Page 117 of Black Ties and White Lies

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“Okay don’t be mad, but Camden told me that the centerpiece…the one of you and me…it's already sold.”

I feign surprise. My eyebrows raise. “Did it now?”

She bites her lip anxiously, rocking back and forth on the same pair of heels she wore to our engagement party months ago. Ones I fully expect to see her in tonight—with nothing else on. “I’m sorry. I told Camden we didn’t have to put it up for sale, but he told me it was too late. It was already purchased. I can always make anoth—”

I cut her off by kissing her lips. “I think it’ll make a great centerpiece in a bedroom. Don’t you?”

She looks at me confused. Her puffy lips, lined in a delectable red that I want to ruin so bad, turn down in a frown. “Maybe? I don’t know. Are you not hearing me? Someone else bought it. I don’t know where they’ll put it, but it sold—for a lot of money I hear—but it won’t be ours.”

I press a kiss to her temple before reaching down and grabbing her hand. I lead her through the different pieces of art she’d been working hard day and night on for the past three months. All of them follow the same concepts.

Her showcase is called “What If.” The focus of it is on her concept of taking people or scenarios she’s seen and reimagining what their life is—or what their life could be.

I stop us in front of the one deepest into the gallery. My personal favorite—the one that solidified our past, present and future.

The one of us in the conference room joined with us on an imagined wedding day.

“Are you mad? Why did we have to come to this one?” Margo questions, looking at me skeptically.

“Because I’m the one who bought it, Violet. There was no fucking way anyone else was owning it butme.Or us.”

Her mouth hangs open. She looks from the canvas to me and back again. “No you didn’t.”

“Yes I did.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “I don’t think I’ve been this mad at you since you fired me.”

I smirk, my eyes roaming every single one of the pieces she put her heart and soul into for this showcase.

Fuck. I’m so god damn proud of her. So painstakingly in awe of her talent—her beauty. Essentially everything about her.

“You can be mad, baby. Ilovehow you take out your frustrations on me.” A flush creeps up her neck as she no doubt remembers the mind-blowing sex we had the night I fired her. It was the weekend after I’d come back from San Jose. She’d complained she was sore from it for days.

“Beck,” Camden says, looping around a canvas to stop next to Margo and me. “I knew you’d sneak in early.”

I scoff at him, shaking hands with one of my closest friends. “Did you expect anything else? Had to see my girl before she’s busy warding off buyers all night.”

Camden whistles, tucking his hands into the pockets of his custom suit. “I’ve already had so many of them up my ass, asking if they could see the pieces ahead of time.” He looks toward my future wife at my side, giving her a tight smile. “I might beg your girl here to do a long-term residency on one of the floors.”

Her eyes go wide in shock. “No,” she says in disbelief.

I laugh. “About fucking time, Hunter,” I chide.

Before we can have any more of a conversation, one of Camden’s employees comes up and sweeps both of them away from me.

I barely get to speak with Margo the entire duration of the show. I don’t mind. Watching her do what she loves and talk about her art is the perfect way for me to spend my time. Plus, it gives me the chance to talk with her friends and family that we’d flown out for the occasion.

Every single one of her pieces sell—for alotof money for an artist that isn’t well known.

It’s after midnight when we finally walk out of the gallery hand in hand. I’m exhausted, and I know she probably is as well, but I’m hoping that she’ll allow me one stop before we go home.

Margo looks up and down the sidewalk, her eyebrows drawn in together. “Where’s Ezra?”

I turn to her, grabbing onto both of our hands. “I was wondering if we could make one more stop?”

She cocks her head suspiciously. “To where?”

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