Cutting Loose Read online

  “Now, get out of here.” I sat up, realized that this risked exposing myself to him, but then remembered that he had his eyes shut, so it didn’t matter. Suddenly, the wine and full meal caught up with me, hitting me with a wave of sleepiness. “Let me get to sleep.”

  “Alone, I presume.”

  “Yes,” I said, as firmly as I could manage.

  “Even though you find me attractive, you don’t want me joining you.”

  “Yes,” I said again, but then replayed his comment. “Wait a minute, hey! No! I mean, yes, I mean… ugh!”

  He beamed at me. “Have a good night’s sleep, Pom.”

  “Not the same to you,” I fired back with irritation.

  He winked, and then stepped out of my room, flicking off the light switch as he left. He pulled the door shut behind him, leaving me in darkness.

  I’d lain back on the pillow for several minutes before I realized that a wink from Sawyer, like a wink from anyone else, involved one eye being closed while the other was open. I sat bolt upright, momentarily jerked back awake by a hit of adrenaline at the realization.

  “You ass!” I shouted.

  It might have been my imagination, but I thought I caught the faintest chuckle from outside my bedroom.

  I laid back on the bed, figuring that things could have been worse. Sawyer was definitely a bit of an ass, that was undeniable, but he didn’t seem to be actively trying to hurt or exploit me. That made him better than some men I’d known. He didn’t know about my past, so he didn’t know my family. Hell, he only knew my first name. He didn’t know how much money my family had, from which I’d chosen to walk away. He’d offered me a job based on just his assessment of me, and that had to mean something for my self-esteem, right?

  Plus, he was handsome. Maybe, if my mom caught up with me and demanded an explanation, I could play this all off as a youthful flight of fancy. I’d run away because I’d fallen for a man, had momentarily lost control of my better instincts in order to chase him.

  I didn’t think that the excuse would fly with my mother, not for more than a second or two, but it was better than nothing.

  Better than if she found out the truth from me directly. If she suspected that I’d grown a real spine, she wouldn’t just keep me under her careful watch; she’d never let me leave the house again, would keep me as a shut-in invalid.

  She wouldn’t find me, I told myself, trying to make the words sound convincing inside my head. I’d fled to an entirely different city, had none of my electronic devices that would let her find me. She’d probably call the police, get them searching, but I wasn’t on the streets and in danger of being picked up. Somehow, I couldn’t see the police barging into Sawyer’s penthouse in search of me. They had too much respect for wealth, something I’d seen firsthand – and this place practically screamed wealth.

  Although if Sawyer was wealthy, why did he need to steal?

  Was he only wealthy because he robbed people? He’d said that the job wasn’t anything illegal, but what if that had been a lie? What if I’d just agreed to become a robber’s accomplice?

  Was that better or worse than my previous life?

  It would be different, I decided sleepily. That was enough, right now. Things would be different, and I’d have the opportunity to make them better. I just had to be sure to seize that opportunity when it presented itself.

  I seized it by accepting Sawyer’s job offer, and even though it might get me into trouble in the future, for now it put a roof over my head, wine and pizza in my belly, and comfortable sheets around me. I squeezed my eyes shut, snuggled a little deeper into the soft bed. After everything I’d gone through today, it didn’t take long at all for my mind to drift into peaceful dreams.

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  “Rise and shine, Pom!” I pulled my face into a silent scream at the loud voice interrupting my slumber. “Come on, time to get up!”

  “Come back later!” I hissed out. Now that I’d been raised to the edge of consciousness, I could see the sunlight streaming in through the window, even with my eyes closed. I pulled the pillow over my face, kicked fitfully at the covers that seemed to have wrapped themselves around me overnight.

  For a minute, Sawyer didn’t say anything, and I thought maybe he’d obeyed my command. He shattered my hopes, however, when he loudly clanged some metal objects together. It sounded like they were just a foot or two from my head! “Come on, lazy-ass! We’ve got honest work to do!”

  I cracked an eye, tugging the pillow down off my head just enough to look up at him. “Ow. What time is it?”

  He beamed down at me, still holding the pan and spoon that he’d been banging together. “Nearly seven! Time to get up! We have work to do!”

  “Honest work, yes, I heard you,” I groaned.

  He shrugged. “Well, work to do. That’s probably saying enough.” His eyes tracked down from my face. “You could come like that, if you’re feeling lazy. Won’t convince anyone that you’re an authority, but will certainly attract a lot of attention.”

  I pulled myself up on my elbows, looked down, and remembered with a shock that I’d fallen asleep without any clothes besides my underwear on, after getting out of that stupid maid’s costume! “Get out!” I shrieked at Sawyer, flailing and failing to cover myself without falling out of bed.

  He laughed again, but stepped out of the bedroom. “Shower’s next door with towels in the bathroom. We’re leaving in twenty, no matter your condition.”

  I screamed inarticulately at him again, then hauled myself out of bed. My head ached from yesterday’s wine, and my skin felt tight from all the salty pizza I’d eaten. I managed to find some halfway presentable clothes in my suitcase, opened the bedroom door a crack, and glanced outside.

  No Sawyer. I dashed across the hall to the bathroom, clothes held against me like a shield.

  Twenty minutes later, feeling a bit more like a human, I met Sawyer at the elevator. I’d chosen a pair of dark navy trousers and a white blouse; I figured it was a fairly safe outfit for most business situations. Sawyer gave me a once-over. I didn’t like how his eyes lingered on my hips and bust, but he nodded his approval.

  “I’m driving, obviously. This is for you,” he said, holding a small paper bag out to me.

  I accepted it as we stepped into the elevator, descended to the below-ground garage. “What is it?”

  He just rolled his eyes at me, as if bemused that I asked. I opened it as I sat in the passenger seat of his BMW.

  From inside the bag, I removed a muffin. “Don’t drop it,” he said as I looked down at it.

  Unexpectedly, I felt a bloom of affection. The man had listened enough to remember my story from yesterday, and I suspected he’d ducked out already go get this muffin. He wanted to declare that he didn’t care about me at all, but his actions contradicted his words.

  “Don’t get crumbs on my interior, Pom, or I’ll take the cleaning bill out of your paycheck,” Sawyer said as I beamed at him, my eyes a bit watery.

  “No you won’t, you big softy,” I told him, and then ate the entire muffin before we arrived.

  Our destination, I discovered, was the Institute of Arts, a massive, sprawling museum with exterior architecture reminiscent of an ancient Roman temple. Sawyer pulled around the back of the building and grabbed a front spot in the employees-only parking lot. “Come on, we’re going to be late,” he said, already out of the car before I’d even reached the door handle.

  “It’s not even eight o’clock yet!” I protested, trying to inconspicuously brush a couple crumbs off my waist.

  He was already moving towards the museum’s entrance. “One of the rules of consulting. Being early is on-time and being on-time is late. It’s the opposite of business power plays – catch them off-guard by being early, and they won’t be prepared to handle you.”

  I tagged along after Sawyer, hoping that things would start making sense at some point.

  Instead, everything seemed t
o get even more confusing as the morning progressed.

  Inside the Institute of Arts, we hustled past the main entrance. A security guard tried to stop Sawyer, but my new employer breezed past him with a sniff and lifted hand. I tailed after the tall man, feeling like a small boat trying to ride along in the wake of a larger, more powerful ship. Sawyer seemed to have a map of the Institute of Arts memorized in his head, and he guided me unerringly to the staff offices. Inside, he once again pulled his breeze-past trick on a receptionist, heading into a large office.

  “Rudy!” he exclaimed as soon as he stepped inside, and I remembered that this was the name of the guy he’d met yesterday at the restaurant – and whose watch Sawyer had stolen!

  Sawyer glanced back at me and I froze, wondering whether my face betrayed my thoughts. If Sawyer saw any of my concern, however, he gave no indication. “Rudy, I want to introduce you to my assistant,” he went on, waving me forward.

  I stepped inside, looked at Rudy the older mustachioed gentleman that I’d first seen yesterday, tried to keep my eyes from going to his wrist to see whether he’d yet noticed the lack of a watch. I tried to compose my features into a smile, hoping that he didn’t notice the grimace before I rearranged my muscles properly.

  “Hello there!” the man boomed to me. He extended his hand, his fingers tensing a little for the hearty, bone-crushing handshake he probably gave to everyone. “Rudy Neale, director of the Institute.”

  “Hi, I’m Alice,” I said, accepting his handshake and trying not to wince from his grip. I nearly added “Melton,” my last name, but decided at the last moment to withhold it. Why give out additional information that would make it easier for my mother to find me?

  This was going to get tricky, very quickly, I noted privately to myself. I’d need to pick a new name, repeat it enough times to drill it into my head so I could respond to it naturally. And what would I do if I got paid with a check? Could I open up a new bank account under a fake name? Would I need a new driver’s license-

  “Alice,” Sawyer said, cutting into my spiraling concerns, “is going to handle a lot of the social and artistic aspects of the redesign. I’m very excited to have her joining me, and I think you’ll love some of the contributions that she brings.”

  Rudy chuckled. “If she’s got the thumbs-up from you, Mr. Sawyer, that’s all the reassurance I need!”

  Mr. Sawyer? Sawyer was his last name? And he’d hired me for some sort of redesign of the museum? I felt like clues were falling in front of me, but I wasn’t fast enough to catch them all, much less assemble them into some sort of coherent whole on the fly.

  “And we are excited to get started, officially,” Sawyer said – even if that was his last name, it still felt like the only way for me to refer to him. “But I believe that there’s some paperwork to handle first.”

  “Ah, yes. Isn’t there always paperwork?” sighed Rudy Neale, as he led us to the seats in his office, overstuffed armchairs that faced his desk. His desk was a testament to the truth of his statement; it looked all but buried in an avalanche of papers, books, binders, and other collections of information. Rudy sat down behind it with a little sigh as he took his weight off his feet and fished around.

  While he was distracted, I shot a look at Sawyer. “Redesign? Mister Sawyer?” I whispered to him.

  He just smiled back at me, giving me a wink that I was beginning to find extremely irritating.

  Finally, Rudy produced a hefty contract, which he handed over to Sawyer. My new boss barely glanced through a few of the pages before flipping to the end and scrawling his signature. He handed it over to me. “Right next to mine.”

  I looked at what he’d written. I couldn’t read a single letter of his signature, but his name was printed neatly beneath it – “Darren Sawyer.” Darren? Next to where he signed was another blank space. I wrote “Alice Melton” in my worst penmanship and hoped that it would prove too messy to read.

  “And our fee,” Sawyer prompted, once I handed the contract back to him.

  “Right, of course. Twenty percent up front, I believe?”

  “Twenty-five percent, yes,” Sawyer said.

  The director looked at us, his eyes twinkling. “Ah, yes. Forgive me, but I’m always getting such flack from the board about pinching pennies. My little joke – I would have paid you the full sum.”

  “No offense taken at all,” Sawyer answered, perfectly affable and happily, and in that instant I knew, beyond a doubt, that he was going to rob the portly, comfortable Mr. Rudy Neale completely blind.

  Rudy handed a check over to Sawyer, which he tucked away in a pocket of his suit jacket without letting me see the dollar amount. We then followed the director out onto the main floor of the Institute, and from there into several different galleries. Rudy babbled on about the upcoming new redesign and “all the new pieces that will be rotating in, very exciting, can’t wait to debut this entire, stunning collection in one place,” and Sawyer nodded along as if he understood what Rudy was talking about. I followed a step or two behind, dazed by my attempts to understand their conversation and distracted constantly by the artwork we passed.

  The Institute of Arts was massive, that was clear! They seemed to have a different wing for each continent and time period, with everything from ancient Greek marble statues to Renaissance art to pottery and jade carvings from the far East to modern art with abstract shapes and sculptures. I’d attended plenty of galas held in extravagant public buildings like this one, but most of the exhibits were generally off-limits to me. My mother didn’t want me wandering off to go look at art; she wanted me at her side, where she could show me off as her trophy to the other patrons and attendees.

  “So, this is going to be the main hall for the opening night banquet,” Rudy said, and I suddenly had to pull up short to avoid running into him. We’d come to a stop in a large hall, with more marble statues lining both sides. “From here, guests can circulate into the new exhibit.”

  I looked in the direction that his hand indicated and saw yet another wing of the Institute – but unlike the others, this one was blocked off with caution tape. A sign in front of the entrance informed guests that a new attraction was coming soon and asked that they “pardon our mess.” No one seemed to mind; there was already so much art to see that they didn’t need yet another wing to explore.

  “What do you think?” Rudy asked, and I realized that he was waiting for a response from us.

  Sawyer hummed as he looked around the large, open hall. “Can you remind my assistant of the details?”

  “Oh, of course,” Rudy said, turning his attention to me. “We’re planning on having around three hundred guests, all of high society, along with the press, other curators, all the usual crowd. We’ve got a fairly permissive budget, so I’m open to suggestions.”

  I still didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on. “This is a gala for the opening of the new exhibit? A dinner gala?”

  Rudy nodded. “I don’t think we’ll do full dinner, although we’ll need to provide plenty of food for anyone who’s hungry! And music, and lights, and then we’ll have to give speeches about how exciting it is to open this new wing and all its masterpieces.” He chuckled. “I suppose I need to start writing my speech! So glad that you’re handling everything else!”

  Rudy kept on talking, going on and on about all the wonderful things that Sawyer had apparently agreed to provide for him. I’ll admit that, after a little bit, I started tuning him out. He had that kind of deep, rumbling drone that could prove a potent soporific if applied in a classroom setting.

  Instead, I looked around at the massive hall. Maybe I could handle this – no, I told myself, I could definitely handle this. I’d been to plenty of fancy parties, although usually not by choice.

  How hard could it be to plan one?

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  Several hours later, I had multiple complaints coming from different areas of my body, all jockeying for my attention.


  My legs grumpily complained that they were sore, that they didn’t want to be standing any longer, much less walking around. I’d chosen shoes that looked smart and professional, but they weren’t designed for me to be standing in them for hours on end.

  My stomach had louder and more immediate concerns. I’d finished the muffin that Sawyer gave me for breakfast, but there hadn’t been any mention of lunch, and we were well past noon. Sawyer didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest, and the paunch that pushed out Rudy’s shirt told me that he could go quite a while without food, if necessary. Maybe he’d swallowed an entire turkey, like a python, in preparation for this. I, however, had to keep pressing my hand against my stomach to try and contain its loud rumbles.

  My stomach and legs submitted these complaints to my brain, which just hissed at them that it had its own problems. With each breath, Rudy seemed to have another idea about the party, something else he wanted to feature, or do, or hire, or display. Sawyer just nodded along to all of these, not voicing any concerns or arguments. Sawyer had also handed me a small notebook, and I’d filled several pages with hastily scribbled down features that Rudy wanted to include. The list included everything from live exotic animals to a chocolate fountain.

  Chocolate… just the imagined taste made my mouth start watering, doubled the grumbles rising up from my midsection.

  I looked despairingly at the men in front of me. We now stood in part of the roped off, under construction gallery, in front of a large blank wall. Rudy was enthusiastically describing how they would have a series of prints here, all by the same artist and from the same series, featuring the same subject at different points in its life. If anything, Rudy’s excitement seemed higher than when we’d begun this morning. Sawyer appeared just as fresh and unconcerned as when he’d first stepped into the Institute at the stroke of eight in the morning.

  “Excuse me,” I managed to finally butt in when Rudy eventually paused for breath. “I’m going to step out for a few minutes.”