All Chapters of Bound By A Borrowed Heart: Chapter 41 - Chapter 47

GIANNAThe morning of the event, I stand in my studio surrounded by twelve wrapped paintings and try to remember how to breathe.The baby kicks hard, a full-body roll that pushes against my ribs. She's been active all morning, responding to the adrenaline in my blood the way she responds to everything: with force. My daughter is going to be a fighter. She doesn't have a choice. It's genetic on every side.Mrs. Kate appears at my door with a garment bag over one arm and a look on her face that means business."Sit," she says.The gown inside the bag is deep emerald, fitted through the bodice, flowing from the entire waist in a way that makes the pregnancy bump elegant instead of obvious. I don't ask where it came from. The label is expensive and the fit is perfect and there's only one person in this house who would have a gown made for a pregnant woman attending a gallery battle without being asked.Mrs. Kate helps me dress up. She zips the back, adjusts the shoulders, and smooths th

GIANNADr. Osei doesn't rush. She's the kind of woman who understands that silence before truth makes the truth land harder."Our panel conducted three independent analyses," she says into the microphone. The gallery is dead quiet, two hundred people holding champagne they've forgotten to drink. "Firstly, the forensic paint layer composition. The works attributed to the artist known as Gianna Meyers employ a proprietary blending technique, a specific ratio of oil and acrylic layered in alternating sequences that produces a unique chemical signature at the molecular level."She pulls up a slide on the gallery's display screen. Two microscopic cross-sections side by side, the paint layers visible in colored bands like geological strata."The works attributed to TrueCanvas approximate this technique but fail to replicate it. The ratios are consistently off by twelve to fifteen percent. The layering sequence is reversed in four of twelve pieces.

GIANNAI wake up to an avalanche. My phone has more than 347 notifications. My social media has tripled overnight. My followers skyrocket in real time like a stock ticker after good earnings. Every art blog, cultural magazine, and lifestyle platform is running the story. The headlines are savage: "Fraud Exposed at Manhattan Gallery." "The Original Artist Wins: Authentication Panel Delivers Unanimous Verdict." "TrueCanvas Unmasked as Copycat Cousin in Dramatic Gallery Showdown."I sit in bed scrolling through them with one hand on my belly and the other hand shaking. The baby is calm this morning. She fought her fight yesterday. Now she's resting.The DMs are a flood, galleries wanting to show my work, sponsors offering collaborations, collectors asking about purchases. Six months ago I couldn't afford prenatal vitamins. Now strangers are offering five figures for a canvas.Laurel calls at eight."I saw everything. The video of you walking toward Tasha is already a meme. You're iconic

GIANNAI wake up in my bed with Peculiar's robe still around my shoulders and no memory of the walk between rooms.The last thing I remember is the poetry book, the armchair, and the lavender scent wrapping around me like arms. Then nothing, just warmth and the vague sense of being lifted, of a heartbeat that wasn't mine pressed against another chest.He carried me. There's nobody else it could be. Sean found me asleep in his mother's sacred room, in his mother's robe, and instead of waking me, instead of being angry that I'd trespassed, he picked me up and brought me here.I don't bring it up when I see him in the hallway that morning, he nods the way he always does, brief and professional, with the fortress intact. But the air between us is different. It’s warmer, like a room where someone just opened a window for the first time.That evening, I decide to push."Sean, Have dinner with me," I say casually.