Page 129 of Sweet Animosity

My eyes widened.

Crap.

Why hadn’t I put two and two together?

My fingernails dug into Var’s forearm.

He looked down at me with a frown. “What’s the matter, beautiful?”

“Holy shit, it’s her! I have to get out of here!”

With that, I turned and bolted out of the room.

CHAPTER 44

VIVIAN

Islammed my fist against the elevator button. “Come on! Come on!”

Var’s hand wrapped around my upper arm and swung me around to face him. “Explain.”

The women still approached us, although now several of them had a look of concern on their faces.

I bit my lip. “I… I can’t… there’s no time. They’re coming.”

“Vivian, you’re not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Rising on my toes, I peeked over his shoulder.

Crap.

The women were almost at the entrance to the ballroom.

I snatched at his sleeve and dragged him further down the hall and into the empty billiard room. In a vain attempt to control my rising panic, I paced to the side of the ornate mahogany table as I ran nervous fingers along the green velvet.

Var crossed his arms over his chest. “Vivian…”

With my hands on my hips, I turned to confront him. “You didn’t tell me that Samara was Samara Ivanova!”

He shrugged. “So?”

Stretching out my arm, I gestured wildly in the direction of the door. “So? It didn’t occur to you that as an…” I lowered my voice to a stage whisper, “…art forger… I’d need to know if a famous artist was among your friend’s wives?”

His head pivoted to look at the still open doorway as he turned wide eyes back to me. Marching over to the door, he slammed it shut. “Fuck.”

“I know!”

He rubbed his eyes. “How bad?”

My fingers twisted into the fabric of my gown. “It’s not that bad… but it’s not great.”

He leaned his hands on the end of the pool table. “Tell me.”

“A few years ago, a gallery in Boston reached out to me. This billionaire Russian had just paid a stupid amount for a painting from an unknown artist. When the gallery tried to get ahold of the artist to buy more paintings, she had disappeared. So they wanted me to replicate the original work so they could sell it a few more times.”

Var nodded slowly. “Let me guess, Samara’s Little Girl Lost series?”

I twisted my new wedding rings around my finger. “Maaayyybbbeee…”

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