Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Clay managed to say, “Yeah, that’s great. You got the jump on me, buddy.” Then he pulled out his phone, looked at it as if there was actually something to see. “I just got a text. Important stuff. Gotta go.”
He damn near ran out of the warehouse, leaving behind a dumbfounded Dylan.
Saskia had yanked his feet—and most especially his heart—right out from under him.
And she’d done it with a lie.
Saskia had waited to hear from Clay. And waited. Until she couldn’t stand one more minute.
Adrian had called and texted multiple times, but Saskia ignored each one. She couldn’t tell Adrian that she had to let Clay know the truth, afraid her friend—and agent—would try to talk her out of it.
But the longer it took Clay to call her back—or even text—the more it made her crazy.
She raced the couple of miles from her Victorian sanctuary in the Haight to Clay’s warehouse in the Mission District. To his home.
When she ran up the stairs, he wasn’t there. None of the artists knew where he was or when he’d be back. Even Dylan wasn’t around.
She’d have to hang out until he returned. She had to talk to him. Because if Fernsby had figured it out, then Clay would too.
She closed her eyes, standing in that long hallway, the sound of music and voices and grinders and potters’ wheels burrowing inside her, making her want to explode. Until finally Dylan walked in, a bag of takeout food in his hand.
He stopped short a dozen feet away, staring at her like she was the bug-eyed alien in her last work.
His feet planted wide, his boots slapping the concrete, he pointed at her with his free hand. “You are way more sneaky than I ever gave you credit for.”
His words made no sense. “What do you mean?”
He laughed, a chortle rather than a loud sound that would fill the entire warehouse. He closed the distance between them until he was two feet away, a cheeky grin filling his face. “I always figured you were a woman,” he said. “Your art has such sensitivity.”
Her stomach hit rock bottom, her heart raced, and blood pounded in her ears. Her voice seemed so small when she asked, “What are you talking about?”
This time, he laughed outright. “That video. Hugo Lewis.” Then he looked at her, really looked, something indefinable in his expression. “You know about Hugo Lewis’s video outing you as San Holo, right?”
Her blood curdled into cottage cheese.
The young man went on relentlessly. “He did some YouTube press conference.” He shot her again with that cheeky grin. “But I knew it all along. Not that it was you, exactly. But that San Holo had to be a woman.”
Over the rapid beating of her heart, she knew he’d never had a clue. But now he’d convinced himself he did. “Let me see,” she snapped.
Pulling his phone from his pocket, he held it in the same hand as his cooling food, while his fingers raced over the screen.
There was Hugo spilling her secret, claiming he was doing it for the good of the art world. She hated him all over again.
She had to get to Clay before he saw this.
“I showed it to Clay.” Dylan laughed as if he hadn’t just blown up her world. “I can’t believe I got the scoop on him again. He didn’t even know, and he never would’ve guessed.”
He was so excited, he didn’t pick up on her emotions or notice how pale she’d gone as all the blood drained out of her head.
“That’s just so cool,” he went on. “You’re San Holo. And you love my stuff.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I love your stuff.”
Dylan beamed, then said almost sheepishly, “Can we talk later?”
“Absolutely. Later.” She couldn’t deny him.
Now she knew what Adrian’s calls and texts had been about. Everything had gone south. Sideways. Pear-shaped.
“Do you know where Clay is?” She could barely hear her own words above the roaring in her ears.
He shook his head, his hair wisping about his face. “No. He got another text and took off. I haven’t seen him since. That was like…” He gave a full-body shrug. “I dunno, a couple hours ago?”
She felt herself dying inside. Shriveling. Turning into a desiccated mummy without any wrappings.
Outside, darkness was falling. Already dressed in black from her sweater to her leggings to her boots, she grabbed one of the baseball caps in Dylan’s studio and clapped it on her head. “I gotta go,” she mumbled. “Work to do.”
As she fled, hopefully disguised beneath Dylan’s baseball cap, he threw out, “To your studio to paint canvases for the mural?”
She couldn’t get out a sound, just gave him a half-hearted flutter of her hand. Outside, she stood on the corner to wait for Clay where no one inside could see her. She could only hope he’d come back.