Park Avenue Prince(4)

It was just good business.





“You look great,” Harper said as I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror at the back of the gallery. “Are you ready?”

I was as ready as I ever would be. My red dress fit like a glove and my five-inch nude heels felt like a power source—like I was wearing weapons on my feet.

I checked the time on my phone. Just a few minutes before the exhibition opened. “Yeah, I’m ready. I just hope people come.” When I’d envisaged opening a gallery, I’d focused on being able to showcase up-and-coming talent, influencing consultants to choose certain artists for their clients. I’d thought it would be all about the art. But I’d learned that was only the tip of the iceberg. The business of art—trying to make sure I had enough money to pay the rent, getting all my tax documents filed, organizing cash flow—took up so much time. I’d really not understood that making a profit would have to be my primary focus. Art was simply how I did that.

“Of course they’ll come,” Harper said. “You have an eye for talent.” We strode back into the gallery space. There was a bar set up toward the back of Steve’s paintings and a tray of champagne glasses that had already been poured. “Can you go stand over by the door with that?” I asked one of the waiters. “People should be arriving any minute.”

I hoped.

The bell over the door tinkled. It was Violet, Scarlett’s sister who she’d gone to collect. Okay, so at least when potential customers came, the place wouldn’t be empty. I greeted them and sent them on their way to look at the paintings.

The door chimed again. “Melanie, so nice of you to come,” I said, kissing an old friend of my mother’s on the cheek. She bought a lot of art and liked to say she’d seen new artists when they were still unknown. If I could get her interested in the gallery, then I’d feel like I had some momentum. She knew a whole lot of wealthy people across the world.

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss it.” She glanced around. “This is a great place you have here, darling.”

“Thank you.” I’d finally gotten what I’d been working toward all these years, but women like Melanie would never really know how that felt. She worked by going to charity luncheons and donating money to the needy. It was the work women like her and my mother did. And the kind my father would feel more comfortable with me doing. The idea that his daughter had to concern herself with things like profit and loss distressed him. He wanted me to remain his princess.

“Let me show you this artist’s work,” I said, picking two glasses of champagne off the tray and handing one to Melanie. “I think you’re going to love him.” My stomach lurched. Like it or not, I had to convince buyers he had a gift and launch his career despite what he had done. I had to keep reminding myself I was really selling Grace Astor Fine Art, and Steve’s success was just a by-product.

Luckily for me, over the course of cocktails, people kept arriving. I moved through the throng of people from one person to the next, encouraging enthusiasm for Steve’s work and trying to cement contacts.

It wasn’t until Steve crashed through the door an hour after doors opened that I realized he hadn’t been around. His eyes were glassy, his overly-long brown hair a little greasy. He had his arm insensitively slung around the shoulders of his assistant. Standing at the door, he clearly thought people had been waiting for him and he was expecting to get a round of applause, but no one knew who he was.

It was my job to effusively introduce him to people, and then his job to charm them. But the images of walking into my office and finding him there stopped me from approaching him. My business savvy could make me fake it when I didn’t have to look at him, but I didn’t want to hang out with him.

He caught my eye and moved toward me. I quickly made an excuse to the art dealer I was speaking with and escaped, almost knocking down Nina Grecco—one of the most influential art consultants in the city.

“Nina, I’m Grace Astor,” I said as I held out my hand. She gave me the same tight smile I’d been dishing out all evening as she took my hand. “I’m so pleased you could come.”

I understood the role consultants played. I got that the art world was difficult to navigate and that sometimes people needed an education when they were shopping. But most of Nina’s clients just wanted to know what was going to make them money. They weren’t interested in the art, only the dividends it could pay. Art had been an investment for hundreds of years, but I still hoped that rich romantics were going to fall in love with everything this gallery had to offer. I wanted clients who would have an emotional investment in what they were buying. Art wasn’t stocks or gold bullion—it was far more personal, or at least, it should be.

“Ms. Astor, this is my client, Sam Shaw.” Nina put her hand on the arm of the man standing next to her.

I trailed my eyes up to see a man who was around thirty, with dirty blond hair and deep brown eyes staring back at me. “Mr. Shaw, it’s very nice to meet you.” He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. He looked bored, as if the evening was something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

“Grace, this artist tonight is just on the cusp of breaking out, isn’t he?” Nina asked, while still gazing at Mr. Shaw.

An eye roll nearly escaped me but I managed to rein it in. “That’s right. There’s a real buzz about him at the moment and some very important collectors here tonight.” I slipped into the rhythm I’d developed along the course of the evening. “He’s a very painterly painter who clearly has his roots in abstract expressionism.” Mr. Shaw didn’t meet my eye. He stared at the canvas wearing a confused expression. Nina was wasting her time.