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He leans in and kisses my temple, then climbs out of bed.
I climb out too. I’m not placing this phone call while I’m naked and tangled in Emerson’s sheets. I unlock the studio doors and go across to my bedroom. I feel like I’m late for a class or an interview. Something important. I pull on fresh clothes and go back across to Emerson. He’s not in the bedroom, though he’s tugged up the blankets on the bed and put them back in order.
I find him in his own walk-in closet, standing in front of an open safe in the wall. He reaches in and pulls out a phone. It’s brand-new, still in the plastic, and seems relatively cheap. Emerson digs his fingernail into the packaging and shakes it off. I wonder how many of those phones he has. It’s a burner, obviously. One you use for a single call and then throw away.
“So, you just have these handy for when a kidnapped girl wants to call home?”
Emerson smiles, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. He closes the safe and holds down a button on the phone. “The provenance of valuable art isn’t always traced through the usual channels.”
“Usual?”
“The legal ones.”
“You steal art?”
Emerson looks me directly in the eye. “How could you accuse me of being a thief?”
I don’t realize for a heartbeat that he is joking. That the wounded, ferocious darkness in his gaze is playful. When I do, it’s so startling that it makes me laugh. An unfiltered giggle. “You stole me.”
“I did not.” He still sounds affronted. “I paid.” Emerson comes out of the closet. He still smells warm and clean and really, what was I thinking? I should have just stayed in bed. “Sometimes, little painter, it’s necessary to deal with unsavory people in order to acquire an important piece. But I don’t steal. That would make it difficult to maintain my reputation.”
“To stay in charge of all the artists, you mean.”
“My opinion has its own value,” he says absently. “I don’t tell them what to paint.”
“Oh, come on. I bet if you look at a certain piece too long, everyone tries to buy it.”
“Yes. That’s why I mainly attend private showings. That’s why I don’t linger on any given piece.” He’s watching me as he says this. “Not unless I can’t help myself.”
It makes me shiver, to think of him being unable to stay away. Maybe it’s the way I feel when I look at him. Like my lungs have an electric lining.
Emerson holds out the phone. “Go ahead.”
I take it from him. This is the only thing I wanted when I realized he wasn’t going to let me leave, and now I’m nervous. I’m not sure what to say. I perch on the edge of the bed and trace the numbers on the phone with the pad of my thumb.
And then I dial it. There’s nothing to wait for, really. I’ll just do it.
Leo’s number is barely at the forefront of my brain. The numbers make a pattern on the keys. It’s the pattern I remember more than anything else. He’s never changed his phone number, not for years, because this is the one I know.
He answers on the first ring? “This is Leo.”
“It’s me.”
“Daphne.” There’s a clatter in the background, like his knees have gone out from under him. Is he at his desk? In his bedroom? I’m desperate to know, though it doesn’t matter. “Where are you?”
I was right. It’s been awful. Four words, and his heartbreak and worry are clear through the phone. They slice into my heart.
“Listen. I’m okay. I’m completely fine.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I can’t—” Guilt comes on fast. It hurts, like swallowing a bruise. “I can’t tell you where I am. I just wanted you to know that I’m okay. I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Jesus. Who was it? Who took you?”
“No one,” I say, because it’s true and because Emerson is right there. Technically, he didn’t steal me out of my apartment. I went to him.
“Did they hurt you?”
