Page 54 of Blown

“Possibly, but you know how likely that is,” Jake said.

Rafe sighed and put his phone away, then rubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Can’t believe what is happening?”

Jake turned to find Janice walking toward them with a look of motherly concern in her eyes.

“Mum,” Rafe said, adorably relieved that his mother was there, despite being a grown man. “Hélène Rénard has apparently stolen some of my and Jake’s work and is passing it off as her own online.”

Janice paused a few steps before reaching them, her expression turning angry. “What’s going on? What exactly has she done?”

“She’s put up a post on social media with a few of the pieces Rafe and I made, claiming it as her own and the start of a new collection she’s working on,” Jake said.

Janice’s expression went from generally angry to spitefully furious in a heartbeat. “Was it a bowl and a vase?” she asked, her voice rising.

Jake’s insides sank. Janice knew something.

“Yes,” Rafe said.

“That bitch!” Janice hissed. Her fury would have been comical in any other situation. “She told me they were gifts.”

Rafe tensed and balled his hands into fists. Jake threw up his arms in frustration and rolled his eyes. “And there’s another way she could wriggle out of the whole thing,” he said. “If we call her out for stealing the pieces, she can claim they were a gift.”

“She watched us make a few pieces using our experimental techniques,” Rafe said, like a volcano about to blow. “This whole thing is my fault.”

“No, it isn’t,” Jake was quick to tell him. “It’s not your fault for being trusting and friendly and for treating another colleague as an equal.”

Janice huffed an ironic laugh. “Hélène Rénard is anything but your equal, dear,” she said. “You are a thousand times the talent that woman is. Anyone who has to steal someone else’s art to make as much money as she claimed to me that she makes is nowhere near your equal.”

That much was certain, but standing around complaining about it wasn’t going to fix the situation.

“She’s not answering Rafe’s call,” Jake told Janice. “Did she give you some other way to contact her by any chance?”

“No,” Janice snapped, still angry. At least she wasn’t angry with him now. “I suspect you’re not going to be able to get through to her unless you march down to Paris and bang on her front door.”

Whether she was being flippant or not, Jake turned to Rafe, his eyebrows going up. “We could always go to Paris and confront her,” he said.

Rafe had been simmering in his own thoughts throughout Jake’s exchange with Janice. He dragged himself away from whatever had been boiling in his head and turned to Jake.

“Yes,” he said. “We need to get to Paris as soon as possible to demand that she give us credit for those pieces and the entire concept.”

Jake’s heart skipped a beat. There was more to that statement than was on the surface. Rafe had an idea.

“How do we get to Paris from here?” Jake asked him.

“Plane, train, or automobile,” Janice answered for him. “I prefer to take Eurostar myself. There’s no fussing with traffic when you go by train.”

Jake nodded and turned to Rafe. “How do we get to the train?”

“St. Pancras,” Rafe said, still half in his thoughts. “First we have to get to St. Pancras.”

“Then let’s do it,” Jake said, thumping Rafe’s shoulder.

At least, he intended to thump Rafe’s shoulder, like they were teammates about to go into the big game. His hand stayed on Rafe, and he felt the pull to hug Rafe and let him know it would be alright again.

“I’ll go make your reservations,” Janice said, immediately walking off with a sudden sparkle in her eyes.

Jake smirked for half a second before turning all his attention to Rafe. “We’re going to be alright,” he said. “Even if Hélène watched us making those pieces, it took us weeks to really get the full process down. I still think we could refine the whole thing and make it even better.”

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