Page 50 of How to Get Even

Could she pull this off?

For herself? No. But for Astrid? For the girls?

Absolutely.

* * *

Chase squinted at the whisky on the bar. He checked his watch and groaned. It was nearly closing time and he’d been here since… since whenever the cab had dropped him off.

He was in some godawful trendy hipster place where apparently it was cool not to be able to see the person next to you. Christ, he missed English pubs. The closest thing they ever came to a cocktail was a vodka and orange. And if you wanted a straw? You’d be laughed out of the pub. Hell, you were lucky if you got ice.

He hadn’t done this for ages. Got trashed in a bar. Not since after Astrid disappeared before he could explain himself. He’d thought about reaching out to her, but what could he have said that would make it okay? That would makeanyof it okay. So instead, he’d spent nearly two days drinking himself into a stupor.

‘Well, at least I didn’t have to fly to France this time,’ Tej said, taking a seat beside him.

Oh, thank God.

‘Was that drunken growl supposed to be,Thank you, Tej.I really appreciate it?’

Chase nodded his head and then stopped when the room began to spin.

‘I think I’ve drunk more than I thought.’

‘That’s a lot of thinking, my man,’ Tej said, slapping him on the back and raising a couple of fingers to the barman.

‘Is she good?’ Tej asked of Sascha, taking a seat beside him.

He’d told Tej about her because he needed Tej to be okay with the risk Chase was planning to take. It was Tej’s gallery, Tej’s money, and Chase wasn’t a complete asshole and had absolutely no plans to take such a risk without his permission.

‘Yeah. Better than I was at her age,’ he admitted.

‘Better than you now?’ Tej asked, like a punch to the gut.

‘I’m nothing now,’ Chase said, the humour burning away in the air like ethanol.

‘Dude, it’s not been that long.’

‘Yeah,dude, it has,’ Chase bit back, taking another mouthful of the whisky.

And even just talking about it, the cold sweat began to scratch its way onto his neck in painful pin pricks, his heart pounding in his chest as if he were facing down a wolf, rather than the inevitability of life without painting. Failure and fear, familiar, but still as poisonous and painful coursing through his veins.

‘Okay,’ Tej said, slapping him on the shoulder, as if he knew he needed to be punched out of his internal thoughts and back to the present. ‘So what? You’re going to avoid this kid?’

‘I’m going to help her put together a collection that will launch her.’

‘That wise?’

‘It’ll be good for Nayak. Come out of the gate swinging with the unexpected. Show that it’s not like other galleries. Bella will be able to work up some excellent copy about how, in a world of the stayed and familiar, Nayak is breaking barriers and turning the art world on its head.’

Tej barked out a laugh. ‘I think I got you two in the wrong jobs. You should switch.’

‘I don’t have the patience for what she does. But I will need her to step up if we’re going to get Levy ready.’

Tej took a mouthful of his drink. ‘I’ll keep an eye on her if you like. I’m sure she can handle it though. She’s handled you. That’s enough to take down lesser men.’

She’s handled you.

I wish she would.

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