Page 52 of Blown

“I know,” Rafe said, and then, because he didn’t want anything else, he stepped back into Jake, pulling him in for another kiss.

That was right. Finally, after days and weeks of everything feeling off-kilter and painful, something fit right into place. He wanted Jake, whether he was a liar or not. He wanted him in his arms and more, whether he was on his way to a stellar career in glass or not. He’d found the place he wanted to be.

“What do you say we go up to the house and?—”

His naughty suggestion was cut short by Jake’s phone buzzing in his pocket.

“Ignore it,” Jake said, pulling Rafe to him for another kiss.

Rafe did just that, diving in to another kiss as he threaded his fingers through Jake’s hair and grabbed his backside. He wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon tangling his sheets and getting sweaty with Jake.

Jake’s phone buzzed again, twice in quick succession. It completely killed the mood.

“I’ll just check it and turn it off,” Jake said breathlessly.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, sending Rafe a sultry look, then glanced at his phone.

Jake’s expression immediately tightened, and as he tapped on his phone and started scrolling, his color started to drain. “Shit,” he hissed. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“What?” Rafe asked.

“Exactly what I was afraid of,” Jake said.

Rafe pivoted to stand where he could look at Jake’s phone with him. What he saw was like a fist in his gut. Jake had a social media post pulled up on his phone. It was Hélène’s account, but the picture was a plate and a vase from his and Jake’s English countryside collection.

“I knew she was here to steal ideas,” Jake said, raising his voice as he continued to scroll. “It looks like she stole some of our work, too. Shit!”

“Send that to me,” Rafe said, pulling out his own phone.

He didn’t need to wait for Jake’s text to come through. He did a quick search for Hélène Rénard, and within seconds, it was all over his phone.

“‘Hélène Rénard unveils her newest collection of innovative glass design in a social media post,’” Rafe read out from the art website his search linked to. “‘The teaser posted earlier contains a few select pieces from the collection entitled French Countryside, but Rénard states there will be more coming within the next few weeks.’”

“She’s copied our techniques and made a few new pieces of her own,” Jake said, showing him his phone.

“She’ll take credit for the whole thing,” Rafe hissed, a whole new kind of anger boiling in him.

“Did you see her take that vase and plate?” Jake asked, lowering his phone and starting toward the table.

“No,” Rafe said. “I noticed the pieces were missing on Monday, but I thought you’d moved them when we were cleaning up on Saturday. Things got too busy for me to ask you about them.” Really, things had been too tense between the two of them.

They made their way to the table and checked all the pieces they’d made, trying to figure out if Hélène had taken anything else.

“She can’t just steal our work,” Rafe said once they had the rest of the pieces laid out. “We have proof that the concept is our idea. We have more pieces.”

“She’s just posted these pics,” Jake said. “What’s to say she couldn’t claim we were copying her when we saw her post?”

“Other people have seen the pieces,” Rafe argued. “Dozens of other people.”

“People with any clout in the art world?” Jake asked.

Rafe wanted to argue, but he could see the way Jake was thinking. If it came down to it, who would believe the word of two middling artists over that of one of the greatest glass artists of their generation?

Which begged another point.

“Why would Hélène even need to steal our concept and techniques? She’s already famous,” he said.

Jake shrugged. “It’s harder to stay at the top than it is to climb there. And who’s to say she hasn’t done this before?”

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