Chapter 2
“The bulbs are too warm. The painter built the depth with cool grays, so this light collapses the distance. The lake looks muddy.”
Damon studied the canvas.
“Light can change value that much?”
“Light changes what people believe they’re seeing.”
Charlotte paused.
“That isn’t the same as changing the value.”
His gaze moved to her.
For one strange second, she wondered whether he had heard more than an observation about art.
“Would you sit with me?” he asked.
Not Are you here with Preston?
Not Will Preston object?
Not Is this appropriate?
Would you sit with me?
Across the ballroom, Charlotte found Preston near the windows.
He had already seen them.
His smile was gone.
For three years, that expression would have been an instruction.
Charlotte turned back to Damon.
“Yes.”
They sat near the auction wall.
Charlotte expected the usual conversation with powerful men, the kind where she nodded while they described themselves.
Instead, Damon asked why so many hospitals used color schemes that made frightened children feel colder.
She answered.
He disagreed.
She argued back.
He listened.
Five minutes became forty.
Charlotte told him about adaptive reuse, about preserving the scars in historic buildings instead of polishing them into lies.
She admitted she used to paint.
“Used to?”
“My life became organized around someone else’s urgency.”
“And painting wasn’t urgent?”
May you like
“No.”
“Was it important?”
