“Since I’m here, let me help you.”
She stepped back. It was easier than arguing with him. He set up her easel with the blank canvas. “What are you going to paint this time?”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “It’s a secret.”
“A secret? Now I really want to know.”
“It’s kind of a private work.”
“Will I be able to see it?”
“Mmm… Not sure.”
“Are you worried I’m going to hang it in my office?”
She choked. “No. Trust me, you don’t want to see me working on it.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. “Why not?”
“Because…” She grasped for a good comparison. “Art is like hot dogs.”
There was a pause. “Hot dogs.”
“Yes. Everyone likes the end-product, but nobody wants to know what goes into making one.”
“I’ve…never heard it put quite like t
hat before.”
“Clearly, whoever you talked to were not artistes,” she said primly, settling on her stool. “So how was the meeting?”
He took an armchair by the glass walls. It had been put there by an interior designer who thought people would need a comfortable chair to appreciate Amandine’s artwork. But she hated having people around when she painted, and made a mental note to get rid of the thing.
“Bad,” he said, his expression dark.
“How bad?”
“Very. You want to know the sordid details?”
“Well, sure. It’s a family matter, right?”
“It’s just that you’ve never really been interested.”
“I was, but I didn’t want to bug you since you were always so busy. But if you’ve got the time, I want to know more.”
Gavin scratched the tip of his nose. “It started out bad, and then got really nasty. The company’s in trouble, and it looks like someone’s been embezzling funds.”
“Wow. So once Ethan took over he started finding problems?”
“He brought in someone else to do the detective work. But he made some of the presentation.”
“I’m not surprised. He’s busy, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but I don’t like who he hired.”
She blinked. Gavin had good instincts about things like this, but she imagined Ethan did too. Ethan helped lead a multinational conglomerate, and she couldn’t imagine how he could do that if he was a poor judge of character. “Why not? Who did he hire?”
“Some woman named Kerri Wilson. Her background is impeccable from what I’ve been able to piece together so far. Yale undergrad, Wharton MBA. Was a VP at Goldreich Stanley.”