“I don’t believe I’ve seen any of these paintings before,” Wentworth said. He was referring to all of my grandad’s landscapes hanging in the living room. None of them had ever been displayed in any gallery shows.

“No,” my grandfather answered. “This is my private work.”

“It all looks fabulous. Have you considered selling them?” Wentworth asked. “The Private Collection of Spiridon Manos?”

There was a long silence while I pretended to work in the studio. Isabella was posed naked in front of me, but I was too worried about what Wentworth might do or say to get any real painting done.

“I’m too old for the art business,” my grandad sighed. “It’s a young man’s game.”

“Balderdash,” Wentworth said. “I’m older than you, Spiridon, and I’m still in it.”

“But we’re on opposite sides of the game board, Stanford.”

“Touché. I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll give you seven million for everything in the room.”

I think I could hear Brandon gulping all the way from where I sat at my easel.

“Thank you, Stanford,” my grandad said, “but no. The memories in these paintings are worth ten times that. Many of them were painted when I was a young man, or when my son was but a child, or when I had my grandson sitting on my knee. I couldn’t part with them.”

“If you change your mind, give my office a call. But I promise, my offer will have changed, and not to your advantage, I assure you.”

Nice. I hadn’t yet met the guy, and already I didn’t like him.

“Enough of that,” Wentworth grumbled. “Now, shall we see the young artist at work?”

“If he’s not too busy,” my grandad said a bit defensively.

“I’ll go check,” Brandon said. He rushed into the studio a moment later, a pained expression on his face. “You ready for the dog and pony show?” he whispered.

“Do I have a choice?” I mumbled.

“No,” Brandon said sharply.

Fan fucking tastic.

Stanford Wentworth ambled into the room, flanked by his assistant Frederick, Brandon, and my grandad.

Wentworth was a large, tall man with a thick head of tightly maintained aerodynamic silver hair. He wore an expensive suit and imposing tie.

Frederick was similarly slickly suited. Wire rimmed glasses were attached to his face and a cellphone earpiece was attached to his ear. He raised his hand to his earpiece and pressed a button. “Frederick Whitlock speaking?” After a pause, he said, “He’s busy at the moment.” Pause. “I’ll check. Mr. Wentworth, it’s Couteux Galerie in Beverly Hills. They want to know if you’re coming by this afternoon?”

“Tell them I’ll come by if I come by,” Wentworth barked.

Nice. Wentworth sure had a winning personality.

Frederick relayed the message over his earpiece way more politely than Wentworth had said it. I had no doubt Frederick more than earned whatever Wentworth paid him.

I pretended to paint as they walked toward my easel, mixing paint on my palette. Isabella briefly glanced at them, but maintained her pose. I had explained to her earlier in detail that we should continue working while everyone walked in and watched.

I noticed Wentworth blatantly eyeballing Isabella’s nakedness. He positioned himself to get the best possible view of her exposed breasts. His overt desire was as subtle as a volcano. He slid his hands into his pockets and arched his back, thrusting out his pelvis. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he started jingling his change like he had a jackhammer running in his pants. Total douche. I liked him better and better. Not.

I would’ve thrown the guy out except for the fact he could ruin my art career with the snap of his fingers. The one downside to selling paintings for ten grand or fifty grand or more was that you were always dealing with rich shitheads.

Whatever. It’s not like the guy had his hands on Isabella. If he crossed that line, I’d break his fingers. But Isabella was a big girl, and I’m sure this wasn’t the first time she’d been ogled by an old dude. She worked as a model, after all. I could only hope she’d learned how to deal with it.

Wentworth let out a big sigh and pulled his hands out of his pockets. I’m sure by now he’d come in his pants. Fucking perv. He walked around behind my easel to see what I was doing.

I nodded at him.

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “Please continue.”

The way he said it sounded dangerously close to a command. I’m sure he was used to telling people what to do 24/7. I rolled my eyes before glancing at Isabella. She seemed relieved that I was now positioned between her and Wentworth like a shield.

I had been in the process of painting Isabella’s hips. The joint where the leg comes out of the pelvis was always tricky. Beautiful women had a softness, but you had to give it just the right amount of subtle structure or else it looked like carnival balloons stuck together. I’d always believed that softness was the secret of feminine beauty. Not hard muscle. All that modern shit about women having eight packs and guns for arms was ridiculous. If you wanted to fuck a guy, go fuck a guy.

I loaded up my brush with a mixture of burnt sienna and a hint of burnt umber. I swept the brush across the canvas at the hip joint in an elegant curve.

“Mmmm,” Wentworth nodded.

I ignored him.

I needed to hit one of the planes on the front of the pelvis with a lighter mix, so I went back to my palette and added a hint of zinc white.

As I was about to apply the paint to the canvas, Wentworth went, “Hmmm.”

Was it going to be like this all day? I almost turned and tossed him a glare, but decided it was a bad idea. So I scumbled the paint onto the canvas instead. Then I took out a clean brush and used it to soften the edge between the light and dark areas.

“Uh huh,” Wentworth mumbled.

Oh man, this was killing me. I set my brushes down and wiped my hands on a rag. I took a step back from my easel.

Wentworth immediately stepped in, getting his nose inches from the canvas. A simple “May I?” would’ve been nice. Nope. What Wentworth wanted, Wentworth got. He inspected the hip joint I’d just painted like a jeweler. Somebody give that guy a loupe so he could examine the molecules in the paint mix a little better.

He stepped back to view the whole painting and nodded thoughtfully. I couldn’t tell if he approved or what. Then he lunged forward, getting in close on the portrait again.

This guy was a nut.

He continued lunging in and out for several minutes, examining different parts of the painting in detail. When he was finished, he stepped back and stood beside me.

“I like it,” he said thoughtfully, “but it needs work.”

Was he kidding? We hadn’t even been introduced. Yeah, he knew who I was, and I knew who he was. But, fuck, there was this thing that had been around for thousands of years called common courtesy. I guess when you got rich enough, shit like that went out the window.

I glanced at Brandon, who gave me a sympathetic look that said, “Yes, he’s crazy, but he’s a hundred times richer than he is crazy, so suck it up.”

I shook my head minimally and rolled my eyes for Brandon’s sake.

He shot me a warning glare.

I sighed. Time for me to behave.

“Yes,” Wentworth said, “a few revisions and I think this will be serviceable. The head is good, but have you considered altering the pose?”

I raised one of my eyebrows at least three inches.

My grandad chuckled and walked out of the room. I could tell he was offended for me by the way he laughed.

I guess I’d missed the part where Wentworth had been hitting the crack pipe like a high class hooker after a blow job bender. The guy was a lunatic. Oh, I forgot. Wentworth did what Wentworth did.

He said, “This is good work. It’s not great. I wouldn’t pay more than fifteen thousand for what I see here. But I believe if you were to change the pose to something more elegant, you could get it up to fifty thousand.”