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However, she didn’t answer. She just gave me the same long look she had given him.
“Simone?”
“What?” she snapped, her face somewhat paler, her pink lips in a thin line as she nearly scowled at me.
“I asked if you were all right,” I said, trying not to sound as harsh as she had.
“I’m fine,” she stated defensively, pausing to check her phone. “It’s getting late, oh and, you never congratulated me on my promotion.”
I bit my tongue, clamping my mouth shut, but she waited, lifting her head.
“Well?”
“Congratulations, though how you got it after the last botched job is completely beyond me.”
“Daniel.” She lifted her ring finger, showing me her massive princess cut, pink-diamond ring for the ten-million time in the last week since it had been on her long, boney finger. “He and the director are golfing buddies. I went with them yesterday, and he really liked some of the ideas we talked about for the gallery.”
The ideas? She freaking meant my ideas! Breathe, Druella, breathe.
“How…” Say something nice, Druella, or at the very least don’t let her know you’re pissed. “Damn shameless you are, Simone.”
She kept that fake, cheerleader smile on her face. “Why would I be ashamed, Druella? It’s not my fault you didn’t say anything. Besides, I’ve been here longer, so it’s fitting, anyway.”
What would be fitting would be me holding your head underwater. “Sure, I’ll just wait for karma.”
“You do that,” she said, ending our whispered fight and turning to Theseus. “Mr. de Apollo.”
It was only then that he glanced up from Dr. Lovell to me, but his face was emotionless, hard, almost as tense as hers, and I was sure he’d heard our whole conversation. “Yes, Ms. Ward?
“I’ll see to it that someone has the painting you wished returned to wherever you’d like. If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call.” She offered him her card that I noticed had her new position already printed on them.
“Thank you, Ms. Ward. I shall do so,” Theseus replied as he took it with his two fingers. From the way he held it, it seemed as if he were just waiting for the chance to toss it into the trash.
With that, Simone turned and walked up the stairs and toward the elevator. She walked slower than normally. I heard her heart rate quicken, though she remained calm on the outside. All of her was more tense; she didn’t look back and only kept her head down until she got inside the elevators. It was only as the silver doors began to slide closed that she looked up again. Her gaze never left Theseus’s face until the doors closed.
What in the—
“Dr. Lovell,” Theseus spoke, and the normal light-heartedness he’d been speaking in before vanished as he peered into Dr. Lovell’s eyes. “You are tired and want to go home to rest because the paintings can wait.”
Dr. Lovell stared up and then blinked and looked around, stretching out his arms as he turned to me. “You know what, Druella, I’m a bit tired and want to go home and rest. These can wait. I’ll see you in the morning.”
The paintings can wait? Dr. Lovell would never…and yet he was. And he was looking at me as if I were the crazy one, tilting his head to the side. “You all right, Druella?”
“Yes. Ugh…good night.” I watched him gather all of his papers and head back up the stairs, humming to himself.
It took a second for the elevator to come back, but he didn’t turn to me or the artwork. Happily, and unthinkingly, he got on and went back home.
What in the hell?
Chapter 8
“What did you do to him?” I asked once Dr. Lovell had gone, still a bit stunned.
“Even you must know that we can influence the mortals to our will,” he replied as if I had asked him something ridiculous; maybe I had, but I still didn’t understand.
“Influence?” I shifted my gaze from the elevator door to his perfectly sculpted face. “As in brainwash?”
“As in influence,” he repeated again, lifting one of the paintbrushes off the desk, feeling the bristles. “It works almost all of the time, especially the stronger we are in will and they are not in thought.”
