Page 131 of Cruel Dominion

“Well, yeah. I still have the whole digitized file.”

I choked on a sob, covering my mouth with my hand to hold it in.

“Anna? Anna are you there?”

When Dad threw my film in the fire, I thought my best work was gone forever. I’d kept taking photographs, but my heart wasn’t in it. Now, I felt a new spark of hope.

“Fuck. You’re angry.”

“No,” I blurted, unable to keep a tremble out of the word. “No, I’m not. I—I thought I lost them. My dad—Hudson,” I corrected myself. “He threw the negatives in the fireplace and erased the digitized versions off my laptop.”

Summer inhaled sharply on the other end of the call. “That bastard!”

I laughed. “Yeah. I didn’t think I’d ever see them again.”

“Well, don’t thank me yet,” Summer warned. “I’m not done. Because I didn’t just make copies. But don’t worry, I went through all, like, two thousand freaking images and did my best to find the ones you showed us. Actually, you remember our old art teacher? I went to her for help and she said you showed her the photos, too, and…” She was rambling now. “So she sort of helped me re-put together your portfolio and then I just sent it to, like, all the galleries on this side of the country under the guise of being your agent.”

“WHAT?” I squawked, and heard Carter’s footsteps pounding down the stairs.

“Hang on, let me finish. Ten of them said, thanks but no thanks. Eight of them said they didn’t have a place, but asked you to send future work. But seven of them offered you an exhibition! I knew you were a star. Everyone wants to be in the Anna Vaughn business!”

Carter came around the corner, taking in my teary eyes and no doubt shook expression with a darkness in his eyes. I waved him off, mouthing it’s okay. He looked doubtful, but went to the kitchen, busying himself with putting on a pot of coffee even though I knew he just didn’t want to leave the room.

“That’s really amazing, Summer, but I couldn’t accept,” I said, the words sounding hollow.

Everyone wants to be in the Anna Vaughn business.

“Those museums only wanted me because of my name and the publicity.”

Oh god. And now? They’d love the opportunity to feature the work of Hudson Vaughn’s daughter. It would be a total media circus.

Summer shook her head. “You don’t get it, Anna. They didn’t have your name. All they knew was that you were an up-and-coming photographer and that I was your agent. And they all wanted to show your work. Of course, the Anna Vaughn name might get some extra promotion, but you got in for your talent, girl, not your name.”

My chest swelled and the burn was back in my throat.

“Summer, I could kiss you.”

“Please don’t. Carter is jealous enough as it is,” she said jokingly. “Ope, I got to go, but you can be properly angry at me over lunch next week while we discuss which galleries you want to exhibit it, deal?”

I snorted. “Yeah. Deal.”

I turned to see Carter twirling a spoon in a mug of black coffee. “Care to explain?”

Even in the dim light, he looked unfairly good with bedhead. I clicked back to the articles about my mom and the divorce and passed him the phone silently as he slid into the seat beside me.

“Good for her,” he said after a few moments of careful reading. “Couldn’t have done it better myself, though I’d have loved to take a stab at him.”

Probably literally, I thought, and tried not to overanalyze how the thought didn’t bother me.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel…free,” I said with a laugh. “Mom and I are both free now. And there’s more.”

He raised his brows.

“Summer made copies of all my negatives from The Butterfly Room. She has the entire shoot.”

“And why do you look so nervous?”

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