“Maybe I’ll just let Margo take over the gallery, and I’ll ride off into the sunset.”
Beck crosses his arms over his chest, the humor wiping straight from his face. “Not going to happen. She works too much for my liking anyway.”
“Says the guy who is constantly working.” Beck is the CEO and creator of Sintech Cyber Security. He doesn’t fully know how to take a day off, even though he may tell you otherwise.
“Right back at you, Hunter. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you weren’t always working.”
I have ideas, but I don’t say them out loud. There’s no use. I know some things I could do if I wasn’t always worrying about my galleries, but that’d never happen. It’d take a lot for me to let go of them. I started them to prove something. And I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I proved enough to stop.
“How long could we hide in here until Margo comes looking for us?” I change the subject, trying to deny the inevitable. After the confrontation with Jason and my conversation with Pippa, I don’t feel like going back out there. I want to be alone, but I don’t have a choice. Despite Jason derailing things for a bit, I need to get everything back on track. I need to sell more art. And I need to prove that I can make a gallery profitable, no matter the location.
“She’s too busy to—” His words stop when his wife comes into view.
Margo gives Beck a look, her dark eyebrows raised to her hairline. “You said you’d be one minute.” Her voice goes up an octave at the one. Maybe she didn’t have as much fun out there as he thought she would.
Beck shrugs, closing the distance and pulling her into his body. He plants a kiss on her lips. I’m worried they might start making out in front of me like a pair of horny teenagers, but Margo pulls away. “No, no, no,” she scolds. “You don’t get to kiss me and pretend that you didn’t leave me talking to two dudes who kept asking me who my art tutor was as a kid so they could get their grandkids in with them.”
“Did you have an art tutor?” I ask, fairly confident Margo grew up in Iowa. Or was it Ohio? I don’t remember what state it was, but I know it wasn’t New York.
Margo laughs, shaking her head as her almost-black pieces of hair dance with her movement. “I had an art teacher, Mrs. Kiebler, and she was a saint. But my family couldn’t afford an art tutor. They could barely afford the supplies I begged for.”
“What’d you tell the men?” Beck asks. His fingertips stroke over the bare skin on her shoulder. I never thought I’d see the man so happy and in love. For a fraction of a second, I wonder what it’s like to love someone as much as he loves Margo. What it’s like to be loved the way she loves him. It’s only a thought I humor for a moment before I rid it from my mind. I don’t want to be in the position he’s in. I remember the terrified phone call I got from him when he thought she’d ended their engagement.
To love is to be vulnerable. I’ve never been very good at being vulnerable.
I’ve been lost in my own world, not hearing a thing either one has said. I only catch the tail end of their conversation. One that has apparently reverted to me because they both stare at me expectantly.
“What?” I ask, stepping around them to finally leave this office and return to the event.
“I asked how you felt it was going.” Margo’s voice is cautious. I don’t know why.
“Oh.” I clear my throat, my fingers absentmindedly fiddling with one of my cufflinks. “I think it’s going great—despite the one minor mishap. I haven’t rung up all of the purchases, obviously, but it seems like a lot of it has sold. Last I checked, there was a bidding war going on over your newest piece.”
Beck hums. “Maybe I need to put them all to shame and buy it for my own personal collection.”
This makes Margo roll her eyes. She playfully swats at his abdomen. “Like you don’t have enough already.”
Beck’s voice gets low as he mutters something against her ear. It makes me want to throw up. I need space from the lovesick puppies, and I need it immediately.
“I’m leaving. The two of you aren’t allowed to fuck in my office,” I growl.
I hear Beck’s laugh from behind me. “Maybe we already have, Hunter.”
I don’t enlighten him by reacting. But before I step through the small entrance to the hallway and join the party, I rattle off a text to one of my employees still in Manhattan despite the opening and tell him I need the entire art gallery cleaned. Immediately.