Page 60 of Blown

He would wait until the end of time if Rafe wanted him to. He owed Rafe more than he could say, and if it was the last thing he did, he would make everything up to him. Not just horizontally. He was already thinking of new projects and new glass collaborations they could experiment with once they got home.

Home. Hawthorne House was home. Jake couldn’t remember ever having a place that felt like home to him. Of course, claiming that home meant securing a visa, which was where the whole mess they were in started, but he’d worry about that problem later.

After waiting for an hour, just as Jake was ready to throw in the towel, Rafe suddenly stood straighter. Jake followed him, and when he glanced past Rafe down the road, he caught his breath at the sight of Hélène walking quickly toward them.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded when she was close enough to hiss the words.

“Just paying a visit,” Rafe said with a triumphant smile.

Jake caught his courage and took it further with, “We just thought we’d hop down here to Paris to take a look at this new collection you posted about yesterday. It looks like a fabulous new technique that’s sure to take the glass world by storm.”

Hélènestared at them, her lips pressed together so tightly that it made all the wrinkles around her mouth stand out. “Go away,” she said. “I have nothing to say to you.”

She pushed past Rafe to unlock the door and rushed inside. She tried to slam the door on them, but Rafe moved fast and wedged half his body into the space to stop her.

“If you do not go away, I will call the police,” she said. “I will tell them you have assaulted me.”

“We’re both gay,” Rafe said, muscling the door open all the way, but staying in the doorway as Hélène moved deeper into her studio. “It’s well known that both of us are gay. You can try to accuse us of something, but it won’t stick.”

“Non?” Hélène asked, like she was daring them to try. “The tide of public opinion has turned against men who take advantage of women.”

“Has it turned against thieves who steal intellectual property from their fellow artists?” Jake asked, stepping past Rafe and into the hot shop.

Rafe closed the door and he and Jake followed Hélène to the far end of the shop as she peeled out of the long, lightweight coat she’d been wearing. She threw it over a battered cabinet, then turned to face them.

“No one will believe you if you accuse me of anything,” she said, planting her hands on her hips and tilting her chin up.

Jake could already see which way the wind was blowing. As Rafe stepped closer to her, taking her attention, he pulled out his phone and tapped until he was recording their conversation, then subtly put his phone on a nearby table, then immediately moved away from it.

“What?” he asked, drawing Hélène’s attention. “Say that again?”

Hélène laughed. “No one will believe two pitiful men like you if you accuse me of stealing your ideas. Ideas?” She laughed.“When I visited your studio I saw nothing but amateurish rubbish barely worthy of a gift shop.”

Jake ignored her jab, but Rafe tensed. Hélène had hit a nerve. Rafe didn’t have enough confidence in himself, and if they weren’t careful, Hélène would take advantage of that.

“Rafe is one of the most brilliant glass artists of our generation,” Jake defended him, stepping closer to Hélène. You knew that from the start. You recognized his name when we ran into you in London last week. You were familiar with his work, and you knew that if you could pass it off as your own, you’d be celebrated.”

“This is ridiculous. I do not need to copy some lesser artist’s work to pass it off as my own. I am Hélène Rénard,” she said with almost comical flare.

Jake smiled. Flare was a product of insecurity. He knew intimately that the bigger the lie, the stronger the bravado had to be.

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” he said. “Stealing is stealing. Admit it. You asked Rafe to demonstrate the technique for our English countryside pieces so that you could replicate it here in your hot shop and take all the credit.” If he could get Hélène to admit to what she’d done while he was recording the conversation they would have what they needed to expose her to the art world.

“I would never do such a thing,” Hélène insisted.

“Really?” Rafe said, crossing his arms. “Is that what you told Todd Renfield? Or all the other young artists whose ideas you stole?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Hélène said in a stiff voice. Her face flushed deeply, proving that she did know, but the recording wouldn’t capture that.

“What about Tabatha Waite?” Jake took a wild stab in the dark. “Did you steal her work, too?”

Honestly, he had no idea if Hélène knew who Tabatha was. Jake had worked with her in Los Angeles. Tabatha’s work had been extraordinary, but she’d suddenly given up glassblowing entirely right around the time Hélène had presented a new show at a gallery in Lisbon.

“I do not know what you are talking about,” Hélène said, her eyes wide and defensive, hinting that Jake had guessed right. “I do not know who you are at all. You are a nobody, a nothing, who does not have a single shred of talent.”

“No talent?” Rafe said, grinning like they’d already won the point, which Jake felt they were far from doing. “Then what’s this?”

Jake had been watching Hélène like a hawk. He hadn’t seen Rafe move to the side of the room, to a large shelving unit that held all sorts of random but gorgeous pieces of glass. Jake wasn’t sure what he was up to until he reached behind a spikey swirl to bring out the English countryside plate that Hélène had stolen from them.

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