The Contract by Lisa Renée Jones Read Free Book Online

hadn’t known I was holding and shake myself inwardly. And not just because of the way his eyes had assessed me so . . . so what? Intimately? Surely not. I still have this overactive-imagination thing going on from reading the journals. I do wonder if he is the he from the journals. He certainly has the animal magnetism Rebecca’s words painted him with. But then, so does Ricco Alvarez. Good grief, I’m making myself crazy.
    A staff member interrupts me before I can go on another “crazy” thinking spree, and removes the couple’s purchase from the display. I force myself to stop overanalyzing and relax, basking in the solitude as I discover Chris Merit’s newest work.
    “You like Merit?” comes another male voice, this one familiar.
    I turn to find the man who’d sat next to me during the presentation standing in the doorway. I give a quick, eager nod. “Very much. I wish they had some of his portraits, but his urban landscapes are magnificent. You?”
    He leans against the wall. “I hear he doesn’t have an overinflated ego. That scores points with me.”
    I tilt my head and study him, relaxing into the easy conversation. “Why are you here if you don’t like Ricco?”
    Mark Compton appears in the doorway. “I see you didn’t venture far,” he says to me and then eyes the other man. “Don’t tell me you’re pimping your own work at Ricco’s event?” He glances at me. “Was he pimping his own work?”
    I gape. “Wait. His own work?” I shift my gaze to my nameless new friend, who looks nothing like the Chris Merit I’ve seen photos of. “Who are you exactly?”
    His mouth quirks at the edges. “The man with one red shoe.” And with that, he turns and walks away.
    I shake my head. “What? What does that mean?” I turn to Mark. “What does that mean? The man with one red shoe?”
    “Who knows,” Mark says, his lips thinning in disapproval. “Chris has a twisted sense of humor. Thankfully, it doesn’t show up on the canvas.”
    My jaw goes slack. “Wait. Are you telling me that was Chris Merit?” I rack my brain over the pictures of him I’ve seen and I remember him differently. Do I have his image confused with another?
    “That’s Chris,” he confirms. “And as you can see, he has an odd way about him. He was standing in his own display room and didn’t even tell you who he was.” His hands settle on his hips. “Listen, Tesse tells me you . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name?”
    “Sara,” I supply. “Sara McMillan.”
    “Sara,” he repeats, his tone low, as if he was trying it out on his tongue, trying me out on his tongue. Seconds pass, and the small display area seems to get smaller before he adds, “Tesse was right. Rebecca is on a leave of absence.”
    His tone shifts back to all business now, and I wonder if I imagine the raspier tone. I am, after all, excelling at making myself crazy. “I see,” I say. “Is there a way to reach her?”
    “If you figure out a way, let me know,” he says. “She took a two-week cruise with some rich guy she was dating and that turned into the entire summer. I agreed because she’s good at her job and the clients love her. But depending on interns who don’t know what they’re doing is killing me. I’m going to have to get someone in here to cover for her who actually knows what she is doing.”
    “The entire summer,” I repeat uncomfortably, focusing on the oddity that represents. All summer is a long time for a working girl to leave her job behind. And Mark’s comment about the “rich guy” hit me just as wrong for some reason, though it could have been merely his frustration over Rebecca’s extended leave. Or maybe . . . could he be jealous over this rich man? My brows dip. “Leaving you high and dry like this—that doesn’t sound like the responsible Rebecca my sister described.”
    “People aren’t always what they seem,” he says and motions toward Chris Merit’s displayed art. “The art does not