“Oh,” Jessie said. “Tell her I’m trying out for the elite team next week, okay? She should come watch. I’m going to make it.”
“I bet you will,” Daniel said.
She turned to hurry after her mother. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He smiled at her, hearing Angie’s coaching in the sentence. “Thanks, peanut. How are you holding up?”
“I’m being strong for mom,” she said matter-of-factly. “Little K wanted to wear his Thomas sneakers to church, and Mom let him, but they both cried while she tied the laces. I’m really sad. I keep looking around for Uncle K, like he’s going to be here because everyone’s going to be here. But he’s not here anymore.”
Daniel was suddenly, starkly grateful that Angie, for all her fussing over the way things were done, had named her son after their favorite uncle. Jessie’s little lip quivered, and her eyes filled with tears as her throat closed around a loss even grown-ups found difficult to voice. Heedless of her fancy black dress, Daniel went down on his heels and pulled her close. “I know, sweetheart. I know. It’s hard. We’re all going to miss him.”
She found tissues in her little-girl purse, dried her eyes, then handed him one. “Can I sit next to you?”
“Sure, peanut,” he said gently. Screw the pallbearer rules; if Jessie wanted to sit next to him, he’d make room. “I’ll sit at the end of the pew. Come on up after we sit down.”
Daniel couldn’t remember the homily, but he did remember the reflections from people who knew Kiernan well, and the weight of Jessie’s head on his arm as she burrowed into him for comfort. He’d zoned out during the last hymn, transfixed by the weak light illuminating the stained glass window above the cross. The last time he’d gone to church was the previous summer, when the light poured through the window with such strength the glass seemed to become light itself. Deep blues and garnet reds and shards of yellow fell on the stone floor, the priest moving in and out of the light as he said mass. During the lunch afterward, people looked for Tilda, extended family who hadn’t met her at Christmas. There was always a pause after he explained her absence.
What did Tilda do when members of her family died? She made contacts for people, introduced them, but he’d never once heard her talk about funerals. Funerals were like solstices, a tipping point, a change in angle to the earth’s tilt that meant seeing life in a different light; what was once powerful enough to transform the entire building’s atmosphere six months later was an afterthought. He thought about the difference between created and genuine, how people make sense until the light shifted and their real colors came through. He thought about the hidden coves and strips of beach in Cornwall, how the light poured down on them but only if you were willing to slip off a cliff and find them.
March
“E
xcuse me, miss. I need to speak to you privately.”
The low murmur lifted the hair on Tilda’s nape and sent a delicate shudder down her spine. She trusted that between the crowd around Sheba and her position in the dim light between spotlights in the Bleecker Street Gallery, no one noticed. “Hello, Daniel,” she said.
He stepped closer, wrapping his arm around her waist before he kissed her cheek. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I got caught up at work.”
“No worries,” she replied. “Did you get a glass of wine? Some hors d’oeuvres?”
“In a minute,” he said. “I haven’t seen much of you this week. When do you think this will let up?”
In the last month she’d been to Tokyo again, and on several conference calls at odd hours, adjusting for locations around the globe. As worn as the phrase was, she barely knew if she was coming or going. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Probably around the same time your case does.”
He gave a huff of laughter. “Touché.”
His cheek pressed against her and his arms around her waist, he studied the piece in front of them. Sheba had taken one of her watercolor cathedral pieces of Saint John the Divine, sanded it down to rough paper, and layered it with text from her journal and sketches, covered that in a thin coat of something Tilda couldn’t identify, sanded that down, added another sketch from a different angle. The resulting picture showed Saint John the Divine from multiple angles and drew in the viewer while resisting any attempts to make a cohesive statement.
“What do you think?” she said. It felt so good to relax into him, feel him take her weight without moving, and know that this was solid ground.
“It’s interesting,” he said. “I’m not sure what to make of it, but I’m also intrigued enough to stand here and keep trying.”
She made a noncommittal noise and sipped her wine. He took the glass from her hand and tried it. “Nice,” he commented.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Colin watching them, his expression remarkably solemn for someone as young and naturally cheerful as he was. She didn’t complete the eye contact, focusing instead on Daniel’s hot, solid presence at her back. “Edith and I agreed that no matter how last millennium Sheba is, we would not skimp on the refreshments.”
“Looks like a good choice,” he said.
The turnout was astonishing. A line had queued up in front of the door before the opening, then social media worked to their advantage as people posted status updates and pictures. With thirty minutes to closing the crowd had died down slightly. Tilda retreated to the background, watching the room’s dynamics, until Cole Fleming and Marin Bryant-Fleming made their way through the crowd to her. “Hello,” Tilda exclaimed with a smile. She leaned in to exchange a quick kiss with Marin and then another one with Cole. She introduced Daniel to Cole and Marin, and shook her head in denial when Marin told Daniel how grateful she was to Tilda for the introduction that changed her life. The two men left to track down more wine, and left Tilda and Marin standing in front of one of the biggest works in the show, a reworked representation of Central Park that featured the Met in winter, bare branches, black-painted iron railings, and curving paths.
Marin’s blond head gleamed under the spotlights. “Thanks for the invitation,” she said. She looked around the gallery. “The works are absolutely amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I feel like we’re in on the ground floor of what will be an amazing retrospective of her career.”
“Did you find something you couldn’t live without?”
“Oh, yes,” Marin said with the satisfaction of a woman who feels that she’s gotten a very, very good deal. She tipped her head at the image to their left. A discreet Sold sticker had been affixed to a card Tilda printed for each piece, listing the work’s title, medium, and price. “Don’t tell Cole, but I bought that one for him. His apartment growing up overlooked the Met, and the Egyptian-themed playground. It’s a surprise for his birthday next month.”
Once again, Marin looked blissfully happy. Daniel and Cole returned with glasses of wine, and Daniel also cradled a napkin holding crackers, cheese, and a few grapes. They chatted for a few minutes and then Marin and Cole made their way to the gallery’s glass door.
“One of your connections?” Daniel said. He offered Tilda the napkin holding the crackers and cheese, but she shook her head to decline. Knowing Daniel, that was his dinner.
“I introduced them,” Tilda affirmed. “It’s one of my most satisfying connections.”
Daniel’s brow furrowed a little more. “What did they need?”
“Each other,” she said quietly. And while she was thrilled beyond measure to have been the instrument to their happiness, she felt that pang again, that unfamiliar emotion that was so difficult to identify. She didn’t begrudge them their happiness. Far from it. She wondered if she would ever feel that happiness herself. She should feel it; she knew she should. She was married to an amazing man who loved her and supported her. All she had to do was claim what was already hers.
Why was that so difficult?
A sleek, polished woman wearing a vintage Chanel suit gave them a cool smile and an
excuse me
. Tilda turned in Daniel’s arm as they stepped back, and kissed him properly. Colin and Penny were chatting near the door, Colin’s head bent attentively, his gaze alternating between the art and Penny’s vivid eyes while she talked. Good, Tilda thought. That was an excellent connection for both of them. Penny had a brilliant eye for marketing and design, and Colin worked for a global corporation in the business of selling expensive things to the very rich. With luck, the conversation and Penny’s bare shoulders would focus his attention somewhere more likely to bear fruit.
Penny turned to answer a question posed by Edith, the gallery owner. Colin made eye contact with Tilda, detached himself from the conversation with a smile and a quiet word, and started toward her.
“Enjoying yourself, Colin?”
“Very much,” he said, then tapped the side of his nose. “You sly girl. You never mentioned your connections in the art world.”
Right response; she’d wanted to surprise Colin in a very good way, show him and through him Quality’s upper management that she was exactly what they needed. But the tone sent her tumbling back through space and time. She stiffened ever so slightly. “This was a team effort. Penny knew exactly what I’d stumbled on, and Edith’s was the only choice for an opening.”
“That’s exactly why Quality’s so excited to do business with you,” he said. “Imagine doing this on a global scale.”
In an effort to settle her nerves, she slipped her arm through Daniel’s. “Colin, allow me to introduce Daniel Logan. My husband.”
“A pleasure,” Colin said as they shook hands. “I was beginning to doubt you existed. What do you think?” he asked, gesturing expansively at the walls with the hand holding his wineglass.
“I just got here so I haven’t had much of a chance to look around,” Daniel said.
“The art is spectacular, really, a visceral statement on the fluid relationship between art and artist and the viewer’s place in that relationship. And perspective,” Colin added belatedly. Tilda felt Daniel’s amused huff more than heard it. Colin was looking at the wall, so he didn’t notice it. Tilda nudged Daniel with her elbow. “But from Tilda, it’s rather surprising.”
“Really?” Daniel said.
“Based on the shop, the stationery, the ink, the look of the shop’s interior, well, her,” he said, his gaze traveling from Tilda’s sleeked-back curls to the tips of her Louboutins. Colin was far too well-bred to leer, which meant he was tipsy. Not drunk, just loose enough to take a few liberties with their professional relationship in front of her husband. “This kind of instinctual art isn’t the kind of thing I expected Tilda to take on. I mean, look at her.”
She felt her smile freeze on her face
. Yes, look at me. Tell me what you see, exactly. Dark clothes, dark hair, gray eyes, sharp angles and long, lean lines, demanding precision and perfection. Do you have any idea what it cost me to attain this, maintain this? Look at me, Colin, and tell me what you think you know.
“If this surprises you, you don’t know her very well,” Daniel said. His baritone voice held the vibrating edge of honed steel. The talk and laughter in the room almost muted it, but Tilda heard it, felt the slight tightening of Daniel’s hand on her hip.
Colin’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “No,” he said. “No, I rather suspect I don’t. But these kinds of business instincts are exactly why we want her with Quality. You really must convince her to join us.”
A nice recovery. Smooth. A bit of male bonding at the end, the two of them against Tilda. There was something about the voice, the accent, the aristocratic drawl, British public school, cultured and smooth and confident, that made her stomach do a flip in her abdomen.
Daniel’s smile flashed in her peripheral vision, a hint of shark in it, although how she knew she couldn’t say. “I don’t convince her of anything,” he said. “She knows exactly what she wants, and exactly how to get it. Colin, excuse us for a moment. Tilda, this way, please.”
He took her hand and drew her through the crowd, using his shoulders and hips and voice in a way she’d never seen to clear a path. One hand still holding hers, he released the clip on the velvet rope blocking the stairs, and down they went, into the brick-walled basement. Edith had her office down here, and a bathroom off-limits to everyone except staff . . . and FBI agents. The restrooms were downstairs, behind Edith’s office, and as gorgeous as the rest of Edith’s space. The sink was a bronze trough set on a slab of rough-hewn granite, the fixtures brushed bronze, the door and bench seat made of similarly cut logs.
Daniel backed her into the granite slab. With her heels on she was almost exactly his height, so they were face-to-face, inches apart. Tilda stared at him, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the stall door across from her. Gleaming, tousled hair, red lipstick, wide gray eyes accented by dark shadow and thick mascara. For a moment a ghost stared back at her, her younger self drawn out of the past by Colin’s voice into this place and time, with Daniel.
“You okay? Tilda.” His hands cupped her jaw. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Jet lag. That’s all. Just . . . touch me.”
Without speaking she shifted her gaze to the mirror behind her. It was odd to look into Daniel’s eyes via her own reflection. His gold brows drew down, as if he was trying to work out what she meant, his blue eyes the only flash of color in the room, other than her mouth.
He hunkered down on his heels in front of her, leaving her with the top of his head and the back of his body reflected in the mirror. She inhaled sharply when his hands closed around her ankles and skimmed their way up her calves, over her knees, to catch on the hem of her dress and coax it up. The fabric’s movement stopped at her hips, while he continued to stand up. He leaned into her, looming over her so quickly he startled a gasp from her throat. Then he reached around and unzipped her dress just enough for the fabric to gap forward. Still silent, he tugged her bra straps down so the cups loosened and dropped away from her breasts.
Thirty seconds, perhaps fewer. Perhaps twenty, and she was naked in a bathroom with a hundred people milling about upstairs. She could love him for this alone, for understanding that she needed the physical connection of skin and blood and bone, not pretty words. Right now she felt like she had at Louise’s party, when the noise and chaos and demands became too much, and she’d walked out onto the terrace for some air. Then Daniel found her.
Trapped in her dress, she gripped the rough edge of the countertop with her hands and stared up at him. The image in the mirror, the slim silver band on her ring finger, her disheveled appearance, his completely unruffled one, sent a shock wave through her. She flicked a glance at the door.
“I locked it.”
Had he? She couldn’t remember. He braced his hand beside hers, straightened his arms to bring his mouth in alignment with her breasts, and lapped at her nipples. She groaned and let her head fall back.
“What if someone comes in?”
“No one’s going to come in,” he said, and sank to his heels at her feet. The image in the mirror was beyond carnal, her body more than bare, Daniel’s blond head at the crux of her thighs as he tugged her panties to midthigh.
She groaned again, slow and low and utterly helpless. Her head fell back and her eyes closed. Daniel’s fingers closed over hers, then wove between them, holding her while his tongue slid into her folds and found her clit. In short order, her head dropped forward and her gaze slid out of focus, but not before she watched him show her exactly how well he knew her body.
“Shh,” he said.
“I can’t, Daniel, it’s too much.” Heat coiled out from her clit. She tried to spread her legs, heard stitches in her knickers give, and settled for another whimper. When she came it took everything she had to choke back her cries.
“Oh, God,” she said.
He pulled his wallet from his front pocket. “Unzip me,” he growled, then used his hips to hold her upright when releasing the counter proved her knees weren’t ready to bear her weight. She fumbled with the belt, button, and zipper of his dress pants, then freed him from his boxers.
“You still carry a condom?” she asked, stroking him. Something about this found a setting on the dial she didn’t know he had.
“Stop that, woman. Sometimes the mess isn’t convenient,” he said as he smoothed it down. “Like now. Up you go.”
With one arm under her bottom he hoisted her to the right height, then braced his palm on the mirror. She wound her leg around his and muffled her moan in his suit jacket. His thrusts were shallow, working the bundle of nerves inside her with each quick, rough stroke.
“Can you—?”
“Yes, yes,” she gasped. His tweed jacket rasped against her nipples, and the sensation of fine cotton and his tie against her bare breasts and abdomen excited her almost unbearably. Not to mention the sight of him in the mirror, so clearly in the act. Heat gathered sharp and tight in her core.