CHAPTER 5 - JEALOUSY

POV: MIKE

She called two days later. Not to argue, which surprised me more than I wanted to admit.

"Fine," she said. No greeting, straight in, like she'd rehearsed the word until it stopped tasting like surrender.

"I'll look at your materials. My rate stands. I choose the scope."

"Understood."

"And Mike." A pause, just long enough to matter. "This doesn't mean I like you."

"I never assumed it did."

She hung up before I could say anything else. I told myself the small satisfaction I felt was just the deal closing, nothing more. I didn't examine why I sat there smiling at my phone for ten seconds after, alone in my office, with no one to perform for.

I saw her again four nights later, at a fundraiser I would've skipped if Isabelle hadn't personally called to remind me the Laurent name was on the invitation. Smaller gallery than the wine-incident one. The kind of room that felt like someone's living room instead of a benefit for the arts council.

She stood near the back wall in a dark green dress, glass of something pale in her hand, laughing.

Not at me, at a man beside her. Tall, easy smile, the kind of practiced charm that came from years of knowing exactly how to work a room. He said something and she laughed again, head tipping back, and touched his arm briefly and casually. The kind of touch with no weight behind it at all.

I didn't know why my jaw had gone tight.

"You're staring, At Elena Martinez talking to Lucas Bennett. Who represents her work. Who is, as far as I can tell, entirely uninterested in you right now, which is presumably why you look like you're calculating his net worth." Adrian said, materializing beside me with two glasses of champagne, handing me one I hadn't asked for. "

" Dude, I'm not calculating anything."

"Your jaw is visibly tight looking at them. The expensive-lawyer jaw. I've seen it twice once during the Hartwell deal, and right now."

I made myself look elsewhere. The stage, the microphone stand someone was setting up. Anything that wasn't the sound of her laugh carrying across the room. It didn't help. Some traitorous part of me was still listening for it.

"He's her art dealer," Adrian said, unhelpfully patient, enjoying this far too much. " Probably a professional relationship. Unless you'd like me to go ask, in which case I absolutely will, because this is the most entertaining you've been in months."

"You'll do no such"

"Too late. I'm bored, and you're being weird about a woman you claim is just a consultant."

He was already moving, weaving toward them with the confidence of a man who'd never once worried about walking into a conversation uninvited.

I watched him go. Watched him say something that made both of them laugh. Watched Elena's eyes flick past his shoulder to find me across the room, watched something shift in her face, not quite a smile, close enough to a smile, like she knew exactly what he'd been sent to fish for.

She excused herself and crossed the room toward me directly, which I hadn't expected and, apparently, wasn't ready for.

"Your friend," she said, arriving in front of me, glass still in hand, "just asked Lucas if he was, and I quote, 'in the market.' I'd like to know what that means before I decide whether to be offended."

"No idea what he's talking about."

"You're a terrible liar for a man who negotiates for a living."

"I negotiate facts. Lying's a different skill."

I found myself watching her mouth as she spoke, the small unimpressed tilt of it, and had to redirect my own attention before it got obvious. "Lucas Bennett. Your dealer."

"My dealer or my friend. Neither's your business, but yes, since you're clearly working yourself into something about it."

She took a slow sip, watching me over the rim of the glass, somewhere between amused and testing. "Were you jealous, Mr. Laurent?"

"I don't get jealous."

"That wasn't a no."

"It was implied."

"Implications aren't facts. You taught me that yourself, in an elevator. Less than a week ago."

She was smiling properly now, and it did something uncomfortable to my chest, a pressure I didn't have a name for and didn't especially want one for.

"You should work on your lies. Your jaw does a thing. Adrian mentioned it, apparently, right before he came over to torment Lucas on your behalf."

I didn't answer. I couldn't, not without confirming something I wasn't ready to confirm, standing three feet from her while a room full of people suddenly felt very far away.

She held my gaze a beat too long. The noise around us, the quartet, the clinking glasses seemed to drop into some lower register, dimming into something distant and unimportant.

I found myself looking at her mouth again, the small unimpressed curve of it, wondering with a clarity that unsettled me more than any boardroom ever had exactly what it would feel like to kiss her and finally wipe that expression clean off her face.