Page 1 of Sinful Blaze

1

DAPHNE

Today is the worst shitshow of my entire life.

I’m exhausted, weary down to the bone in every part of my body. I need makeup like the Pope needs Jesus. I need caffeine injected directly into my frontal lobe. I need a fresh start and a REM cycle. I need a Xanax and somewhere, somehow, a glimmer of hope.

None of that is forthcoming.

And it’s all Conrad’s fault.

That’s because, as of eight hours ago, my now-ex-boyfriend decided to throw me into the streets so his mistress could move in and enjoy what used to be my home.

I couldn’t even fight back. Why? Because duty calls. Work duties, specifically. I’m the curator at Bloomington Brothers, an up-and-coming gallery on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and tonight is one of the biggest events of my life.

I have to curate the art show… at which my cheating ex is the star artist.

“Conrad! You’ve done it again!” a woman standing in the midst of the gallery cries out in a posh, has-to-be-fake accent. She clutches her husband by the tweed elbow of his suit. “Oh, darling, look at this! We simply must add it to our collection!”

I wish sofuckingmuch that I was allowed to drink on the job. It’s probably for the best that I’m not, though, because I’m pretty sure I’d clean out the bar just listening to the show’s patrons spew endless garbage in Conrad’s direction.

The funny thing—and not “funny” as in “ha ha,” but funny as in, “let me know if you see a bridge nearby so I can jump off it”—is that I used to be one of them. I used to swoon over every piece Conrad’s brilliant mind created; I’d sigh and fawn and ooh and ahh.

Especially the central piece of tonight’s showing. That one is his pièce de résistance, his magnum opus, the culmination of his life’s ambitions painstakingly poured onto canvas with all the love and adoration of a man worshiping his personal goddess.

I used to think that goddess in the painting was me.

But the two tiny freckles on her left breast, bared for the world to see, give the secret away.

I don’t have freckles there. Brittany, though? The woman on Conrad’s arm currently blushing and waving off her new admirers? The mistress who stole my bed, my man, my life?

She has those freckles.

In that exact. Same. Spot.

That’s my day in a nutshell. My boyfriend cheated on me, kicked me out of our home, then forced me to curate his art show, which prominently features a nude painting of the mistress he left me for.

I must’ve pissed off someone celestial.

Conrad has been pretending to not notice me since the event began. Even now, as I stare at him and wonder how the hell I ever found his slimy ass remotely attractive, he acts as if I’m not standing two feet away.

That is, until the admirers dissipate and we’re left alone for the first time since he arrived with his new girlfriend.

“Are we really going to do this? Here?” he mutters under his breath through a gritted smile, as though I’m responsible for everything that’s happened.

“Do what?” I tilt my head to one side.

“This. You.” His gaze grows cold as he scans me up and down. “You couldn’t even bother to dress up for tonight? Try to look somewhat professional?”

Wow. Okay. Let’s just go ahead and go there, why don’t we? But instead of blurting out a witty comeback, something scathing that will blister his soul for the next millennia, I just… freeze.

No, worse—I choke up.

I feel the tears I refuse to shed lodge like shards of glass in my throat, and no matter how hard I try to coax myself into retaliating, it won’t come.

You’ve got this, Daph. You’re a badass bitch who doesn’t need some man to validate her worth.

He did you a favor.

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