Infamous by Nicole Camden Read Free Book Online

husband, Max’s father, had taken off after knocking over a credit union in a north Florida town. Like Max, Carl had mostly raised himself until his uncle Mike had taken him in, but unlike Max, those early years had made him almost maniacally sociable. Carl was known as the king of the good time, which was how he wanted it, but Max . . . Max needed something to shake him out of his pattern of work, fuck, read a book . For like a second, Carl had thought that Mary would make a good partner for Max; she was lovely and unique and charming, but she was not a force to be reckoned with. Max needed someone at least as temperamental and strong-willed as he was to stand up to him when he got in one of his moods. He’d seen the sparks Max and Lille threw off each other, and Mary had filled him in on their encounter several weeks ago. In Carl’s opinion, Max needed someone like Lille, and Carl intended to do everything in his power to see the two of them together.
    The first part of his plan revolved around Kim, who was an excellent filmmaker and in desperate need of a job. He knew Max would hate the idea of anyone displaying their lives on film, but he also knew that Kim, in her own unique way, would take the more-than-a-little-cheesy notion of a sex shop documentary and make it as emotionally fucking moving as a Sundance Film Festival favorite. She wouldn’t be able to help herself. It would drive business to the store, which he knew hadn’t been doing well for a few years, not since Amazon had made online ordering the name of the game, and it would irritate Max enough to bring him out of his shell. Max didn’t like change. He liked his world the way it was—but that didn’t mean he was happy, not at all.
    Carl thought that Lille’s arrival was a very good thing for both the store and Max. In the two weeks that she’d been working there, she’d reorganized, redecorated, and added a life that the store had been missing since Mandy died. Mary’s arrival had helped some, but she didn’t love the business; her heart was set on her paintings, which had been selling well at his gallery. Lille, on the other hand, was a born saleswoman and, underneath it all, quite level-headed and practical.
    The dichotomy of her character was interesting. Alone, in the office, she worked on spreadsheets, completed cost analyses, placed orders, and organized with the soul of an accountant, but as soon as a customer arrived, she would straighten, arrange her body as if she were posing for a show, and set her face in a mask of charm and wicked delight. She flirted and teased but always maintained her slightly aloof manner, making sure everyone knew she was the one in charge.
    Wonder if I come off that way, he thought, glancing at the printed inventory lists that covered his desk. He’d received a shipment of paintings this morning from an Argentinean artist he adored—Gabriel Montenegro. Carl’s assistant, a sweet girl named Jo, hadn’t been able to handle the delivery while also taking care of any customers who came to the gallery.
    His gallery showroom consisted of two areas: the public area and the private room where he kept Mary’s paintings, along with those of a few other select artists whose work was not quite acceptable to the majority of the public. Mary’s paintings were mostly sensual rather than outright explicit, unlike Debbie Valley’s photography. Gabriel’s work was somewhere in between, mostly compelling images of death, combined with references to popular culture, and a few nudes with hints of decay and destruction entwined.
    Carl smiled into the dark eyes of a stygian beauty and rubbed a bit of dust off of her frame. He breathed in the smell of sawdust and packing material as the rest of Gabriel’s paintings were unloaded; then he walked back toward the section that housed Mary’s work. As always, his eyes were drawn first to the painting of