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Chapter 79

last update Veröffentlichungsdatum: 29.03.2026 16:27:58

ELARA'S POV

Damien called me after lunch at Richard's apartment.

I was at the gallery, had been there since eight trying to work and mostly thinking about New York. When my phone rang I stepped into the back office and closed the door.

"How was it?" I asked.

He told me. Julian's three words, how could you, landing with the weight they carried. Richard said yes we did without deflection. Julian said he was in therapy. Richard asks to visit Daniel and asks both his sons to come with him.

I sat wi
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    ELARA'S POVI was there at eight-thirty, before the staff arrived, walking through the space the way I did after any closure, checking that everything was as it had been, that the work on the walls was still doing what it needed to do.It was.The space felt ready for the new year in the way spaces felt ready when they'd been well used and well rested.I stood in the center of the main room for a few minutes.Four years ago I'd been a woman starting over in a city I'd chosen because it was far enough from New York to feel like escaping. The gallery had been an act of survival first and ambition second. Now it was neither. It was just what I did and what I was good at and what I would keep building for as long as it was worth building.That shift from survival to simply doing was the whole story of the four years.I made coffee and sat in my office and started the year.The first week of January had the particular energy of a new start that hadn't yet been complicated by the demands th

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    DAMIEN'S POVNew Year's Eve arrived cold and clear. The fourth time we'd done this. Terrace, wine, blankets, the city counting down below. It had the quality of something established, a ritual that had accumulated enough repetitions to feel inevitable, like it had always been what we did and always would be.I bought a bottle of wine in the afternoon that I'd been looking at since October in the shop two blocks from the gallery. The owner had mentioned it in passing, a small vineyard, limited production, the kind of thing that warranted an occasion.New Year's Eve warranted it.Elara was in the studio when I got home. I heard her moving around, the specific sound of her working through something, and I put the wine on the counter and went to the doorway.She was looking at the shelves.Not working. Just looking."Taking stock?" I said."End of year. It seems appropriate."I came and stood beside her.We looked at the shelves together.The lower one, full and settled. The upper one wit

  • Chasing His Divorced Wife   Chapter 103

    ELARA'S POVThe days between Christmas and New Year had a quality I'd come to love.The gallery closed until the second of January. Damien's work minimal, the Cross Industries machine running on its own momentum through the week. Nothing required from either of us beyond what we chose to give.We moved through the days slowly.Wednesday the farmers market was there, smaller still than the December one, just four stalls, but the bread woman was there and the cheese and we went anyway because it was what Wednesdays were.Damien bought coffee from the cart and handed me one before I asked.The bread woman looked at us with the recognition of two years."Usual?" she said to him."And the rosemary," he said.She put both in a bag and he paid and we walked on."She knows your order," I said."I've been coming for two years.""You didn't used to talk to vendors.""You say that every time.""It keeps being true."He took my hand and we moved through the four stalls and bought what was worth b

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    ELARA'S POVChristmas morning I woke to the smell of my mother's kitchen already working.Six-thirty. Earlier than she needed to start. She started early because she loved it, because the long morning of cooking was its own kind of Christmas for her, the hours of it as much the gift as the meal.Damien was asleep.I lay still and listened to the house. My mother moving in the kitchen, soft and unhurried. The particular creak of the third stair that had been there since I was seven. Outside the Tacoma morning, quiet in the specific way of Christmas, the world briefly paused.I looked at him.On his back, one arm across his stomach, breathing even. He'd been up later than me, he and my father finishing the chess game and then sitting in the living room for twenty minutes afterward that I hadn't been part of and hadn't needed to be.I'd heard them from the hallway. My father's voice and then Damien's and then a long pause and then both of them. Not what they were saying. Just the rhythm

  • Chasing His Divorced Wife   Chapter 63

    ELARA'S POVI flew in on a Tuesday, without Damien, who had board meetings running through the week. This was my trip. Richard visits, the apartment, the art. I'd been clear about that and he'd been clear about respecting it.Richard's apartment was on the Upper East Side, different from the Cross

    last updateZuletzt aktualisiert : 2026-04-05
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    DAMIEN'S POVThursday evening I came home to the apartment smelling like garlic and something roasting and Elara in the kitchen with her hair up and flour on her sleeve that she hadn't noticed.I stood in the doorway for a moment before she heard me.She turned. "You're early.""Flight was on time

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    ELARA'S POVThe gallery had a problem. My biggest investor was pulling out."I'm sorry, Elara. The market's unstable right now. I need to liquidate some assets."I hung up and stared at the spreadsheet. Without that investment, I couldn't afford the lease renewal in three months. Everything I'd bui

    last updateZuletzt aktualisiert : 2026-03-22
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