Nico Moretti's words clung to Lila's skin like smoke: Why hide behind the canvas when the real art is standing right here? They had been spoken softly, almost lazily, but they carried the weight of an appraisal. Not of paint and line—of her.
She made herself breathe. The gallery's chandelier fractured light across the marble at their feet. Strings hummed from the quartet in the corner, a careful luxury. Waiters moved like shadows between conversation islands, their trays glittering with champagne.
This was the night she had built from hunger and sleeplessness and rent paid late—a night meant for her work. And here he stood, tilting the entire room toward her as if she were an exhibit she hadn't agreed to become.
"You presume a lot, Mr. Moretti," she said, keeping her voice steady. "My work speaks for itself."
"Does it?" His gaze slid to the canvas with the violent red slash, then back. "It speaks—but it swallows. Restraint louder than the scream."
Her heartbeat thudded once, traitorous. He'd seen the thing she never named out loud: how often she pressed her emotions into neat borders, ordered storms inside frames. She lifted her chin.
"Or perhaps I prefer my work to speak without a narrator."
"A painter who doesn't want context," he murmured, more to himself than to her. "Rarer than a patron who doesn't want credit."
Before she could answer, a voice she knew too well slipped into the space between them.
"Prescott."
She closed her eyes for half a second. Not him.
When she looked, Ryan Maddox was already there, steps casual, grin precise, a burgundy pocket square gleaming like a small wound at his lapel. He carried a glass of wine with the ease of someone who had learned to use crystal as a prop.
"Mr. Moretti," Ryan said, not bothering to hide the measurement in his stare, "it's a pleasure to see your impeccable taste on display."
Nico didn't turn. His eyes stayed on Lila. "Taste is what remains when performance leaves the room."
Ryan's smile sharpened, though his tone stayed velvet. "Congratulations, Lila. The crimson is an improvement. You finally took my note."
Lila's jaw tightened. Months ago, he'd offered mentorship over coffee and an implied price. When she refused, praise had discovered barbs. "I took no one's note but my own."
"Of course," he said, sympathetic as a surgeon. "Still—promising. Very promising. But the brushwork is cautious. Too safe."
The word found its mark because it had been her secret terror tonight: that the courage she felt at 3 a.m. alone with a canvas would look like timidity under chandeliers. She folded her fingers tighter around her clutch.
Nico moved only his head, at last allowing Ryan a glance. "Safe?" He let the syllable cool in the air, then returned his gaze to Lila. "No. She paints like she's holding back a storm."
The sentence landed in her chest and lit a fuse.
Ryan's laugh was tidy and brittle. "Storms burn out. Collectors want houses that stand."
"Collectors," Nico said mildly, "want truth they can live with. I want the kind that won't let me sleep."
A small circle of patrons had drifted closer, the way flame pulls moths. Their interest buzzed at the edges of the conversation, that charged quiet of people pretending not to eavesdrop.
Lila felt the room tilting—not toward her canvases, toward this triangle.
"You didn't have to do that," she said to Nico, surprised to hear her voice come out low and raw.
"Do what?"
"Dismiss him. Defend me."
"I don't defend," Nico replied. "I choose. Tonight I chose to see you."
The words were not compliment but claim. Something uneasy tremored along her ribs.
"Why?" she asked, against her better judgment.
"Because this city is built of walls," he said, the words an intimate murmur that didn't belong to a room like this. "And I've never seen one crack so beautifully."
Her pulse faltered. Around them, crystal chimed, laughter swelled and softened, but she felt the spotlight narrowing, the invisible beam that chooses its subject. She had wanted the light on pigment and form, the labor that lived in her wrists and spine—not on the shape of her mouth as she formed a retort for a man like him.
"Lila," said a voice shaped like a smile.
Faye Moreland, the gallery owner, glided into orbit with the confidence of a woman who had learned to redirect storms. "Mr. Moretti is one of our most distinguished patrons. If he'd like a private word, there's a side salon prepared."
Faye's hand skimmed Lila's elbow—velvet pressure. Lila felt the tug of expectation, of etiquette. A dozen faces listened behind polite masks.
"I'm with guests," she said carefully.
"Guests," Faye repeated in that silken way that meant remember the world we're in, "are why patrons come."
Ryan tipped his glass toward Nico. "And why patrons collect frames."
The word chimed between them again. Frame. Lila tasted metal.
Nico slid a card from his inner pocket—matte black, a gold M embossed so deeply it cast a shadow. He didn't hand it to her. He simply held it, weightless and heavy at once.
"You say your work speaks for itself," he said. "I say it's whispering. When you're ready for volume, call."
"I prefer email," she said.
"Then consider this an email you can feel."
He set the card on the brass picture rail beneath her canvas as if it belonged there, as if it had always been there, an unseen part of the composition.
"Don't," she said, sharper than she intended.
His eyes returned to her immediately, the room shrinking to the span between his pupils and her breath. "Don't what?"
"Don't act as if this is already yours."
A beat. He nodded once, almost imperceptibly. "Then tell me where the boundary is."
She wasn't sure until she heard herself say it. "Arms-length."
"Tonight?" he asked.
"Always."
He studied her, and for the first time something like respect—not conquest, not amusement—edged his gaze. He stepped back one pace. The room inhaled with him.
"Then I'll respect the frame you choose," he said.
Faye exhaled a practiced smile. "Wonderful. We'll—"
A flash popped. Then another.
Mateo, the gallery photographer, had moved closer, lifting his camera with an apology in his eyes. "Just one for the press kit?" he murmured to Lila. She liked him because he asked, because he looked at her first and not at the man who made donors loosen checkbooks.
"Of course," Faye said brightly, already nudging them toward a cleaner sliver of light. "Mr. Moretti, if you wouldn't mind—"
Lila slid half a step away, a visible measure of arms-length. Nico noticed; he didn't close the gap. Mateo smiled in relief and snapped two quick frames. The light stuttered over marble.
Somewhere behind them, a teenager in a sequined jacket lifted her phone, aiming not with a professional's apology but a fan's hunger.
"Oh my God," the girl whispered to her friend. "Moretti and the new girl—post it, post it."
Lila saw the first caption bloom on a screen not hers: NEW MUSE? MORETTI SPOTTED WITH UNKNOWN PAINTER.
Another pinged a moment later: WHISPER QUEEN: CAN SHE PAINT OR JUST POSE?
Heat climbed her throat. Rage followed—not loud, but clean. This night was supposed to be for pigment and courage, not algorithm and appetite.
Ryan's laugh arrived like a blade wrapped in velvet. "Welcome to the real show, Lila."
"Enough," Faye said through her smile, her voice pitched for control. "Mateo, no more candids near Mr. Moretti. Guests, please—do respect privacy—"
"Privacy," Ryan echoed softly, "is for the people without stories."
Nico reached to adjust the black card on the picture rail, moving it a precise inch toward the plaque—a gesture that looked like tidiness but felt like claim.
"Don't," Lila said again.
He paused, fingers still. "Where is the edge?"
She held his gaze. "You'll know when you hit it."
The gallery held its breath. Boundaries had been drawn. How long before someone broke them?