“And what exactly do you expect to expose?” she replies.
I lower my head, my cheek near hers but not touching, “All of you,” I say, lingering there, letting my breath trickle warmly on her cheek and ear.
“We’ll see,” she says, her hands settling on my chest as if she means to push me away, or pull me close, but before she can do either, we hear a male voice say, “Faith.”
At the sound of her name from behind and to the right, my jaw clenches and Faith jolts, her hands falling away from me. In unison Faith and I rotate to face our intruder, my hand settling possessively at her lower back, reminding her, and anyone else that might hope otherwise, that I’m here to stay tonight.
“Josh,” Faith says, greeting the tall, dark haired man I recognized from my research as her agent, Josh Miller. Age thirty-eight, bank account status – not as rich as me, but rich enough to declare his success.
“You did wonderfully during your introduction,” he says, glancing at me and back at her, before he adds, “but you need to mingle with the masses.”
“This is Nick Rogers,” she says, as if he’s nudged for an introduction I suspect he’d rather not have at all. “He owns a law firm in San Francisco.”
“I know that name well,” he says, looking at me. “You represented our top football player when he sued us to get out of his contract with our sports division.”
“Who was that?” Faith asks.
“Connor Givens,” I say. “Damn good quarterback.”
“And what happened?” Faith asks.
“He left the agency,” I say. “We won.”
“And we lost,” Josh says, flicking a look between Faith and myself. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“It’s business,” I say. “Like Faith is to you.” There’s a message in those words. I know he wants to fuck her or he wouldn’t have had his hands all over her when they entered the gallery tonight.
Josh narrows his eyes on me. “Business I take seriously,” he says, an obvious warning in those words that he’d have been better off not delivering. He’ll discover that soon, but now, now he dares to give me a two-second stare, before cutting his gaze to Faith. “Let’s mingle.”
“Yes, of course,” she says, looking at me, her body angled in my direction, a silent question in that action. I take her hand and draw it to my mouth. “I’ll be close,” I promise, kissing her knuckles, and I don’t miss the tiny tremble of her hand in mine.
She nods, and I release her, and the way she hesitates in her departure tells me that I’ve taken her “no” to a “yes,” and done so faster and easier than expected. But then, there is a reality here neither of us can deny: We really are red hot together. She departs, and Josh latches onto her arm, touching her yet again, but she never touches him. She doesn’t seem to know that he not only wants to fuck her, and perhaps is even in love with her, which considering how intelligent she is, amazes me. But then, women who don’t return a man’s feelings often don’t see what is there to be seen. I, however, have made my intentions clear. Her naked. Me naked. Lots of sweaty, hot, dirty fucking.
I watch her chatting with one guest, and then another, remembering my conversation with the star artist of the night, who I’d met while representing a mutual friend.
“Chris Merit, artist and superstar,” I’d said. “I need tickets to the event at Le Sun Gallery tonight.”
“I didn’t know you were into art.”
“I have a Chris Merit on my wall.”
“Really? You never said a word. But, hey man. I’m always honored to hear someone chose my work over someone else’s.”
“You’re humble as fuck man.”
“You sure as fuck are not.”
I laugh and so does he, but he’s not laughing when I add, “How about a ticket in exchange for a fifty-thousand-dollar donation to your charity?”
He whistles. “I’ll give you the tickets, man.”
“Happy to donate. It’s not a problem or I wouldn’t have offered.”
“All right then. That’s generous as hell. I’ll call my godmother and arrange a ticket. Or do you need two?”
“Just one.”
“Got it. It’s business then.”
“I wouldn’t call her business. What do you know about Faith Winter?”
“Not much personally, but my wife and I are the reason she’s in that display. I saw her work in L.A. and had a flashback to her visiting me at Le Sun a good several times a decade ago and with big dreams in her eyes. She’s talented and it’s clear from looking at her work, that she took some inspiration from mine, which I find flattering. She executed her work, not only well, but with her own style.”
“Most people wouldn’t like that inspiration.”
“Most people are insecure.” He’d laughed then. “Funny side note about Faith. She’d felt like she was betraying her family by visiting me at Katie and Mike’s vineyard. I told her that Katie and Mike not only knew her father well, they knew that I don’t give a damn about wine. She told me she didn’t either.”
“She didn’t what?” I’d asked.
“She didn’t give a damn about wine and yet I hear she’s now running her family vineyard, and that, my friend, could be where her dream dies, if she lets it. My wife reminded me how easily that could have happened to me when I inherited my mother’s cosmetic business.”
“Thus why you made sure Faith was on the ticket tonight.”
“Exactly.”
“Does she know that?”
“No and keep it that way. I offered her an opportunity. It’s up to her to decide what to do with it.”
I return to the present, watching Josh’s damn hand settle on Faith’s back as they stand talking with two older, distinguished men. Possessiveness rises in me and I clamp down on the urge to go break his damn arm, reminding myself that I want to fuck Faith, and then fuck her over, not marry her. Irritated at myself, I turn away from her, walking to the Chris Merit displays, admiring his skill, these particular pieces all San Francisco skylines in black and white, that of course even a damn near blind eye to art would call brilliant. Interested in Chris’s reference to Faith’s inspiration, I cross the white tiled floor of the gallery to a corridor that has Faith’s name on it, two high, glass-blocked walls, creating her walkway.
Entering her display, I find ten or so guests viewing random paintings, and decide to continue on past them to the farthest corner, to view from the end of the display forward. At the far corner, I find myself standing alone and studying a painting of the Reid Winter Mansion, rolling hills behind it that most would craft with the brilliant colors of Sonoma’s many grapes, flowers, and trees, while Faith does not. Instead, this work is black and white, a technique Chris also favors, but there are differences between the two. Chris sticks to various shades of gray and whites, but as with this painting, Faith always adds a splash of red. In this case, a blood red moon.