Page 70 of How to Get Even

‘Just shut up and smile,’ Bella commanded.

Chase pressed his lips together. He didn’t want Bella to see how much he enjoyed seeing her in boss mode. It was different to before. There was a determination to her that seemed to bypass her natural instinct to defer and pacify, which made Bella come to life in ways he’d just begun to imagine.

But that didn’t make him any more comfortable or happy with Bella’s idea to open the gallery to a local elementary school whose art funding had recently been cut. He’d stared at her, genuinely concerned howon the moneyboth he and Tej had been with her plans to involve children in some kind of redemption scheme, but she had promised him that there would be no journalists and no press attention. This was just about imbedding the gallery into the local community in a way that aligned with his personal tenets.

He wasn’t 100 per cent convinced and had begun to suspect that the perfectly poised Bella might be hiding a devious mind. Which was alarmingly appealing enough to distract him from his suspicions. Which was also why he now found himself staring at nearly thirty children aged four and five, all staring back.

At him.

And some of them weren’t blinking.

The walls of the gallery were completely bare, Ye-Joon having worked hard over the last few days to take down and protect the artwork they’d put up while working on the layout of what would be the final placement for the pre-opening and opening.

Bella clapped her hands together, looking like a bright splash of colour in the sparse, white-walled setting of a weekday morning. She was wearing jeans, which surprised him. He hadn’t seen her in a pair of jeans before. The rich burgundy silk shirt made her grey eyes glow, but he doubted it would last five minutes against a child with grubby hands and a paint-loaded brush. He was trying his hardest to keep his eyes off the way the denim hugged the curves of her backside, and felt the wide-eyed watchful gaze of a five-year-old catching him out.

But what caught his attention the most, was that her hair was down. It was the first time he’d seen it loose and there was so much more of it than he’d imagined. Rich, golden waves hit a few inches below her shoulders, not as long as the middle of her back, but not far off it either. But he couldn’t quite understand why he was so taken by it, other than the fact that for the first time he thought he was seeingher. Not the socialite, not the perfect daughter or fiancée, not the comms director with something to prove. He sawher.

‘So, who has been to a gallery before?’ Bella asked brightly.

About half of the class put up their hands and Chase was slightly gutted by the sight. Every single one of them should have been to a gallery of some kind. But with the cost of entrance and travel to get there, with busy lives and cheap entertainment, it was harder and harder to get kids into spaces that were so heavily guarded against the noise that children would make, or the mess they could produce.

‘And who knows what happens at a gallery?’

The children blinked back at her. Until they all started talking at once.

‘Old people walk around a lot?’

‘Kids get shouted at for making a noise?’

‘People stare at pictures?’

‘Children, remember to put your hands in the air if you want to answer or ask a question,’ Mr Tawney chided, apparently remembering that he was there to supervise the children and not stare longingly in the direction Maurice had disappeared off to, having taken one look at a class of school children and run as far and as fast as he possibly could.

Chase coughed a laugh and caught Bella glaring at him.

‘Galleries are places we go to see paintings and sculptures and other kinds of art,’ Bella informed them with a smile, her voice pitched perfectly for the kids. She would have made a great teacher, he heard his mother say in his mind.

Chase swallowed.

‘And what doeshedo?’ a kid asked, pointing at Chase.

‘He’smy boss,’ Bella replied.

‘Why aren’tyouthe boss?’ the little girl asked, with a similar tone to that of a person asking to speak to the manager.

‘Because she’s a girl,’ a boy replied with a snicker.

‘Girls can be bosses too,’ the future president replied, snippily, crossing her arms definitively over her chest in a ‘because I said so’ move that should have been enough to stop the conversation.

‘But she’s not a girl, she’s alady,’ the boy pointed out.

Battle lines were being drawn, teachers were beginning to look to each other with concern as the situation threatened to escalate. The children moved subtly within the group on the verge of taking sides.

‘Can ladies be bosses?’ the girl asked, swinging her attention back to Bella whose smile hadn’t changed a bit, despite the way they’d dramatically veered off topic in barely three seconds.

‘Ladies can be bosses.Everyonecan be a boss if they want… they just have to work hard enough.’ Which managed to successfully unite every single child in the room with a single disappointed groan as if they’d heard the sentiment many times before.

Teachers breathed a sigh of relief. A united front was better than fighting or out-right civil war. It took a little time to wrangle the kids into the seats at the tables they’d brought in for the visit, but eventually each child was settled down at the table they’d formed into a U shape and all that could be heard was the sound of pen on paper which was strangely soothing.

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