I want her always under my eye. Always under my control. I want cameras in her room, on her fucking body. It’s not enough, watching her at the studio, at work, from the house behind hers . . .
“GET TO THE FUCKING GALLERY!” I bellow at the driver.
The moment we pull up, I shove my way inside, without any of the usual glad-handing.
The only person I greet is Sonia, and only to snarl at her, “WHERE IS SHE?”
“Mara?” Sonia says, eyebrow raised.
She knows damn well I mean Mara. She just wants to make me say it.
“Yes,” I hiss. “Mara.”
Sonia points wordlessly with her pen.
If I hadn’t been so enraged, I could have simply followed the concentration of noise around her. Mara is already surrounded by journalists, critics, and newfound friends.
I shove my way through all of them, seizing her by the arm and snarling into her face, “How fucking dare you not wait for me.”
I feel the dozens of eyes on us, I hear the frantic sudden silence, everyone straining to overhear with all their might.
Mara is just as conscious of these elements as I am. Maybe even more so.
Yet she faces me boldly.
Because she anticipated this. Planned it, even.
“I missed you too, sweetheart,” she says.
Then she kisses me on the mouth.
18
Mara
A hundred eyes surround us. Cameras explode in flashes of blinding light. The air is so thick you could slice it.
Cole is so angry that his whole body is a live wire, a thrumming electric line.
Our mouths meet and the entirety of that current passes into me.
I’m jolted awake, my brain opening up like a portal into the universe. I kiss him and I taste his mouth. I taste HIM.
Not the mask, not the pretender.
I taste the fucking animal.
That animal is hungry. It attacks my mouth. It bites my lips. It swallows me whole.
Cole is kissing me like the fucking monster he is, right here, right now, in front of all these people.
He’s eating me alive while they all watch.
When we break apart, my mouth is bleeding. I feel the warmth sliding down my chin.
My blood dots his full lower lip. I can see it in the threads of his teeth.
“Don’t you ever keep me waiting,” he says.
He seizes me by the arm and begins the forceful process of parading me in front of every single influential person in that room. He introduces me to every last one, telling them I’m his student, his protégé. That we’re working on a new series together, and they can see its first example right now, the fucking masterwork of the show.
Whatever I imagined it would be like walking around with Cole Blackwell, the reality is tenfold. He’s a dark star at the center of the universe, pulling everyone in. Everybody wants to see him, speak with him. Even the most conceited and influential players become giddy sycophants in his presence.
Even Jack Brisk—who barely noticed when he dumped his wine all over my dress—acts like an eager schoolboy when Cole spares him a glance.
“Did Sonia tell you my new offer?” he says.
“You know she did. And you know what I replied.”
“I could make it an even three million—”
Cole cuts him off. “Not interested.”
When Brisk has stalked off, offended, I ask, “What was that about?”
“I only own a few things I actually give a shit about,” he says. “I’m not selling any of them to Brisk.”
“What do you give a shit about?”
I’m genuinely curious. Though everything Cole owns is expensive—his car, his watch, his clothes—he doesn’t seem attached to any of it. Even his fancy suits are dark and simple, worn like a uniform every day.
I don’t expect him to answer.
But Cole will do anything to shock me.
“I have a garden,” he says. “At my house. Self-contained. Self-perpetuating.”
“A mini eco-system?” I ask, unable to contain my curiosity.
“Not mini,” he says.
I have a hundred more questions on this topic, but we’re immediately interrupted by Erin and Frank. While all my roommates have shown up to support me, it’s those two who shoulder their way through the crowd so they can demand an introduction to Cole.
They’re both doing their damndest to hit on him, Frank by asking probing questions about Cole’s latest sculpture, and Erin by making innuendos and trying to touch him on the forearm.
Cole is remarkably patient with this, though I can tell he’s itching to show me off to more important people.