Free Vain - Part Two (The Vain Series Book 2) by Deborah Bladon Page A

pick up the wine glass but quickly place it back down. I have to work early tomorrow morning and going in with a hangover was definitely going to get me fired before first period was even over.
    "He was at the gallery." He leans back in his chair and crosses his left leg over the right. He looks striking in a light colored sweater and dark pants.
    "I don't think we met." I chew on the edge of a breadstick. "I'm so hungry."
    "You met." He sips from the glass again. "He can't stop talking about how beautiful you are."
    "He's just like you." I narrow my eyes at him. "I only met one man. His name was Ron."
    "Ron Foster." He follows my lead and munches on a breadstick too. "We flew to New York together."
    "I thought you might have flown." I look over his shoulder to where the waiter is checking his smartphone. "I didn’t see you on the train."
    "I had a ticket for the train." He picks up a fork from the table and twirls it between his fingers. "I had to adjust my schedule."
    I trace my finger along my eyebrow. Noah's continual insistence on explaining away his need to not be seen in public is starting to wear me down. "You can just say that you felt uncomfortable. You know I understand."
    He leans forward, his hand pushing the wine glass to the side. "It wasn't that."
    "What was it?"
    "My show this year was going to be all you." His mouth curves. "Then we fucked."
    "You were actually going to show my pictures?" I feel heat course over my face. I remember the trepidation I was feeling at the gallery before the photographs were revealed. I was lost in such confusion when I believed that Amy's picture was mine. The knowledge that Noah had actually considered constructing a show entirely of my photographs is jarring.
    "I was." His eyes dance as they meet mine. "Then I tasted you and I felt myself inside of you. I saw the moment when you came and I couldn't share that with anyone else."
    "When did you decide not to show my pictures?"
    "The afternoon of the opening." He shakes his head slightly. "I called my dad. We pulled the photographs I used together and got them up minutes before the gallery opened."
    "I had no idea."
     

Chapter 20
     
    "Your auction item brought in more than enough money to complete the playground, Alexa," Natalie, the teacher assigned to guide me through my time at the grade school, says. "We're actually going to use some of the funds that are leftover to help with the school lunch program.
    I feel my stomach tense at the proclamation. I'm grateful that Beck's painting was going to help such worthy causes but my continual refusal to speak with him was quickly becoming near impossible. I'd jumped into a taxi this morning when I saw him headed down the street towards my apartment. I had been avoiding him purposefully since seeing him at my birthday party two weeks ago. The wish I made when I blew out my candles was that he'd disappear from the continent, obviously that wish wasn't going to come true anytime soon.  "I'm glad it helped," I offer.
    "You did realize it was a Brighton Beck original, didn't you?" The assumption beneath the question is glaringly obvious. I have no interest in sharing my connection with Brighton with anyone I work with. They don’t need to know. I'm just glad that I hadn't given Sadie any of their names when it came time to draw up the guest list for my party. If I had, I'd been dodging questions about Brighton left and right.
    "I heard that, yes." I don't add anything more. Maybe she'll drop the subject and take up where she left off last week when she was gossiping about what one of the fifth grade teachers eats for lunch.
    "Do you know him?" It's much more direct than I expected.
    "That's an odd question." No, Alexa. That's an odd response. She was looking for a yes or no answer. You're only pointing the spotlight at your guilty face when you answer simple questions like that.
    "He said he knew you." She leans closer. I can hear the shift to gossip tone in her voice. "I called him