I check the jewelry cabinet last. I think a little part of me was hoping she'd take all those gifts with her. Even if it was just to sell.

But she didn't. The ring I gave her last year at Christmas is in there, even though she wore it-never took it off-since the moment I put it on. All the earrings, all the necklaces, all the bracelets... still here. There has to be a hundred thousand dollars' worth of jewelry in this cabinet.

And she took nothing.

What kind of a mindset was she in? When she made the decision to leave it all behind?

Does she hate me so much that even a small piece of precious metal is too much to keep close?

I let out a long, sad sigh as I walk over to the bedroom window. Stare out at the snow. The capitol building. The busy streets downtown. The cars, and cabs, and pedestrians. Everyone going about their day like usual.

My phone buzzes in my front pocket. I reach for it out of habit, check the caller ID-work-and tab accept. "Hello," I say.

"Mr. Foster." It's Jayne, my assistant at the office.

"Yes," I say, still looking out at the snow. The deadness of everything, even though it's so alive.

"You have four meetings this afternoon and it's almost lunchtime. I just wanted to see if you'd like me to cancel them?"

"No," I say. "I'll be in soon." I end the call and put my phone back in my pocket.

Turn around and take it all in. Say goodbye to it.

No more fun in that bed. The last fuck I had under that amazing canopy draped with velvet curtains was with a stranger.

"Thanks for that, you bitch," I say.

For a second I'm not sure if I'm talking to the interloper, or to Rochelle.

But when I walk out of the apartment, take the elevator downstairs, exit Turning Point Club, and get into my waiting car-I know who I'm talking to.

I know exactly who I'm talking to. Because I walked out of that apartment with nothing.

I left it all behind.

And now it's time to leave her behind too.

I'm talking to you, Rochelle.

I'm talking to you.

Chapter Six - Chella.

Matisse is late. Two. Hours. Late. Oh, all his packages arrive at ten AM, right on time. The whole truck full of art valued at more than fifty million dollars is in the back docking bay. Idle.

Because we are not allowed to unload until he gets here.

I try to remain calm, but I'm picturing just how late we'll have to stay to get it all out and into the basement where we pre-stage it before transporting it upstairs on the freight elevator.

Usually we do this in one day. But I can't see it happening.

I sigh.

Unless we all stay here until midnight, pushing through.

Maybe it's a good thing. Tomorrow is my day off. I will get home, drop from exhaustion, and then if I'm lucky, I can sleep away half the day.

The building rumbles and I get to my feet, straighten my jacket and jump down the stairs that lead to the showroom down below, heels in hand.

The rumbling is the freight elevator being called downstairs. When I'm at the bottom of the stairs I stop, hopping as I try to slip each foot in each shoe, and then take a deep breath and collect myself.

I whoosh through the door that leads to the back office and smack right into the hard body of a man. He catches me before I fall, holding on to my upper arms with a steadying grip, and laughs.

"What the f-" It's Smith Baldwin. I look around nervously, but my staff is too busy with the delivery-and Matisse, who has finally showed up-to be paying any attention to me. I take my attention back to Smith and whisper through clenched teeth. "What the hell are you doing here? You need to leave. This is my job."

Smith smiles a smile that says he has all the answers, trust him. He's wearing a charcoal-gray suit with a crisp white shirt and a light gray tie. His broad shoulders make the line of the suit taper down to his hips.

I don't know very much about Smith Baldwin, but I do know he's weird. I think everyone can agree on that. The man never went to school, and yet he has honorary degrees from seven institutions. Not just colleges, either. Elementary schools gave him a diploma. Do elementary schools have diplomas? I guess in the world of elite boarding schools, this might be the case. His high-school diploma is the same way. Never earned, only honorary. And just from the casual research I did on him at Rochelle's insistence, I know he has three graduate degrees. One of them is from the Wharton School of Business.

Does he even have a job? Smith was not the reason I agreed to Rochelle's plan. I barely looked into his past at all. So, I don't know. But I think he ticks the box with the word unemployed on his census surveys.

He is rich. But he is also beyond rich. I'm rich. My father is rich. Elias Bricman and Quin Foster are also loaded with more money than they can probably ever spend.

But Smith Baldwin is disgustingly, excessively wealthy.

"I'm here with Matisse," Smith says. He waves a hand over his shoulder to indicate the internationally famous recluse of an artist. "We're practically best friends."

I can only blink. Three times in quick succession.

Is he fucking with me?

No, apparently not. Because Matisse is calling his name from across the office. He's at the gallery's professional version of a coffee machine, trying to make it work. "Help me with this, Smith," Matisse calls.

I realize Smith is still gripping my upper arms, so I break away and walk over to the artist, who is concentrating very hard on trying to make the machine spit him out some coffee. "Hi," I say, startling him.

He whirls around and backs up. Except he can't back up, there's a granite countertop there. So instead he is forced to lean back at the waist, like I'm some kind of disease he needs to be as far away from as possible.

"Sorry," I say in a calm voice. "I'm Marcella Walcott. I'm the Benton Gallery manager. I'm here to make sure everything goes off without a hitch." He says nothing, so I keep going. "We're going to unload in the basement, map everything out while it's still in crates, and then we'll unpack and deliver each piece up here, in the gallery, using the freight elevator. We'll do that last part tomorrow."

He says nothing.

"If that's OK?" I add. "If you're prefer it done another way, I'm happy-"

"No, no," Matisse says, finally leaning forward again, relaxing. "Do it your way. I don't want to interfere. Just don't scratch anything."

"Right," I say, letting out a long breath with my word. "We won't. I promise. We'll take very good care of your sculptures, Mr. Matisse."

"Just Matisse," he says, taking my hand and squeezing lightly. "Just call me Matisse, tell me how to work this stupid machine so I can get a cup of coffee in me, and we'll be just fine."

I do that and when I'm done, Smith has disappeared. But I have a job to do, and so I take the stairs down to the loading dock and get to it.

The rest of the day is nothing but standing over my crew, worrying like a schoolmarm about the bronze sculptures we're unloading. I try not to hover because the dock manager, Kathryn, has it all under control-she's been working here longer than I have-but I don't entirely succeed.

Matisse is in and out over the course of the day. I have a feeling he's doing his best not to hover as well.

Smith hangs out, leaves, comes back, leaves. I try to ignore him but I have to wonder what exactly I got myself into last night.

He took me home, so he knows where I live. And then he shows up here, pretending he's only interested in Rochelle because of Quin. Please. But this second appearance has me rattled. I guess he really is a long-time friend of Matisse. And I can see it, now that I've had a chance to meet the artist. They are a lot alike. Both of them are weird.

At some point in the late afternoon they disappear for lunch, but my assistant, Michell, has sandwiches brought in from a restaurant across the mall and we all stop to eat and talk about what a great show this will be.

It's called Backstage. And when we are done with the installation, the entire gallery will look like the backstage of a ballet theatre. There are seventeen life-size bronze sculptures of ballerinas. Eight women, four men, and five children. Plus life-size sculptures of the stage hands and everything else that goes on behind the scenes.

This Thursday night will be one of the biggest nights this gallery has ever seen. And it's going to run for three months, so actually, the Charles Benton gallery might never be the same after Matisse leaves his mark on Denver.

We are going to sell every single piece. I know it. I've had my eye on two of the children for months. They are laughing, their expressions frozen in happy excitement.

I'm going to put them out on my back courtyard.

Matisse leaves around ten PM, convinced that we know what we are doing, and then says he'll be back in the morning to help with installation. He has seven crews coming in tomorrow morning to get things set up. Charles always handles the actual installations, which is why I have these two days off each week. But maybe I could just pop by?

It would be better than sitting around at home, at least.

It's well after midnight when we get the final crate down into the pre-stage area. My shoes disappeared hours ago. I don't even know where they are at the moment. My assistant, Michell, left around seven, but Kathryn is still here. We both slump onto a couch in the employee lounge, beat.

"I want to sleep right here," Kathryn says, pulling her feet up and leaning into the tufted sidearm of the couch. She pulls her hands under her cheek and closes her eyes.

"Me too. You can come in late tomorrow," I say.

"Fuck that." She laughs softly, eyes still closed. "I'm not missing a moment of this."

I smile. "Yeah, I was thinking of coming in tomorrow too. It's kind of a big deal, right?"

"So big," she mumbles.

"Hey," I say, slapping her leg. "You have a ride home? I don't think you should drive when you're so tired."

Her phone buzzes just as the words come out. "That's my chariot now. Jason is picking me up." She reluctantly pulls herself into a sitting position and then stands, her hands on her lower back as she stretches, then beams a smile down at me. "It was a great day, Chella. We're gonna rock this shit on Friday."

"Yeah." I laugh, watching her gather up her things and head towards the back door. "We just might do that."

When she's gone, I sit there for a few more minutes, thinking about how life has changed in the past two days.

I got fucked by Quin Foster. Smith Baldwin drove me home last night. And I had more than a dozen work-related conversations with Matisse today.

I go looking for my shoes, which are on the stairs leading up to my loft office in the gallery, and I'm just putting them on when I startle from a knock at the front door.

There are two men out there. My heart skips a beat, wondering if they will try to break in, but when I look closer, I realize it's Matisse and Smith. "What the hell?" I find my keys in my jacket pocket as I walk over to the door, then unlock it and open it up. "What are you guys doing?"

"Would you like to have dinner with us?" Matisse asks. "I don't think you ate, did you?"

"No," I say, hesitantly. "I was just about to go home. I don't think anything is open right now."

"I know a place," Smith says.

I stare at him, knowing what he means, but not quite understanding what he's after.

"Come on," Matisse says. "We've got a car right over there." He points across the mall to the dead-end street corner where vehicular traffic is allowed. "And we've got a table. They're expecting three."

"I've got my car," I say, stunned at the midnight offer.

"We'll bring you back to your car," Smith says. "When we're done."

"I've got to lock up," I say.

"We'll wait out here," Matisse says, motioning to the steps leading up to the front door.

I think about it for a second. It's not exactly what Rochelle planned. Or what I agreed to. But it's damn close. "OK," I say. "Give me five minutes to shut things down and I'll be right back."

They both smile. They smile like wolves.

I'm silent as I sit between them during the five-minute ride over to Turning Point Club, but Matisse and Smith chat about old times. Parties, and women, and drinking, and money.

Very, very typical.

When we pull up in front, Smith gets out first, then holds out his hand, helping me step out. Matisse gets out on the other side and meets us at the door. There is a flurry of activity when Smith approaches the maitre d', and then he leans into his ear and says, "In the bar, near the window."

The maitre d' nods and says, "Right this way, Mr. Baldwin."

Smith follows the man, I follow Smith, and Matisse is right behind me. But when we get to the booth, Smith doesn't sit. Instead he waves me into the side facing the bar and Matisse into the bench across from me.

"I'll be right back," Smith says. And he leaves me there with Matisse.

"It went very well today," he says. "I'm impressed."