Levi by Hope Hitchens

Author:Hope Hitchens [Hitchens, Hope]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-23T16:00:00+00:00

13

Levi

Surprise surprise, Max was being a bitch about the auction house. Par for the course; he was a bitch about a lot of things. Particularly when things came to me. We had never had a civil conversation since we’d met. I had expected him to at least be professional about this, but that was a mistake on my part. You didn’t dump a bucket of water on yourself and expect not to get wet.

I wanted the auction house. I didn’t just want it because Max had it. I hated the guy, but Strickland’s wasn’t a toy car we both wanted that he was playing keep-away with me with. Strickland’s didn’t strictly qualify as one of Dad’s old businesses that fell under Max’s control when he died. It was sort of in its own gray area, so Max getting it was likely because it was explicitly real estate.

Dad had been the owner, and he had donated and invested in it heavily. He hadn’t run it, really. He was there for all the old, expensive shit he could buy through it. He liked art. Maybe it was because he was sick that he hadn’t tried to make it the next Christie’s.

That was where I came in. What I really wanted was to open up a Strickland’s in New York. New Yorkers loved to spend hours staring at art. Art wasn’t the only thing that was auctioned, though; real estate was too. Why didn’t Clapsaddle lead with that? Then he’d have been talking my language.

Repossessed houses and properties were auctioned off all the time. The simplest way to make money in real estate was flipping. Strickland’s could broker the sales of high end, luxury real estate to the wealthy, discerning clientele it already had. What the hell would Max do with the auction house, anyway? Look at it? Use it to keep stalking Audra? Another oversight old Jackson had had putting his last will together.

The cat was out of the bag. The auction of the Strickland collection was going to be a charity auction. If Dad’s old friends knew what was good for them, they’d show their support.

I got an email from the Strickland’s people nearly every other day. The showings of the collection were beginning, which at another time would have meant nothing to me, but now, things were different.

I had fucked up. Again.

I was smarter than this.

A four-year degree and subsequent graduate degree at two Ivy League colleges said this. The fact that I headed a multinational said I was smarter than this. The fact that I had been raised in part by a single mother and had a sister said I was fucking smarter than this. Why then, was I apparently clueless when it came to Audra?

Weren’t we speaking the same language? Didn’t we want the same things?

I’d never felt so fucking awful after coming in my life. She didn’t even want to look at me. I know she enjoyed it. Maybe it was too much to say that, but I know I made her come that time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.