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“Grace? Are you in there?”
I groaned. “Phil.”
He gently pushed my hair back, and around my ear. “Phil?”
“Philomena Stanwick.”
“Your former employer.”
I squared my shoulders. “Current. You took care of that.”
“Dammit, Grace.”
I rolled my eyes. “My first name is always said in exasperation.”
“Or when I’m coming inside you.”
The flash of heat and anger in his eyes fired me up again. I backed out of his arms. “Don’t.”
His fingers tightened at his sides again. “You don’t like the truth?”
I so didn’t have time for a Blake temper tantrum. It was brewing now—words like truth and consequences were our triggers after all. I hurried to the door and flicked the lock before sliding the door open an inch. “Sorry, Phil. I was just…”
She looked over my head, then back down at me with a gleeful smile. “Why, Grace.”
“Oh, don’t start.” I pushed her back, following her out into a cloud of Chanel.
She looked over her shoulder at me as I urged her down the small hallway to the Cove Room. “Don’t be embarrassed, dear. You’re single. And I know he is. Boston’s most eligible bachelor. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I sighed. “Because there’s nothing to tell.”
Her eyes widened. “Is that who you were working for?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Why—how? Never mind.” Of course Philomena figured it out.
“Is that why you couldn’t work for him anymore?”
“No. He fired me, remember?”
“So that he could sleep with you?”
“Oh my God.” My chin dropped to my chest. “Can we not discuss this? You obviously needed me for something.”
She craned her neck around to look down the hall, but I moved in front of her to block her from going back to where Blake was. “Yes.” She finally snapped in. “Yes, that lazy little shit Brody isn’t coming with his piece.”
“Phil, why do you keep offering him spots?”
“Because he sells, darling. And he sells big. The stupid child has lost his hunger now that he has money. You’d think he’d want more like the rest of the artists I deal with, but no.”
I rolled my eyes. It was a familiar refrain. I’d kill to be able to sell my work like Brody Nelson did. He wasn’t even twenty and already had more sales and more ego than artists forty years his senior.
The fairness was in the negative numbers by about a million.
Philomena gave a dramatic wave of her hands over the empty pedestal. “I gave him the best placement, of course. I could rearrange the entire show and make this room a showcase for Robert Singer, but I just don’t have the time.”
I have a piece.
The voice was as loud as a trumpet in my head, but I couldn’t get it past my lips.
