The dead air on the line told me Sabrina was not amused by my outburst. Loyalty was never valued as it should be.
After a moment, she spoke again. “I’ll talk to her. Be ready for the driver at eight sharp on Friday.”
Click.
I pocketed my mobile and smiled grimly at Flynn. “So, how soon is this Rory fellow available?”
He didn’t have a chance to answer before my phone buzzed again. Goose bumps raised along the backs of my arms though it was warm and the sun had just broken through the clouds.
This was not a call I could take here. Nor could I brazen my way through it as I had so much else.
I had no money left. Nothing. No credit I could use as a cushion.
It was my fault I’d fucked up the plan. I hadn’t even spoken to Simon since arriving in LA, never mind begun to ingratiate myself into his life. We’d had an agenda. Jerry and the people he worked with didn’t believe in detours.
“Shouldn’t you answer that?” Flynn nodded at my mobile as it stopped buzzing and immediately started again.
I swallowed hard, my pulse hammering. Christ, what had I been thinking? That I could just play rockstar and smitten guy in lust with a beautiful girl and Jerry would just stand idly by?
Even without speaking to him, I knew I’d reached the end of the line.
The clock had been ticking, and now the time was up.
Twenty
“Fuck off.”
I threw a paintbrush at my phone across the room. I forgot to turn off the ringer and the stupid thing kept going off. Either it was a fucking call from a client or it was a text from Ian.
He was a little harder to ignore, but I was trying, dammit.
Of course I promptly forgot to go o
ver and turn off the ringer again. I had to finish this painting before my appointment with Ginny, my advisor. I’d been ducking her calls too, but I was officially into the final quarter of the year. Put up or shut up territory. Freaking kill me.
I gingerly moved down my scaffolding. Some days I wished I worked smaller, but the larger-than-life canvases were my favorite. This one was a close-up of one of my Polaroids. The microphone stand I’d been obsessed with at my first show with Ian.
Amazingly, I’d gotten all the details I’d wanted. And I could embellish the rest.
I’d been working on the janky base of the microphone stand for two days. It was achingly in focus while the rest of the high tech was a soft blur with just enough detail so that it was very apparent what everything was.
Dichotomies were my current theme.
Ian’s beat-to-hell boot—a Chelsea boot, I’d found out with a little research—and the glam sparkle of his pants were still scratching the back of my brain. I’d already given too many pieces to Ian. I’d tried to fuck him out of my system, but he only seemed more entrenched. Annoying as hell.
The light changed in my studio and my second alarm went off to remind me of my appointment with Ginny. I hopped off the scaffolding set I’d bought last night. I was tired of hanging off the ladder I’d been using. And my paintings only seemed to be getting bigger. This current one was eight feet square.
I backed up to get a better look at the progress. I grabbed my water to get a different angle, and my stupid phone went off again. But since it could be Ginny, I picked up.
Annoyed when I didn’t recognize the number, my voice was nearly a snarl. “Yeah?”
“Miss Manning?”
The cultured voice made my spine tingle. “Maybe.”
“My name is Sabrina Price.”
Her name niggled at me. Not an art person though; those names I knew. I uncapped my water and glugged down half the bottle. “Good for you.”