Bring Me Fire by Emily Stone Read Free Book Online

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    " Let me give you a piece of advice," Conner said. "Or maybe not advice, but a little insight. She is jealous of you. I don’t even have to know the whole story to know this. And you’re fabulous, so of course, who can blame her. And she probably figured that firing you from her little gallery would mean you’d go start slinging lattes or something, but instead you persevered, with a little help from her husband, and managed to land a better job. So even if you personally don’t care about winning, you already have, and just because it doesn’t matter to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to someone else – especially to a person who thinks they’re in competition with you."
    Sky could feel a headache starting to build in the front of her skull. She took a sip of her coffee and hoped the caffeine would help. "I’d just like to forget about the whole thing, then, and concentrate on my new job, and be as professional as possible."
    Conner smiled. "If you really mean that, then I think you’re going to fit in just fine. That’s pretty much exactly what Josh was looking for."
     
    Conner spent most of the morning showing Sky around. It seemed there were endless hallways, off of which room after room lay, filled with various types of art, ranging from framed oil paintings to charcoal sketches and clay sculptures. In one room, the table set in the center was covered with what looked to be African masks made of wood and affixed with colorful beads and feathers. Something large, like a rain stick or maybe a didgeridoo was propped in the corner.
    " I can’t believe this collection he’s got," Sky said. She moved to turn around and felt her elbow brush against a stack of frames that were leaning against the wall. She caught them before they toppled over. Conner laughed.
    " As you can see, assistance is needed. It’s just far too big a job for me to take on myself, and while I can certainly appreciate the finer things in life, art isn’t really something that I know too much about. Mostly, it all looks the same to me. But you see how it is. It’s like this in pretty much every room. Notice though, that the walls are bare. In a way, you get to be an artist yourself. But Josh was very specific with how he wants things done, which I’ll explain to you and then I’m sure he’ll explain again to you next time he sees you."
    Sky nodded. "Okay," she said. "Is he here now?"
    " I’m not sure. Probably not. He might be around later. He likes to pretend he’s very reclusive, but in reality, he just likes to be able to come and go as he pleases, without a lot of fuss. Basically, he doesn’t want to be noticed. Kind of a tall order when you’re as good-looking as he happens to be, but I think it’s less of a problem for him if he goes somewhere like, say, Europe."
    " Oh. So he might go off to Europe, just like that?"
    " Just like that. Must be nice, huh?"
Sky followed Conner out of that room and toward the end of the hallway. There was a large window that overlooked the side yard and a massive magnolia tree. Sky walked to the window to get a better view. As she was turning away to walk back to Conner, she glanced to her right and saw a short hallway off of the one she was on, with a closed door at the very end.
    " Do I need the tour of this room, too?" she asked, pointing.
    Conner had been looking at something on his iPhone, but when he looked up and saw where Sky was pointing, he quickly dropped the phone in his pocket and hurried over to her.
    "No, no," he said, putting an arm around her shoulders and steering her away. "That is pretty much the one place that I am not going to give you a tour."
    " Yeah? How come?" She felt her curiosity rising.
    " Well, for starters, I don’t have the key. So even if I wanted to give you the tour, I couldn’t. But it’s off limits. For you, for me."
    " You don’t know what’s in there?"
    " I don’t."
    Sky glanced back toward the door, even though Conner seemed intent on