Free Unsticky by Sarah Manning Page B

alcohol, when Vaughn slid gracefully off the stool. Not that he had far to slide.
     
    ‘Shall we?’ he said, taking her arm again and this time it didn’t feel so strange. Besides, men with good manners who held doors open for you and walked on the road side of the pavement were a dying breed.
     
    There was one startling moment of damp heat as they stepped outside before Grace was nestled in the back of a sleek expensive car on soft leather seats with the air conditioning turned up so high that she could feel goosebumps hatch along her arms. Vaughn slid in next to her because he had a driver. An actual driver. In an actual uniform. Man, if the folks back home could see her now.
     
    ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, a hint of suspicion creeping into her voice because she hadn’t entirely ruled out the human-trafficker idea.
     
    ‘Chelsea,’ Vaughn sighed. ‘I always end up in Chelsea in some poky little gallery drinking rancid white wine. Now, there are some things you need to know.’
     
    He started to give her a rundown on his resumé. A gallery in London. A gallery in New York. Up-and-coming artists ‘nurtured and mentored’, as if they were little furry pets who’d been abandoned by their birth mothers and had to be bottle-fed by Vaughn. ‘They’re so needy,’ he complained. ‘Especially the older ones. The younger ones have business managers before they’ve even graduated.’
     
    When he wasn’t hand-rearing artists, he bought and sold art for private clients and collectors, and advised several museums and national galleries. He obviously did it very well, if the chauffeur-driven car and the whimsical purchase of Marc Jacobs bags was anything to go by.
     
    Grace cast her mind back to her Art History A-level, but all she could remember was the drone of Mr Mortimer’s voice as she’d ignored the words in her textbooks and looked at the pretty pictures. Vaughn must have noticed the rising panic she was giving off like white noise because he gave her a reassuring smile and squeezed her fingers so briefly that when she looked down at his hand, it had already gone. ‘The whole world seems to know that I’m in acquisition mode at the moment so I need you to do one thing for me,’ he said calmly.
     
    ‘I won’t have to bid on anything, will I?’ Grace asked uncertainly.
     
    ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Vaughn said. ‘If I get cornered by the gallery owner or, God forbid, the artist and his agent, you have to rescue me. I’ll tap my chin and you can come rushing over and spirit me away.’
     
    Actually, that sounded like fun. She could even use a foreign accent and play up the part of the spoiled girlfriend. ‘I can do that,’ Grace grinned, turning to him. ‘I give really good glare.’
     
    ‘You do,’ he agreed. ‘But when you smile properly, then you’re very beautiful.’
     
    They were already nudging into 23rd Street so Grace didn’t have to reply. The car pulled up to the kerb and instead of scrambling out like she normally did, Grace waited for the driver to open her door and as she stepped out, Vaughn was there to take her arm again and carefully lead her up the six steps to the gallery entrance.
     
     
    The second that they entered Blax Gallery, the excited hum of opening night became an expectant silence, as if someone had suddenly pressed a cosmic mute button. Grace looked up and saw a sea of curious faces, sliding right past her to fix on Vaughn.
     
    ‘Anyone would think they’d never seen an art dealer before,’ he muttered in her ear, his hand around her wrist as he strode into the room. ‘Let’s be daring and actually look at the art.’
     
    ‘Are you well known?’ Grace ventured, stepping around a rapier-thin blonde woman who was making absolutely no attempt to stop staring at Vaughn and get out of her way.
     
    ‘I’m very good at what I do,’ he said simply. ‘And that has its advantages and disadvantages.’ They were fighting through the jostling