Aida stood in the middle of the gallery as she examined the paintings hanging on the white wall. Nicolette had left her in charge of putting the final touches on the display, or at least that’s what she said. Aida fully expected a 6:00 a.m. phone call telling her to come in to rearrange things.
Nicolette did this every time they had a showing. She’d entrust Aida to make sure everything was all set, but every time, Nicolette came in early and decided she didn’t like Aida’s work. They’d spend a few hours rearranging, and when they finished, everything would wind up almost exactly where it started.
Aida didn’t know why she was still standing here when it was all going to move, but she couldn’t get herself to walk away until she approved of it.
She should find a new job; it wasn’t like Nicolette appreciated her, but trying to get hired at another gallery would be almost impossible. Those jobs were snapped up the second there was an opening, and by people with more experience than her.
Besides, for all of Nicolette’s faults, she had some good traits too. She allowed Aida to show her photographs on occasion, and Aida had been here pretty much since the day she arrived in Boston. It had started as an unpaid internship while in college, but after she graduated, Nicolette offered her a paid position.
What she made barely covered her share of the rent, and it didn’t feed her, but she had a job most people only dreamed about, and she showed her work sometimes. She was living the dream. She may not have known it was the dream in her teens, but she’d figured it out in her twenties, and no matter how crazy Nicolette made her and how much she struggled to pay her bills, she wasn’t going to let it go.
Thankfully, she supplemented her pay by selling some of her photos and doing some photoshoots for lesser-known magazines. She also booked headshots for aspiring models and actors a few times a month. Hopefully, in a few years, she could support herself by selling her photographs and working the art gallery, but until then, the magazines kept her fed and clothed.
“It looks amazing,” Owen said as he emerged from the left hall.
From the main room, two hallways split off. The main room was always white, but sometimes the halls would be different colors or splashed with paint. For the past few months, and for this showing, the halls matched the pristine white of the main gallery.
Owen stopped and smiled at his paintings on the walls. He was the hottest new artist in the city; every gallery was vying to show his work, and he was extremely conceited about it. Nicolette scored this opportunity because he interned here when Aida started at the gallery. Even with all his arrogance, he didn’t forget those who helped him get where he was, and Nicolette was his biggest supporter when no one knew his name.
His good looks only added to his arrogance. With his shaggy brown hair and bright blue eyes, he was very aware many women found him intriguing. Once they learned he was an artist too, they practically threw themselves at him.
Aida had no idea what she was thinking when she agreed to go out on her first date with him, never mind her third. She must have been a glutton for punishment, but by the end of the third date, she realized she wasn’t enough of a masochist to agree to a fourth date.
Unfortunately, he didn’t take no well and still asked about date number four.
“Don’t get used to it,” she said. “Nicolette will have me change it in the morning.”
He stopped in front of her. “I don’t understand why you stay here.”
Aida returned her attention to the painting she’d been inspecting. Stepping forward, she adjusted it so the red rowboat in the center was more directly beneath the light focused on it. When she shifted it, the colors of the storm-tossed sea came into more vivid detail.
She blinked when she spotted the tiny threads interwoven throughout the waves. Instead of paint, they’d been used to make the waves stand out more and brought out the colors of the sea.
He really was talented; it was too bad he was also a giant asshole.
“It’s truly beautiful,” she said as she stepped back to stand beside him.
“I know.”
Of course, he did.
“You should quit this place,” he said. “Any gallery would jump at the opportunity to hire you.”
That was a lie, and they both knew it. She would never say she wasn’t talented or didn’t know her stuff, and she definitely had an eye for organizing the showings in the best possible way, but no one was jumping for her when they had boatloads of applicants.
“Nicolette isn’t so bad,” she said.
He ran a hand through his hair and gave her a lopsided grin that flashed his perfect teeth and made his eyes twinkle. She swore he practiced it in the mirror.
“She’s a bitch, but I love her,” he said.
She smiled at him, but turned away when her stomach rumbled. She wanted to get this finished so she could go to the bar and eat. Images of biting into one of their thick, juicy cheeseburgers filled her head.
She didn’t make it more than two steps before he rested his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him. Aida stiffened beneath his touch. Before her captivity, she hadn’t exactly welcomed the unexpected touch of another. After her imprisonment, her first instinct was to punch, kick, and scream her head off. She could always ask questions later.
Grinding her teeth together, she forced herself to smile. It felt more like a grimace, but it didn’t deter him as he brushed a strand of hair over her shoulder. She tried to shrug off his hand, but he kept a firm hold on her.
I will not hit him even if he is asking for it.
“You’re extremely talented, Aida,” he said. “The two of us would make a spectacular team. Not only do you have an amazing eye for displaying shows, but your photographs are spectacular.”
I will not roll my eyes. I will not roll my eyes. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
He grinned at her, and before he could respond, she tugged her shoulder free from his grasp and strolled across the pale wood floor. The sound of her boots clicking against the floor rebounded throughout the room and off the thick wood beams stretching across the white ceiling.
It was all so elegant and matched Nicolette’s modern yet simple style. Her boss was a pain in the ass, but she had fantastic taste and a passion for discovering and promoting new artists that made her the big hope for every starving artist in the city.
A pyramid of champagne sat on a table in the center of the room. The caterers had left an hour ago after setting up some of their displays. They would return in the morning, probably while Nicolette was still having Aida and some workers rearrange all the paintings. Aida inspected the glasses to make sure there were no smudges on them while Owen trailed her around the table.
Convinced everything was as good as it was going to get, Aida started for the door. “I’m supposed to meet some friends,” she told him.
“I’ll join you.”
Aida barely managed to keep herself from groaning. He really didn’t know how to take a hint. “I don’t think it’s your thing.”
“But you are very much my thing, Aida.”
A shudder ran through her; the vamps who imprisoned her believed she was their thing too. She closed her eyes against the wave of memories assailing her.
Stay here. Stay in the present.
She repeated the words over and over again to herself, but she couldn’t cling to the present when the past was pulling at her. It had been years since she left the island, yet one small reminder could plunge her back into that basement with all those smells and the sounds of slurping as the vamps fed from her and the others.
The others, she thought with an inward moan. She hadn’t known any of the people imprisoned with her before going to the island, but they became her friends. When they were alone, in the dark, they would all whisper about their lives, their dreams, and their loved ones to keep from going insane.
During that time, she grew to know them better than all her high school friends, understood their suffering, and held them while they wept. She wouldn’t have remained sane without them to help guide her through the worst of that place, and none of them survived those monsters.
Aida mentally shook the memories from her mind. She would not allow now to become one of the times when the past took her over and she found herself huddled in the corner of the bathroom, shoving her fist in her mouth to muffle her screams.
When she left Maine for Arizona, she hoped coming back to the human world would make her nightmares go away; it hadn’t. It took her years, but eventually, she realized a part of her remained imprisoned on the island; it always would.
Still feeling raw, she couldn’t look at Owen while she went into the storage room to retrieve her purse and coat before returning to the showroom. Strolling along the wall, Owen inspected each of his paintings with a smile that made her eyes roll.
If he hadn’t been so smug, she might have dated him for a lot longer. He was intelligent, talented, and he was here, which was more than she could say for a certain someone else that she tried not to think about, but as much as she fought it, Julian crept his way into her head daily.
She’d never revealed the details of their kiss, not even to Mollie. She wasn’t exactly eager to tell people he’d scrambled her brain, awakened her body in ways she never dreamed possible, and vanished without a word.
Just thinking about it made her blood boil. Julian Byrne was an asshole.