I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found (Contemporary Romance) (16 page)

When we’d said our good-byes and Daniel and I climbed into the back of the town car, he immediately hit the button to close the partition. John glanced once over his shoulder, but didn’t comment - all the times I’d been in this car, I’d never seen Daniel do that.

"You didn’t say anything about that article," he said. "Who wrote it? I’ll make some phone calls. I’ll make sure the writer regrets it."

I shook my head. "Don’t be ridiculous."

His face was grim. "I hate seeing you dragged through the mud because of me."

"I know." I settled against him, resting my head on his shoulder. "But it’ll be over before long."

I wasn’t sure if I was right. But in that moment, listening to his breaths and his slow, even heartbeat, it didn’t matter so much.
 

When my phone rang unexpectedly in the afternoon, I answered eagerly, hoping it would be Kelly with some news about her investigation.
 

"Hello?"

"Maddy? It's Curtis. Can you come down? I put up your installment and I want you to see it before the show. Let me know if you want anything changed. Is there any way you can find the time?"

"Oh…sure," I said, looking across the room at Daniel. But he didn't seem to even notice I was talking. I retreated quickly into my studio and shut the door. "Sorry," I said. "I just had to go somewhere where I could talk."

"It's fine," said Curtis.

"When did you want me to come?"

"Any time that's convenient for you. Seriously. I practically sleep here." I could hear that he was smiling, perhaps a little wryly.

"I'll try to stop by tomorrow," I said. "If I can get away."
Without Daniel noticing
, I added silently.

***

As it turned out, it was - once again - incredibly easy to slip out without Daniel even looking up. I'd been coming and going to my usual classes, workouts and errands without him noticing at all, so I'm not sure why I thought this would be any different. Still, I had a sort of secret thrill in the pit of my stomach as I made my way to the gallery. It was sort of nice to have something just for me, in the midst of all this chaos. It was a relief to leave the house, to talk to someone other than Daniel or Lindsey or prying journalists.

The first thing I noticed was the free-standing wall in the middle of the gallery, which Curtis had already picked out for me. He'd painted it black, so it stood out stark and imposing, like the monolith from
2001: A Space Odyssey
.
 

Curtis was just emerging from his office, having heard the bell ring on my arrival.
 

"Do you like it?" he said, enthusiastically, coming towards me. "I think it'll be perfect, they're going to stand out so nicely."

"Yeah, they sure are," I replied, staring at it. "You don't think it's…too much?"

"Too much? No, no," he said, stepping close to me and looking the wall up and down, from my vantage point. "I think it's just right. Why?"

"I don't know. I feel like I'm going to wake up one night and see it standing at the foot of my bed."

He laughed. "You're too young to be making that reference, missy. But, all right, point taken. Would you prefer to be gray? Or something else maybe?"

I shrugged. "I mean, if you really think it'll complement it," I said. "You're the expert."

"Well, I was never the best with colors," he admitted. "I mean - I get by. But my wife - rest her soul - really, she was the one with the gift. I'm still a little bit lost without her." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go off on a whole…thing."

"It's all right," I said. I wasn't sure if it was recent enough to justify saying
I'm sorry
, so I decided not to comment. "Well, I think it looks nice. I'm just…I'm just nervous, I guess. First show and all that."

"Did you want to review the pieces?" he asked, gesturing towards his office. "Come on, just take one more look. I think I've picked my favorites, but I'm absolutely open to suggestion. I want you to feel like I'm showcasing your best work."

"Well, you'd be a better judge of that than I would," I replied, following him into the small room. "I think it's all crap."

He laughed. "That's normal. Trust me. Usually when people think that, though, they're not right. If you think everything you make is pure spun gold,
that's
when you should be worried."

"All right," I said, sitting down. "I'll take your word for it on that."

He'd picked out two other drawings - one of a horse that I'd done years ago, and a still life with a bowl of wax fruit that I hardly even remembered. They were both technically well done, but both of them, I thought, lacked a certain depth of feeling. No one was going to look into a bowl of fruit and feel like I'd touched some long-forgotten childhood memory. But looking through the rest of my portfolio, I had to admit he'd made the best possible choices out of what was available. My best work was mostly done while I was still a student; I'd been floundering ever since, either too exhausted from my string of soul-crushing retail jobs, or too distracted and drained by working for Daniel and his company. At least, that was the excuse I always told myself.

"So what do you think?" Curtis said finally, shaking me out of my reverie.

"Sorry," I said. "I sort of got lost in there. Yeah, I think you chose pretty well. I just wish I had something better to give you."

"Don't be ridiculous." Curtis sat down, tucking an e-cigarette between his lips and taking a long pull. "I wouldn't have given you an installation if I didn't think your work merited one."

"Well, that's comforting." I glanced up at the walls, noticing for the first time that they were plastered with little drawings, sketches, and watercolors - exactly the type of thing I wished I could do, but could never quite achieve. "See, that kind of thing -" I pointed to a portrait of a young man lounging on a windowsill, staring out at the landscape beyond. "That's what I wish I could do."

He smiled faintly. "You and me both," he said. "That was…well, still is, I suppose. One of my wife's drawings. That was me, once upon a time. Believe it or not."

I stood up, moving closer to it. The man's face was mostly hidden, but the physique certainly matched. "I can definitely believe it," I said. "I'm…she was very talented."

"Yeah, she was." He exhaled a lungful of vapor. "You want to hear the most pathetic story you'll be told all week?"

I chuckled, sitting back down. "Okay, I doubt that. But okay."

"We met in college. I was an artist. Well. An 'artist.' " He made air quotes around the word. "But she was an
artist
, you know what I mean? I was ashamed to even look at her. We had some of the same classes, figure drawing, you know, whatever…and I'd look over at her sometimes and her hand would just be fucking flying across the paper. I had no idea how she was even doing it. It was like the ideas came so fast that her pencil couldn't keep up. I looked at the shit I was drawing, and then I looked at her, and I thought to myself…there's no way she'll ever take a second look at me. All predicated on this idea of me being a worse artist than she was, you know? Now, in retrospect, I have no idea if she would have been immediately turned off at the idea of dating someone who couldn't draw as well as she could. I mean, I have no idea if that was even on her list. But for some reason, at the time, I was utterly convinced that my inability to draw was going to ruin my chances with this girl. So, do you know what I did?"

"What?"

He was chuckling a little at the memory. "I knew that the one hot commodity - the one thing that every artist wanted, was a connection with a gallery owner. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how hard it can be just to get a placement. And no matter how good she was, she was still going to end up in the same slush pile as everyone else, right? So I figured - the one sure way to get her attention would be to just go ahead and…buy an art gallery."

"Oh my God." I was already laughing. "Please tell me you didn't."

He shrugged, grinning. "Well, I managed to sell it to my dad as a business opportunity. This space was up for sale, and it was a complete dump, so it was cheap. He had the money ten times over, so he fronted me and I bought the damn thing. I spent all my nights and weekends renovating it, to the point where my grades suffered even more than they already did. But by the end of it, it was worthwhile. I was able to do my first showing, and when I approached my wife with the proposition, of course she said yes. It was an amazing opportunity. I didn't have nearly enough spots for all the students, so it was going to be a stiff competition for my first showing. And I was straight up
offering
her a spot."

"And she fell for it?"

"Well." He took another puff. "What kind of sociopath would buy an entire art gallery just to impress one girl? Of course she bought it. It was much easier to believe than the truth."

I grinned at him. "I'm deeply troubled," I said.
 

"Don't worry, I told her before we got married. By then, she already knew I was a little crazy, so she took it all in stride."

I had to laugh. Really, it was nice to know there was someone out there with an even more fucked-up origin story than Daniel and me.

"Did you ever wonder?" I looked up at her paintings again. "I mean - did it ever occur to you that maybe…manufacturing things like that…did you ever feel guilty, like she wouldn’t have ever been with you otherwise?" I realized how bad it all sounded, and I quickly began to backpedal. "I’m sorry," I said. "I don’t mean to be…that was a really rude thing to say. It’s just that…" I hesitated and took a deep breath. Curtis was watching me closely, concern on his face. "Daniel’s got this weird…thing. I think because he was my boss, and because of his money, he thinks I somehow felt obligated to be with him. Or whatever."

It was close enough to the truth without revealing our secret. Curtis was nodding.

"So it makes some kind of sense to you?" I asked, fiddling with my purse strap.

"Sure," he said. "I mean - not at this point, how long have you been together? Years, right?"

"Just over two." I cleared my throat. "But I mean…you know, there have been some rough patches."

Curtis sipped from a mug on his desk. "Of course," he said. "But some people are just a little more, you know, insecure. And odds are, he’s dealt with it before - people who were just sort of intimidated by his status, or they’re after his money, or whatever. It’s probably his default mode to just be bitter and suspicious." He took another drag from his e-cigarette. "Still, though," he said after a moment. "You’d think, after all this time."

I smiled, wanly.

"Yeah, you would think, wouldn’t you?"

***

The next time I got an unexpected phone call, it actually was Kelly. I only knew because I remembered her voice - she didn’t bother to introduce herself when I answered the phone, leading instead with:

"So, what do you know about this stolen prototype business?"

"Uh…" I quickly walked into my studio and shut the door. "I’m sorry, what now?"

"The prototype. The original…" she drifted off, for long enough that I was just about to check to see if the phone had disconnected. "Wait, do you really not know about this at
all
?"

"I guess not," I replied. "Care to enlighten me?"

"Okay." She sounded like she was shuffling through some papers. "So I’ve been doing a little digging, and I came across a little bit of a kerfuffle in your husband’s past. It happened back in college. The court records were sealed, but…well, you know, I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I couldn’t get to them anyway."

"Hold on, hold on. I hired you to investigate Florence, not Daniel."

"Yeah, well, I leave no stone unturned. And it’s a good thing, too. Listen to this. The details are all a little bit muddled, but the accusation is that Daniel pretty liberally…’borrowed’ a pocket organizer prototype from some college buddies, and ended up using a lot of the specs when it came time for him to develop the very first Plum device. Remember that monstrosity?"

I forced myself to speak. "Yes," I said. "But…"

"But," Kelly repeated. "So here’s the deal, the case settled in court, and one of the conditions was that nobody involved could talk about it. So that kind of explains why no one ever brings it up." She hesitated. "But, that doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about it."

"Who?" I switched my phone to the other ear. "Who’s thinking about it?"

"The guys," she said, patiently. "From college. The ones he…maybe, sort of, kind of, might have stolen from."

All of a sudden, I remembered our honeymoon in St. Lucia. I remembered the journalist, and how he’d alluded to this very thing.

"Shit," I said aloud, as it all clicked into place.

"Now, granted," Kelly went on. "I don’t know if there’s any connection here. I was actually sort of hoping that you could shed some light on it, but…"

"I’m sorry," I said. "I mean, he doesn’t talk about it."

"Understandable," said Kelly.
 

I hesitated. I wanted to tell her about the journalist, but I was also slightly terrified about starting a shitstorm over something that Daniel clearly wanted to forget about. I was already starting to regret getting Kelly involved at all. I didn’t know her. I couldn’t trust her, really. What if she decided to go public with what she found, capitalizing on a short-term payday from the media? It might end her career if anyone found out, but if she played her cards right…

"You want to tell me something," said Kelly, after my long silence. "I can tell. Just spill it. Nobody’s going to find out. I take my detective-client privilege very seriously."

"Is ‘detective-client privilege’ even a real thing? I don’t even recall signing a contract."

"Do you really want a record of this on paper?"

"Okay, fine. But I still think you made up the ‘privilege’ part."

"Yeah, maybe. But I want to keep working in this town. I won’t betray you, Scout’s honor."

I sighed. "Okay, so there’s this thing. When we were on our honeymoon…" I hesitated again.