Page 8 of The Founder's Power

She built herself.

Did I ever really deserve to be part of her canvas at all?

I continue to walk around, sipping wine. Not my drink of choice, but there’s a reason why art and wine seem to go hand-in-hand.

Her gaze slides past a couple in conversation, lingers briefly on a sculpture of bent wire and glass and then lands on me. Her eyes widen just slightly. Did she not expect me to come even though she personally handed me an invitation?

I raise a hand in the barest of acknowledgments, prepared to retreat if need be. This is her ground, her battlefield, but she tilts her head in that familiar way, the way she used to when she wasn’t sure if she should let her guard down.

Then she starts walking toward me.

The room bends around her, or maybe it just feels that way.

When she reaches me, her expression is unreadable, but her voice is soft. “You came.”

“I did.”

A pause. She looks around at the room then back at me. “This… probably isn’t your scene.”

“No,” I admit, eyes flicking to the nearest canvas, a riot of deep blues and fractured silver, “but you are.”

She goes still at that, just for a breath. Then her lips curve slightly, not quite a smile. “I wasn’t sure if you would come.”

“I wasn’t sure either.”

A smooth lie. I knew the moment she invited me.

We stand there for a moment, quiet, the low hum of the gallery washing around us. Then I say something I hadn’t planned. Something stupid.

“I want to bring your work into the Kincaid Collection.”

Her eyebrows lift, just slightly. “The Kincaid Collection?”

I nod. “We’re expanding into gallery partnerships. High-end curation, investor-backed. I want your work to lead the rollout.”

It’s not a line. It’s not even a pitch. It’s the truth. I’d burn the entire strategy down and rebuild it around her if she said yes.

Isabelle blinks and steps back, not physically but emotionally. I see the shield come up behind her eyes. She folds her arms, not coldly, but like she needs something to hold onto.

“That’s… a lot,” she murmurs.

“It’s an opportunity,” I say more carefully this time. “Your work deserves that kind of reach.”

She looks down at the gallery floor then back up. “I know you mean well, Damian, but I can’t make a decision like that standing under my own painting with a flute of champagne in my hand.”

I nod once, tightly. “Fair.”

“I’m not saying no.” Her voice is gentle, “but I’m not the woman who says yes just to make someone else happy anymore. Especially not you.”

That one stings. It’s not cruel. I earned that.

She touches my arm briefly, a hand on my cufflink, then steps away. “Enjoy the show.”

And just like that, she disappears back into the sea of people, and I’m left staring at a world she built—without me—trying to figure out if there’s still a way to belong in it.

CHAPTER5

ISABELLE

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