But not when it involved tasteful photography that in itself was a protest of corporate greed, something else her mother despised.
And especially not when her mother’s actions potentially threatened her job, given that Ebbe was known for stating her opinions with a lot of pomp and circumstance. And spray paint.
“Well, I can’t be silent about this,” her mother said firmly. “I’m going to stage a protest this weekend at the opening.”
Damn it. Kristine strode quickly in her heels to the back storeroom, where the caterers couldn’t overhear her. “Mother, don’t you dare. I am begging you, if you love me, do not make a scene. This is my place of employment!”
“So you would have me compromise my principles so you can rake in some greenbacks from porn distributors?”
That was a leap of epic proportions. Art with consenting adult models did not equate to porn. There was literally no reasoning with the woman, and Kristine did not have time for this. “I need this job or I will be forced to move in with you, and God knows, neither of us wants that. So save the protests for social media, okay? Because if you show up here Friday and destroy this opening night, I will lose my job and I will never speak to you ever again, even while I’m sharing your apartment.”
Hardball was the only way to play the game with Ebbe. Otherwise, she would do exactly what she wanted, with no thought to the consequences for those around her.
“What kind of daughter threatens her own mother?” Ebbe sniffed on the other end of the phone.
“One whose mother threatens to get her fired. Now I will talk to you later. Love you.” Despite knowing she would pay for it, Kristine ended the call without saying goodbye.
Tossing her phone onto the desk, she grabbed the sign, which was going to be placed on an easel at the front of the gallery, and pushed her way back into the main room. She was about to speak to the caterer when she realized there were people by the front door. Two men, in suits.
One looked familiar. Very familiar. Ten years hadn’t eradicated the knowledge of his muscular body, his narrow face and dark hair, despite the power suit. She knew every single inch of this man, every expression, every gesture, the touch of his hands, his lips, his tongue. Among other things.
He strode toward her and her mouth heated. Her breath caught. Her knees wobbled.
It was Sean, the only man she had ever been in love with.
Her husband.
* * *
SEAN MADDOCK HADN’T been confronted with this many naked bodies at once since a tequila-fueled skinny-dipping party in college. Unlike then, he was stone-cold sober this time around, but fortunately, or unfortunately, however you chose to feel about it, these were not flesh and blood partygoers, but nude photographs. A lot of them. In enormous proportions. With dozens and dozens of people in each shot, so that everywhere Sean turned, he caught a breast or a backside or an eyeful of man junk.
Damn. It was a lot to take in at two in the afternoon.
His latest intern, Michigan, was an ambitious recent U of Chicago graduate, who had apparently broken his parents’ hearts by choosing not to attend their alma mater, which had been his namesake. Instead, he’d worked his ass off at Chicago, and Sean suspected he’d never seen this much skin at any point during his undergrad years.
The poor kid made a strangled sound in the back of his throat as they stood in the lobby of the art gallery, Collective. “Interesting,” Michigan managed.
“You could call it that.” Sean shook his head. Maybe he wasn’t deep enough to comprehend the bigger meaning, but having two hundred people naked together in one photograph, looking like a herd of sheared sheep, did not project any sort of message to him other than awkward. “But it’s highly commercially successful, so the artist knows what he is doing. As does the gallery.”
Under other circumstances, he might have found it amusing. There was nothing he loved more than seeing a quirky idea take off on the open market. Not to mention he had no objections to nudity, though he preferred his naked encounters to be one-on-one. But today he was distracted by the papers that had arrived unexpectedly in the morning, jarring him out of an ordinary day’s work and straight backward to the previous decade.