Page 40 of The Unfluencer

And yet she claims I’m just like most wealthy folks, unwilling to roll up my sleeves and do the damn hard work. Just a lazy Scrooge, tossing money around to solve the world’s problems.

What the fuck?

“I should’ve trusted my gut about her. I knew something wasn’t right.” I shake my head, fuming as I flip my wrist to check the time on my watch. Two o’clock already. “Yeah, there’s no way I’m meeting her after what she said about me. It was just a conversation, anyway. Nothing concrete.”

Cord snorts. “You’re not going to call the gallery?”

“I don’t think so.” I shrug.

“Oh, you don’t think so?”

I cup the back of my neck, kneading the tension. “No.”

His thick, dark eyebrows shoot up. “No?”

“Seriously, why are you repeating everything I’m saying? Listen, I said I’d call her assistant. I’m a man of my word.”

“So, forget the business? You’re going to make it personal and skip the call?” He snickers. “Did she hurt your wittle feelwings?”

I curse underneath my breath.

Here we go.

“It’s not about my feelings, thank you. But I’m not going out of my way.” On principle. “I said nice things about her to that vlogger. I said I’m sure she’s an incredible woman. That I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting her. And somehow I’m the cold, greedy cash machine?”

Cord’s lips twitch. “You forgot cultureless.”

My patience lasts five seconds before I take off, sprinting after him. He slips off the chair, juking and dodging like we’re back on the gridiron in college. We lap the dining table a half-dozen times, zipping through the living room and hallways before we both stall on opposite sides of the kitchen island, winded and cackling like overgrown children in forty-something bodies.

“All that hiding out… you’re losing your instincts.” Cord cackles.

Anyone would think he’s in tiptop shape with all that lip service. His hands are planted on his bony hips and he’s shifting his feet side to side, out of breath. But he’s ready to keep playing.

“I almost had you, though.” I laugh, still trying to catch my breath.

Cord screws his mouth to the side. “Yeah, right.”

“Anyway…” I see what he’s trying to do, and it’s not working. “My point is, I walked right into her trap.”

His face twists. “Trap?”

“Tell me I’m wrong.” It takes less than five minutes to bring him up to speed, from the timing of Whitney’s comments Saturday night until Greer sent me the Restroom Rendezvous article yesterday. I tell him how I spent the rest of the day at Mom’s, doing some recreational reading, learning about Whitney Graves—mainly deep-diving into social media comments, Luxe Ladies casting predictions, hot takes, PR-stunt conspiracies about her interest in Sherry’s collection. And then I stumbled across details about her friend circle, the Divatantes—Priscilla Hamilton, Ebony King, Tatiana Allen, Chanel Townsend, and Hillary Winston, who apparently lost her club membership.

Suddenly, everything was clicking.

Whitney’s close to Ebony, a former Livingston. And she’s not just any smile-and-beguile skinfluencer. She’s the viral Divorcétante. Priscilla’s a jewelry heiress for Delphine & Co. And the other two? An author and a travel photographer, respectively. The entire crew is upper-crust socialite royalty. Obviously, Whitney’s planting herself at the center of the art world’s glitz and gilded excess.

“Of course she wants the limelight, too.” I’m smiling, dragging a hand over my beard. “Hey, while she’s at it, why not nab a Luxe Ladies spot, rep an OG’s art collection, and land herself a billionaire bachelor to really sell the whole package? Damn, how didn’t I see her coming?”

Cord nods, wordlessly.

Bitterness fills my mouth. “My inbox is clogged up, phone’s ringing off the hook. Pssh… The second I saw her talking to that snake, Zeek, the social climber theory should’ve stuck.”

“So, let me get this straight.” Cord folds his arms across his chest with an audible harumph. “Whitney, the curator and gallery owner, waited to exit the restroom, on the off chance you’d dip inside to dodge Zeek, just to—checks notes—trap you in a scandalous media storm to boost her local stardom?”

My shoulders drop.

Well, when you put it that way…