Chapter 5 - The Gallery Opening
The winter air had turned bitter by mid-December, freezing Lake Michigan into jagged plates of slate and white.
Grace stood in front of the full-length mirror in her tiny apartment, smoothing down the emerald-green velvet dress she had bought at a vintage shop on Belmont. It was softer than anything she usually wore, the fabric catching the low light of her floor lamp with a quiet, understated elegance. Tonight was the Vane & Sterling winter gala—an annual gathering of authors, editors, and corporate stakeholders at a private gallery in River North.
Her name was on the invite list. Not as an assistant, not as a guest of someone else, but as one of their lead winter acquisitions.
When she stepped out of her cab in front of the gallery, the flashbulbs and chatter of the city felt distant. Inside, the high-ceilinged room was filled with the low hum of conversation, the clink of champagne flutes against crystal, and the rich scent of oil paint and expensive perfume.
She had barely stepped past the velvet ropes when she saw him.
Nathan was standing near a modern sculpture installation, talking to a middle-aged man in a tuxedo. He looked impossibly polished in a black tuxedo jacket, his dark hair catching the gallery lights. But the moment he scanned the room and his eyes landed on her, the polite, corporate smile vanished from his face.
He excused himself mid-sentence, walking toward her with a deliberate, unhurried stride that immediately drew the attention of half the room.
"You came," Nathan said, stopping a foot away from her. His voice was low, laced with a quiet, genuine appreciation that made her pulse skip a beat.
"You put my face on the announcement board by the bar," Grace said, gesturing toward the back of the room where a giant promotional poster for her upcoming book hung between two abstract canvases. "I couldn't exactly hide from that."
Nathan turned his head, looking at the poster before looking back down at her. "It's a good photograph. David caught the exact look you had when you told my acquisitions team that their contract terms were insulting."
Grace laughed—a real, unguarding sound that surprised them both. "I negotiated a ten percent bump in royalties. Your team tried to shortchange my subsidiary rights."
"And they won't make that mistake twice," Nathan murmured, stepping closer, closing the invisible boundary between them. The scent of cedar and rain—that same scent from the train car—drifted over her, cutting through the heavy perfume of the gallery.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The surrounding chatter of the gala seemed to recede into a distant hum. Nathan's gaze dropped to her lips, then rose back to her eyes, lingering there with a heat that had nothing to do with corporate partnerships or literary acquisitions.
"Grace," he started, his voice dropping an octave.
Before he could finish, a sharp, familiar voice cut through the air behind them.
"Well, well. Look who decided to put on a dress."
Grace froze. The blood drained from her face, the warmth of the gallery evaporating instantly.
She turned slowly. Standing near the bar, holding a half-empty glass of champagne, was a man in a rumpled suit with thinning brown hair and a grin that made her stomach turn.
Marcus.
May you like
The ghost from six years ago. The man she had spent six years running from, changing phone numbers, moving across neighborhoods, scrubbing her digital footprint until she thought she was safe.
Marcus took a step toward them, his eyes glittering with malicious amusement. "I saw your name on the banner outside, little bird. Never took you for a high-society writer. Guess you traded up from the bookstore circuit, didn't you?"
