Free So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) by L.J. Kennedy Page A

Daisy, what’s your damage?” Chase
yelled, not backing down.
    “What’s my damage? What’s my damage ,
you frickin’ dickwad? As soon as I turn my back, you practically
have your tongue down some other chick’s throat—and I’m sure, if
you had it your way, something else, too.”
    “Aww, man, Daisy. You know I don’t like it
when you get vulgar.”
    “My ass, Chase!” Tears of anger welled up in
the girl’s overly eyeliner-laden eyes. “This is the last time I
fall for your game. You won’t break my heart again!”
    Daisy turned and walked away, leaving both
Chase and me in a slight daze. Amazingly enough, the gaggle of
girls around us seemed to close in even tighter after all the
drama. Chase didn’t notice them. He turned to look at me, a
strangely pained expression on his face, but when he noticed the
wine all over my new designer dress, he broke out into a slightly
loopy grin.
    “Damn, my reputation precedes me, I guess.
Cheers, Goldilocks. It’s kind of like graffiti—looks good on you.”
At that, he headed off, presumably in search of Daisy.
    I was fuming. Yet again, Chase Adams had
managed to ruin an otherwise perfectly pleasant time for me. It was
like I turned into a walking disaster whenever he was around. When
Chase Adams wasn’t making my heart do backflips, he was making my
blood boil.
    This is way too much anger in one week for
you , I told myself.
    I looked around for napkins to wipe off the
excess drippage, although by now I was resigned to the fact that my
dress was ruined. So much for wearing it to date night with
Harrison , I grumbled to myself.
    At that moment, Kendra walked up to me and
started to say something but then did a double take when she saw my
outfit. “Nuh-uh!” she exclaimed. “That prick better not be
responsible for the state of you right now.”
    I sighed. “Actually, he is . . . at least
inadvertently.”
    “Want to head out? It turns out Quentin
Pierce isn’t even here. They’re supposed to have some kind of Q and
A with him over iChat later tonight. Thanks, but no thanks.”
    I guess I’d already figured that our plans to
romance the reclusive artist with my clear lack of interest or
knowledge about street art would bottom out.
    “So, are you going to tell me what happened
with Chase? I want the details, woman! And who the hell were all
those skanky girls around you?” Kendra looked behind her,
mad-dogging the remaining cluster of Chase groupies.
    I frowned as we made our exit. I could see
Chase in a smoky corner, a cigarette between his lips, as he
listened to Daisy, whose hands gesticulated wildly. His eyes darted
toward me, the green of them piercing me like two perfect shards of
glass. He took the cigarette between two fingers and blew out the
smoke, his intense gaze never wavering. I turned away quickly. “I
don’t know, but one thing is for sure: I am officially allergic to
Chase Adams.”

Chapter Seven
    It was
past 2:00 a.m. Kendra was asleep, and I could hear her light
snores, which had always seemed like music to my ears in my
insomniac, espresso-addled state of the past few weeks. But as I
sat with the covers nestled around my body, hunched over my MacBook
Pro, sleep was the last thing on my mind.
    The curatorship letter of interest was due
tomorrow. Professor Claremont hadn’t given us much lead time, since
she was asking for only a page, maximum, and also because Quentin
had made an eleventh-hour decision to do the retrospective. It was
already mid-October, and the plan was for it to open in early
December, which meant I had to scramble if I still wanted to be in
the running.
    I had a bad case of writer’s block. But more
than that, I was feeling dispirited by my encounters with the art
world in my brief time in New York. Between the rude art snobbery
of Chase Adams and the highfalutin narcissism of Quentin Pierce, I
was lost. The world I had thought I’d be entering was a far cry
from the whimsical Parisian cafés and salons of my