Delilah winced. “I’m sorry I never texted.”
Lorelei waved a hand. “Oh please. I know how to have a casual hookup.”
Delilah nodded, but something about the words—the implication of just sex—twinged something in her gut.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she said, shaking off the feeling. “For showing my work to Alex.”
“It was my pleasure. I’ve known Alex for years. We went to Vassar together. And although I’m just one of the Whitney’s many bloodsucking lawyers”—here Delilah laughed—“I know a beautiful photograph when I see it.”
“Well, it was appreciated, nonetheless.”
Lorelei nodded, her eyes on Delilah over her champagne flute. “Maybe we could get a real drink afterward? Perhaps even learn each other’s middle names?”
Delilah opened her mouth to say yes. She always said yes when a gorgeous woman asked her out after an event or before an event or, hell, for any time during an event. But her response got stuck in her throat, wouldn’t even roll onto her tongue.
Lorelei’s expression fell. “I get it.”
“I’m sorry,” Delilah said, rubbing her forehead. “I . . . I want to say yes.”
Lorelei tilted her head. “But . . . ?”
Delilah shook her head. “I don’t know. I just . . .”
“There’s someone else?”
Again, Delilah’s mouth dropped open, this time a definitive no ready and waiting.
But she couldn’t seem to get that word out either. Delilah blinked, swallowed, and tried again. Still nothing.
Lorelei smiled, oblivious to Delilah’s inner turmoil, sighing and waving a hand at the crowd of nameless beauty all around them. “You’re lucky, then.”
And with that, she kissed Delilah on the cheek and sauntered off. Delilah watched her, suddenly battling a feral urge to call the woman back and drag her to some unused coat closet, then fuck her silly just to feel normal again.
She turned away, back toward her pieces on the wall. There were still at least two hours left, and she needed to focus. She couldn’t blow this chance. She couldn’t—
Delilah froze as she saw a familiar figure standing in front of Found. The woman’s head was tilted as she took in the image, her hip popped out in her black pencil skirt, holding a glass of champagne with two fingers like it was the cheapest bilge she’d ever tasted.
Blinking didn’t clear the vision, which Delilah had half hoped, half dreaded was just some stress-induced hallucination.
But no. Astrid Parker was here. In New York City. At Delilah Green’s show.
Delilah stared for a few seconds, wondering if she could get away with simply turning around and walking straight out of the Whitney, but she knew she couldn’t. Strangely, she didn’t even want to. Curiosity trumped her horror, and she made her way over to her stepsister, approaching her slowly like one might a wounded animal.
When she got close enough, she decided silence was probably best, sliding up next to Astrid and looking up at her own face in black and white. She still loved this photograph, probably more than any other self-portrait she’d ever taken. Self-portraits were tricky; they took forever, as you had to set up the shot without its subject, then do it again and again until you got it right. Double the complications if water was usually a centerpiece of one’s work. This one was no different, and it had paid off.
Alex was right.
It was powerful.
In the image, Delilah was in the water up to her waist, dressed in a thin white blouse that was completely soaked, and no bra. Her hair was drenched, slicked straight back as she leaned one arm on a rocky crag. Her body was turned to the side, her head resting in the crook of her elbow, while the falls pounded down upon her back. Water droplets flew into the air. The sliver of sky above was clouded, the trees thick and wiry. The pool rippled out around her, around the press of water from the falls. The entire setting was chaos. Nature, loud and lovely and powerful.
But the woman herself.
Delilah.
Her face was . . . serene. A third of her expression was hidden in her arm, but both eyes were visible, just off center of the viewer. Water beaded on her slightly parted mouth, her cheeks, the end of her nose. Even with all of that, she looked at peace. There was no smile on her lips, no ecstatic glimmer in her eyes. There was just . . . a quiet there. She hadn’t meant for it to happen. She’d simply been wasting time, trying not to think about how much she wanted to see Claire, experimenting with the water depths and if she could pull off a self-portrait using a timer and a tripod set up in the middle of a three-foot deep river pool in Bright Falls.