Page 10 of His Vow

"Just a thumbs-up?"

"One thumb. No words." I turned my glass on the table. "He showed up last night, but he left early, and he was…distracted."

Something behind his eyes tightened. A reorganization — quick, buried. I'd been catching these my whole life. I'd never followed them.

"The Meridian acquisition is taking everything out of him," Daddy said. "Give him space."

"He's canceled our last two dinners."

"He'll come around. He's a Lattimore. We always do."

I let it slide, as I always did when his voice dipped into that warm, conclusive tone — the door shut firm behind his smile.

"Your birthday," he said, his eyes brightening. "What does my girl want?"

"Small. Intimate. Family dinner."

"Define small."

"Under thirty people."

"I'll consider it."

"Daddy."

"I said I'll consider it."

I opened my mouth. The man from the gallery sat behind my teeth. His name, the painting, the text exchange still glowing on my phone. I closed my mouth. This was mine. The first thing in a long time that didn't arrive through his network or his orbit. I wanted to hold it before anyone else touched it.

We finished brunch. He kissed my forehead at the curb. I watched his car pull away and checked the time.

At 6:43 p.m., my phone buzzed with an address and nothing else. I smiled at the screen because the absence of decoration was becoming something I recognized as him.

He stood outside the building in a black suit, no tie, hands tucked in his pockets. His collar hung open with two buttons undone, revealing a sliver of dark skin at the base of his throat.

"Hi," I said.

His eyes traveled over me, taking in the burnt sienna knit, wide-legged trousers, and mismatched earrings I'd assembled from vintage Brooklyn flea market finds. His gaze paused on the earrings.

"You made those," he said.

I touched one. "How did you know?"

"They don't match. On purpose."

I opened my mouth and closed it. He turned toward the entrance before I could respond.

The security guard nodded. "Good evening, Mr. Reeves."

He nodded in return. “Good evening.”

We took an elevator to the basement. He pushed open a heavy door, stepped aside, and waited.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves held paintings in various stages of undress. Canvases stripped to their underlayers, revealing sketches beneath the oil. Mistakes painted over, original compositions buried under final versions. A Baroque canvas sat on a stand with one corner cleaned to a luminous blue and the other still darkened by centuries of varnish. A conservator's table held scalpels, solvents, and brushes finer than eyelashes.

I pressed my hand over my mouth. "How did you get access to this?"

"I know people."