“Pierre Arnaud’s work was known the world over by the
time he happened to stumble into a late-night gallery with
some token black-and-white shots. He was intrigued, God
knows why, perhaps because he didn’t see the photos first. He
saw the raven-haired beauty, dressed in black, youthfully,
artfully, and sorrowfully pretty, standing in an illuminated
window.”
Adalynn pretended to be bored. She ignored the slice of
pain that drove through her ribs, straight to her hardened heart.
“You’ve done your research. Read a few articles before you
came. Looked at a few archived photos. I have to say, that’s
more work than most do.”
“I’m not most.” Amanda flashed her even, white teeth. They
looked canine in the bright overhead stadium lighting, not
unlike the baying maw of a junkyard dog.
“I see that.” Adalynn swallowed hard and glanced around.
There was no one coming to save her, no one to tell her the
interview time was finally up. How disappointing that all the
people she barely considered friends, but would call them so
all the same, were already off celebrating or involved in
networking or interviews of their own.
The large Vegas event center was perfectly air conditioned,
keeping the blistering heat of the July weather at bay, but
Adalynn felt like she was sitting in the dead of winter.
“Pierre was instantly smitten with you. He stayed in LA for
a few months, during which you had a whirlwind romance that
ended in marriage. You, twenty-one years old, married to a
fifty-seven-year-old man. Not just any man. A great man. A
famous man. A rich man. A man who meant endless
possibilities.”