irritating that Rochelle kept introducing me to people as, “Her darling,” as if I were some pet of hers first, an artist second.

Really, I knew what the source of my irritation was. It was pushing me out of my skin, coursing through my body, this chaotic frustration I was trying so hard, even now, to control. Of course I knew what the source was.

It had nothing to do with Rochelle, this event, or the people. It had to do with Nikki and the fact that I could’ve been spoiling her now with mountains of shaabiyat, and kissing the cheese and syrup from her lips as she laughed. What I had with her was steeped in history, but still so new… In some ways, knowing her the way I did made this all the more fragile.

Being here and doing this with Rochelle… if Nikki knew… she’d hate me. She’d hate that I was using another woman’s attraction to further my career. If Nikki heard about this–I couldn’t lose my chance with her, I couldn’t. I had to end it. I promised myself I would end it tonight, before Rochelle got the wrong idea, before Nikki found out and ended things between us.

I bit my lower lip and stepped closer to Rochelle, still huddled together with Kenny. I was too distracted by the urgency of what I wanted to say to notice the comedic factor in the way they bent their heads together like gossipy teens while dressed in expensive formal wear.

“Rochelle?” I asked. “Could we have a minute to talk?”

“Oh, come here you.” She turned and whispered before gripping onto my arm, her acrylic nails wedged against the fabric of my jacket as she pulled me into her cluster with Kenny. With our heads bent together, she locked eyes with me, then shifted them toward a tall, gray-haired, suave-looking man. She pointed at him and said, “That’s him. Let’s go talk to him, darling.”

She broke the huddle and, with fixed determination, pulled me along behind her. I shot a glance back at Kenny and was met with exasperated sympathy.

We stopped in front of the man she’d been eyeing, and she thrust me to her side before stonily saying, “Roger, you weren’t supposed to be here.”

Roger quirked a brow, rolled his shoulders back against his suit jacket, and swept his glance over her. “And where do you think I’m supposed to be, Rochelle my love?”

She made a sound of annoyance and glared at him, her crimson floor-length dress moving with her body as she huffed. “Fucking your receptionist like always, no?”

He let out a soft rumble of laughter and cast his glance to me, appraising me as if I were an image hanging on the walls. “Is this your receptionist, my love?”

“I am not your love.”

Roger held out his hand for me to take. “I’m her jilted ex-husband, and who might you be?”

I stifled a smile. Roger had style, I had to give him that. I took his hand and shook it. “Tristan Kashif. It’s a pleasure.”

“The pleasure is mine, my dear fellow. How did you wind up as Rochelle’s latest…” he paused, a slow smile spreading as he held my hand longer than was necessary. “Project?”