Selling Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 1) (6 page)

"The rest of the day at the Halesford Gallery proved to be nearly as boring as the morning," I picked up after a minute. "I did have a couple old ladies come wandering in, and one of them bought a little glass pendant, but that's really about it. So much for my idea of earning tons of commission by selling expensive art to high-class folks."

Portia laughed out loud. "Becca, you'd stick out like a sore thumb among the upper crust, and that's a good thing," she said. "You're too genuine, too straightforward, too... too you! And while the Halesford Gallery does have some nice pieces, I don't exactly think that all the wealthy elites of the world are flocking out to Davis, California to purchase the artwork with which they'll decorate their multi-million dollar homes."

"Too bad," I grumbled, reaching for my wine and finishing off the glass. "That's what I need to find, if I'm going to have a hope of paying back Barry."

Portia leaned back in her seat, flipping her hair back over her shoulder with a practiced, elegant twist. I watched, trying not to feel envy as I considered how I couldn't hope to pull off such a gesture with my own frizzy, wavy strands. "How's that going, again?"

I sighed. "Well, all the paperwork is finally signed and filed, but I'm still on the hook for my half of the mortgage, after the house equity. And it's not looking pretty."

"What's the damage?"

I thought back to the pile of letters sitting on my counter, letters that I'd dropped there and refused to pick up again, as if by avoiding them I could avoid all the consequences that they described as well. "A bit over ten thousand dollars," I confessed.

Portia winced. "And that's after accounting for all the assets that you contributed to the marriage?"

"What assets? Portia, I was a naive young girl just out of college - I barely had two dollar bills to rub together! I didn't have any assets to bring to the marriage. Barry brought all the assets. He just wanted a woman to cook and clean and be his domestic little servant, maid and housekeeper and cook and occasional lay all rolled into one."

"Asshole," Portia declared, once again demonstrating her value as my best friend.

"Yeah, but I'm still stuck with needing to pay him to get this divorce over and resolved for good," I said after a minute. "And that due date keeps on getting closer - it's less than a month away! I don't know what I'm going to do if it gets here and I haven't yet figured something out."

"Something will come up," Portia insisted, and for a moment, I felt her confidence sweep across the little table and into me, buoying me up. "Now, let's get you another glass of wine!"

As Portia slid off of her high seat and I followed after her, my empty wine glass in hand, I tried to not compare the two of us. Even now, almost a decade out of college, I still couldn't help feeling like Portia somehow managed to win the genetic lottery, and I got all her castoff, rejected genes. She insisted that I looked just fine, but that wasn't what my eyes told me whenever I looked at her.

Today, Portia was clad in a blouse and pencil skirt, similar to my own outfit. Hers, however, looked amazing on her slender body, as if she was modeling the clothes for a high-end fashion catalogue. The skirt hugged her legs, showing off her slender calves and gracefully tapering thighs, and the soft cream color of her blouse contrasted perfectly against the waterfall of dark, brown-nearly-black hair that cascaded down over her shoulders and settled in between her shoulder blades. I knew that Portia attended spin classes at the gym three times a week, and the results showed in her fit, slender arms and in the way that her shoulder blades stood out gracefully from her back.

I, on the other hand, looked much more... frumpy, I decided, was the appropriate word. Sure, I'd put on a skirt that fit me, but it still squeezed my legs and hips closely and made it very clear that I'd filled up every available inch of space inside the garment. I could feel my thighs bump together whenever I took a step. Similarly, although I'd hoped that my top might disguise the slight muffin top that poked out from above the waistline of the skirt, it also clung to my breasts and made me look like I was about to take a starring role in a low-budget adult flick streamed over the internet.

Maybe Carter James had just gotten out of prison, and I was the first woman he'd seen since before his incarceration, I considered to myself. He'd just lied about the real estate agent stuff, and he wanted to get with an easy woman before the cops caught back up with him for violating his parole. He planned to spend his last hours of freedom seducing me and enjoying the touch of a woman one last time before the cops came busting into his cheap hotel room and dragged him back to super-max.

"So, what's it going to be this time?" Portia asked me, nudging me and jarring me out of my little daydream. "Something even sweeter? Moscato? Or more of that rose stuff?"

"And you'll go for something that burns at the back of the throat, I'm sure," I countered. "Why don't you just start drinking bourbon, so you can totally fit in with all the sophisticated men?"

"If only they dispensed bourbon in taps like this," Portia lamented. "That would be my dream bar."

I punched her lightly in the arm and went to fetch myself a new glass of wine.

"So, any upsides?" Portia asked, as we settled back in at our seats at the high little table.

"To bourbon?"

"No, to working at the art gallery."

I frowned for a moment, considering whether I should tell Portia about Carter James. On one hand, she was my best friend, and I'd confided in her about every single crush I'd had, ever since I fell for Tommy Jones way back in fifth grade.

But on the other hand, nothing really had happened between Carter and me yet, right? So maybe it wasn't yet worth mentioning. If he'd actually asked me out, on a real date, then maybe I should bring it up. Besides, Portia had already suggested that I shouldn't be thinking about dating anyone.

For a moment, the wonderfully exhilarating, tantalizing idea of a one night stand with Carter James flicked through my mind. Even if he did turn out to be a criminal who had escaped from jail, something about the way he carried himself still assured me that he'd be a lot of fun in bed. He would make me forget all about Barry, most definitely...

...and then, I went on, I'd just be obsessing over a new man. Another man to break my heart and leave me worse off than before.

"Nothing comes to mind as of yet," I answered Portia. "But then again, it's only been a day, so maybe something will end up coming up tomorrow."

"That's right. Tomorrow's a whole new day, filled with possibilities," she declared, holding up her wine glass as if making a toast. I giggled, and Portia flashed me a quick little smile, her dark eyes briefly crinkling.

After taking a sip, she lowered the glass and looked around the wine bar. "Now, which of these gentlemen should you try and impress by attempting to fit a cue ball into your mouth?" she asked, making me nearly spit out my own mouthful of wine with laughter.

Chapter Seven

*

"Besides, I could have told you even earlier that it would have been a bad idea," Portia insisted to me, swaying a little on her chair. She leaned in towards me a little too far, and I surreptitiously put an arm against her shoulder to keep her from tipping all the way off of the chair and ending up sprawled on the floor of Vini.

"What would have been a bad idea?" I asked.

"Marrying Barry, that's what!" Portia hiccuped. Somehow, she even made that bodily gesture appear soft and feminine. How the hell did she do it? When I hiccuped, it sounded like a drunken sailor letting out air.

"Why do you say that?"

Portia held up her hands. "Becca," she said, spreading out one palm. "Barry Bulger," she went on, opening the other hand. She brought the two hands together in a soft clap. "Becca Bulger. Can you possibly think of a worse name?"

I giggled like a little kid with a secret. "Okay, yeah, that would have been pretty bad."

"Exactly!" Portia reached forward and picked up her wineglass, and then frowned down at it as she noted that it no longer contained any more wine. "Hey, what happened to all of my wine?"

I poked her in her trim, flat little stomach. "You put it all in there for safekeeping!"

"I did, did I? Drat." Portia frowned down at herself, as if trying to work out how to get at the wine she'd already consumed, and I giggled again. This was one place, at least, where I excelled over my best friend; I had never met more of a lightweight when it came to alcohol. Portia's classy, confident demeanor totally fell away whenever she had more than a glass or two of wine or other booze in her system.

"Maybe we should think about getting you home," I suggested, debating whether I should keep her out. She was at the stage of drunkenness when she was the most fun, for sure, but I also knew that I'd have to get up tomorrow and go open up the art gallery. That would be much harder to do if I also needed to nurse a hangover at the same time.

Portia, however, violently shook her head, sending her hair whipping around her. "Nuh uh. I'm out to cheer you up, and I swear that, as Portia Skye, your best friend, I'm going to do it!"

"You've already done plenty," I tried to assure her, but she was already casting her eyes around the wine bar, looking at the other patrons.

"Ooh, look at that guy," she whispered to me, her voice still loud enough to probably carry halfway across the bar. She pointed, in a manner that I found far, far too obvious, at a heavyset man in a suit sitting at the end of the bar, drinking alone. "He looks cute!"

I frowned at her. "Weren't you just telling me earlier that I shouldn't be thinking about dating anyone yet?"

"Dating, sure," she nodded. "But that doesn't say anything against one night stands! And honey, Becks, that's what you need. To find a man and just rip off his clothes and bite him and make him drive you crazy!"

I winced as her voice grew louder with each word. The people sitting around us definitely heard at least the last half of Portia's declaration.

"I'm not exactly the rip-off-people's-clothes type," I protested. "And Portia, I think that right now, my biggest responsibility is getting you safely into a cab so that you can go home."

Portia grinned at me and attempted a salacious wink, which might have looked alright if her mouth wasn't hanging open. "Oh, you want to get me home, do you? We could bring that guy too, and make a real fun night of it."

Shocked, I reached up and clapped a hand over her mouth. Please let the guy have not heard any of this, I prayed. Fortunately, when I sent another surreptitious glance down the length of the bar, he hadn't moved his eyes from the glass sitting on the counter in front of him.

Whew. I turned back to Portia, intending to get her outside so I could hail a cab - and froze.

She wasn't sitting next to me any longer. How had she moved so quickly and so silently?

I spun around, looking around the interior of the wine bar. Maybe she was just refilling her glass- nope. There she was, down at the other end of the bar, leaning on it in attempt to look casual (but probably in truth more because she needed it for balance) and chatting with the heavyset dude sitting down at that end.

I jumped up out of my seat, marveling at her skills despite my growing frustration with her. How in the world did she cross the distance from here to there so quickly? She was like some sort of drunken hookup ninja. I dashed down to try and stop her from totally making a fool of herself.

"Oh, and here's my friend Becca!" Portia exclaimed brightly as I arrived at the other end of the bar. "Becca, this is John! He's an accountant!"

"Great, great," I said distractedly, sending John an "I'm-so-sorry" glance. He just looked morosely back at me, giving off the impression that he wanted nothing more than to return to his previous activity of drinking alone. "Portia, why don't we go down here, now?"

"John is single," Portia declared. "His wife left him, so now he's all alone! Doesn't that sound great?"

I thought that I heard a muffled sob slip out from John's lips. "Yep, yep, let's definitely get you out of here," I murmured to myself. I reached out and snagged Portia's hand, tugging her towards the exit. "That's enough drinking for tonight, I think."

"Call me!" Portia hollered over my shoulder as I towed her out towards the exit from the bar.

Outside, she took a deep breath of the fresh, cooler night air, but then turned and grabbed at me. "Hey, wait a second," she said, looking alarmed.

"What?"

"Did we pay for our drinks? Oh my god, are we skipping out on our bar tab?"

I sighed. "Portia, this place has the cards that you pre-load with money, remember? We don't need to sign anything or cash out when we leave."

"Oh, that's right." Portia nodded, patting me softly on the back as she leaned on me for balance. "You're a good friend, Becks."

"Thanks. Um, are you stroking my hair-"

"You deserve to find someone," Portia went on, still rubbing my back. "And you'll find someone way better than that asshole Barry. I should have known earlier that he was cheating on you the whole time. He even tried to hit on me once, did you know that?"