CHAPTER TWENTY SIX *SOPHIA*

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

*SOPHIA*

The opening was full by eight. London's art crowd moved differently from Seattle's. , more careful name-dropping, everyone watching everyone else's reactions before committing to their own. I'd navigated rooms like this in both lifetimes and knew how to read them.

By nine the sculptor's bronze piece had three serious inquiries. The photographer's series had sold two prints. The painters were drawing the kind of sustained attention that meant reviews, not just purchases.

I moved through the room doing what openings required, introductions and conversations and the particular performance of being present without being consumed by it. David had flown in from Chicago, which I hadn't expected, and seeing him across the room talking to one of the London gallery directors made something warm settle in my chest.

Isabelle had come too. She was currently making a fashion designer she'd just met laugh loudly near the bronze figure, which was exactly where I needed someone magnetic and distracting to be.

Alexander arrived at eight forty-five.

He came in quietly, no announcement, found a position near the back wall where he could see the whole room. He was in a dark jacket, nothing that performed wealth, just himself. When our eyes met across the space he didn't wave or signal anything. Just held my gaze for a moment and then looked at the work on the wall beside him.

That was all. And somehow the whole room reordered itself around that small exchange in a way only I could feel.

Nina Volkov found me at nine fifteen.

Of course she was here. London art openings were her natural habitat, and my show being the one people were talking about meant she'd have come specifically to assess it.

"Impressive," she said, which from Nina was significant. She didn't offer compliments she didn't mean. "The sequencing is smart. You let the sculpture do the heavy work and everything else builds from it."

"That was the intention."

"The photographer is the surprise. I almost signed him eighteen months ago." She looked at me sideways. "You moved faster."

"I usually do."

She smiled thinly. "The Paris show. Are you taking the Fontaine space?"

"I'm in conversation with them."

"So am I." She accepted a drink from a passing tray. "I'll make you a proposal. We split the Fontaine dates and co-present. Different artists, shared venue costs, combined audience."

I looked at her. In two lifetimes Nina had been a competitor and nothing else. The offer was genuine and also strategic, she'd get association with a show that was currently generating significant attention.

"Send me terms," I said. "I'll look at them."

"That's more than I expected."

"Don't push it."

She moved on, satisfied. I turned and found Alexander had crossed the room while I was talking and was now standing in front of the largest painting, a wide canvas in burnt orange and deep grey that I'd fought to include when David had reservations about its scale.

I went to stand beside him.

"The Volkov conversation looked civil," he said without turning.

"She wants to co-present Paris."

"Are you considering it?"

"Possibly. She has European connections I don't and it would cut venue costs." I looked at the painting. "What do you think of this one?"

He was quiet for a moment. "It's angry. But not without hope. There's something in the lower left corner that pulls you back every time you try to look away."

I looked at the lower left. He was right. The painter had done it deliberately, a small wash of lighter color almost hidden in the darker field.

"She painted it after her divorce," I said. "She almost didn't include it in the submission."

"I'm glad she did."

I glanced at him sideways. He was still looking at the painting, relaxed and unhurried, entirely comfortable in a room where he knew almost no one.

"You're good at this," I said.

"At what?"

"Being somewhere new without needing to own it."

He turned to look at me. "Learned behavior. Recent." He held my gaze. "You look extraordinary tonight."

Direct. No setup. I felt it land somewhere central.

"Thank you," I said, not deflecting it.

His hand found mine briefly at my side, hidden between us in the crowd. Fingers intertwining for just a moment before he released it. Public and private at the same time.

"Go work your room," he said. "I'll be here."

By eleven the crowd had thinned to the serious buyers and the people who genuinely wanted to talk. I finished the last conversation I needed to have and found Alexander near the exit talking to David, which I hadn't anticipated.

They looked comfortable. David was gesturing at something on the wall and Alexander was listening with his full attention.

I walked over.

"Your mentor has strong opinions about hanging height," Alexander said when I reached them.

"He's not wrong about hanging height," I said.

"No I'm absolutely right about hanging height," David said firmly. He looked between us with the specific expression of a man who had just correctly identified something and was choosing to say nothing about it. "I'm going to find the sculptor and tell her the piece should be in a permanent collection within five years. Excuse me."

He left us.

"He knows," Alexander said.

"David knows everything. He just doesn't comment unless asked."

"Smart man."

The last guests were filtering out. My staff were beginning the quiet post-opening work of documentation and security. The room was settling into its after-hours stillness.

Isabelle appeared with her coat on and kissed my cheek. "Flawless. I'm going with the designer I met earlier, don't wait up." She looked at Alexander. "Take care of her."

"Isabelle," I said.

"I'm just saying." She was already moving toward the door.

We were nearly alone.

Alexander turned to me in the quieting room. "Where do you want to go?"

Not presumptuous. Actually asking.

I looked at this man who had learned to ask, who had stood in the back of my opening being exactly what he'd said he'd be, who had held my hand for three seconds in a crowd and made it mean something.

"Walk with me," I said. "Just walk. London at night."

We got our coats and stepped outside into the cool London dark. The street was quiet, wet stone reflecting the lights, the city doing its particular late night hum.

He offered his arm and I took it, settling against his side as we walked without destination.

"Alexander."

"Mm."

"That thing I haven't said yet."

He slowed slightly.

"I love you." I said it looking straight ahead, then made myself turn and look at him. "I wanted to say it standing still so you'd know I meant it and not just the moment."

He stopped walking entirely.

The expression on his face was not the polished composed Alexander Sterling of two lifetimes of watching him. It was something unguarded and entirely real, a man receiving something he'd wanted and not quite believed he'd get.

"Sophia." His voice was quiet.

"You don't have to say it back right now."

"I love you." No hesitation. "I've known it since before I had the right to. I was just waiting until you were ready to hear it."

I looked at him for a long moment on the wet London street.

Then I pulled him down by the lapels and kissed him properly, with everything I'd been carefully rationing for months, and he wrapped both arms around me and kissed me back like he had all the time in the world and intended to use it.

When we finally broke apart I stayed in his arms looking up at him.

"Okay," I said softly.

"Okay," he agreed.

We walked for another hour, talking and not talking in equal measure, his hand warm around mine the whole time.