Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
“Got it,” I say, feeling somewhat confident that I can handle this.
“Blair, I need to ask one last thing of you,” she says, tucking her hands in her trousers and stepping closer to the desk.
For a moment I think she’s going to ask me for a kidney or something because she’s so serious.
“My clients are investing tens of millions of dollars with me. So you’ll understand this job is about absolute discretion.”
“Of course,” I say, already assuming that.
“So if you are at an event and you hear the name of a buyer, or someone mentions this gallery, I need you to keep silent. Anonymity is very important to this gallery and to me. Fritz said that I could trust you, and I don’t trust easily.”
I think for a moment how to ease her mind and decide to go with honesty.
“Lilith, I don’t have any friends. And I don’t mean that as in I have one or two. I mean I have zero. College wasn’t a game for me and I focused on that. Fritz is the only person I have left within five hundred miles, and past five hundred miles there’s no one I care to talk to.” I give an ironic laugh. “Even if I thought about telling someone, I couldn’t. And this job means more to me than sewing circle gossip.”
Lilith nods and I see a smile pull at her lips. “All right. I’ll leave you to it,” she says and turns to click her way down the hall.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and flop down in my seat. I can actually feel the stress sweat in my armpits, but I think I might just have made it through my first ring of fire.
Chapter 3
Blair
I wiggle my toes inside my heels, praying for some relief. This morning I made the walk to work just fine, but after running around in these shoes all day I had to take the bus home. My apartment is only a little over a mile from the art studio, but my feet are dead. Bringing two sets of clothes to work makes sense now. There’s no way I could last in that warehouse on heels all day. I need to dig through my closet and find some sneakers.
I’m still in awe of the art studio and how big it is. I barely even made a dent in some of the inventory Lilith had me go through. The place is chaos. I’m not sure how someone with a personality like Lilith has let it get so bad. My only guess is because she’s too busy to have time to deal with it. Which is true. I watched as orders came and went as fast as I could find them. I had no idea an art studio could be so busy, but it was.
I open the to-go container I got from the restaurant next to art studio and sneak a French fry out, popping it into my mouth. I have to bite back a moan. I’d been so busy today that I’d forgotten about eating lunch altogether. But I noticed no one else ate lunch either, so maybe that’s just the way it is. I’m glad I indulged in a second coffee this morning to hold me over. I don’t function well when I don’t eat. It’s a feeling that takes me back to a place I hated.
Tomorrow I’ll pack a few snacks in my purse in case I’m running around like crazy again. I was too scared to ask for a lunch break. If I was told to take lunch, I would, but I wasn’t going to go be the only person talking about food. I was lucky to have this job to begin with. I’m already trying to prove that I’m worthy of having the position and that I didn’t get it only because of Fritz. I want Lilith to see me as an asset. And as strange as it sounds, I want her approval. To feel like I’m needed and actually helping.
At the reminder of Fritz, I pull out my cell phone. When I don’t see a text from him, I’m not sure if I should worry or not. When I was in school we could go days without texting, but normally he’d let me know he was working. Today was kind of a big deal to me, and I haven’t heard a peep from him.
I know Fritz can’t always be here when I need him, but he usually makes some kind of effort to let me know he’s thinking about me. Maybe I’m just needy. I hate that. My mama was always needy of men. She always had to have one around. She went from one boyfriend to the next.
When I moved from the dorms to my new apartment he was too busy to help, but he sent over a few moving people to help me. Not that I needed a ton of help. I didn’t have a lot of things, but it was still sweet of him to find a way to be there for me. Even if he couldn’t be there in person.