Page 57 of Painted in Love

But Clay’s stomach was in free fall. He imagined he heard it splatter on the concrete floor at his feet.

“That is why I, myself—” Once again his hand went to his heart. “—revealed my identity five years ago to be Lynx. Because it wasn’t fair to keep you all in the dark. It wasn’t fair to make the value of my paintings rise simply because I didn’t tell any of you who I was. Even Banksy speaks to his public. He might gray out his features, but he talks to us. But not San Holo.” He wagged his finger in front of the microphone, accidentally touching it and setting off ear-splitting feedback. “So I made it my mission to find out who this mysterious San Holo is. For you. The public. The art world. For all the people who deserve to know.”

Clay didn’t think he could breathe, and yet, he sucked in a gulp of air that almost choked him.

Just as he choked on everything Hugo Lewis said.

“I brought you the world-famous street artist Lynx.” Lewis’s voice rose with his momentum. “Now I’m bringing you San Holo. Because that is what the art world and the world at large deserve.” He was making out that he was so altruistic. Dammit, get to the point.

His sales were plummeting. Lewis wanted San Holo’s fame to plummet too.

The journalists crowded around Lewis raised their voices to a cacophony. The man patted the air, bringing the noise level down, letting the crowd know he wouldn’t reveal anything until they hushed. Until he had his moment in the limelight.

Then he leaned in, his lips almost kissing the microphone, and said very softly, “San Holo is Saskia Oliver, who’s been pretending to be San Holo’s assistant. But she’s not. She is the artist. She’s been lying to you all along. To every person who has ever purchased a piece of her artwork. I can’t let that go on. That’s why I’m bringing her name to you. Saskia Oliver,” he repeated.

The crowd fired questions at Lewis, but Clay had heard enough. So had Dylan, who punched Pause when the man’s mouth was wide open, his yellowed teeth front and center.

Pain slid under Clay’s sternum as if it were a knife.

Dylan turned to him. “Did you know all along?” He rushed on before Clay could answer, his voice excited, exhilarated. “Like, that’s so cool. You said you’d find her, and you did. When were you going to tell me?”

Dylan didn’t feel gutted. He didn’t even sound angry. To him, it was super cool that Saskia turned out to be San Holo.

Clay wanted to pound his head against the wall. He should have known. Yet he still fought it. “This can’t be true. She would have told me.”

Dylan stared at him, his mouth agape. “Like, you mean, you didn’t know either?”

Then he whooped and hollered, bouncing around the hallway outside his studio until everyone close by stepped out of theirs. “I was the first one to find San Holo’s new street art. Now I’m the first one to know who she actually is. Our very own Saskia.” He punched the air, then came back down to earth. “Okay, so this Hugo Lewis knew first.” That didn’t faze him. “But I was the one to tell you first.” He pointed at himself, then Clay.

Clay managed to say, “Yeah, that’s great. You got the jump on me, buddy.” Then he pulled out his phone, looked at it as if there was actually something to see. “I just got a text. Important stuff. Gotta go.”

He damn near ran out of the warehouse, leaving behind a dumbfounded Dylan.

Saskia had yanked his feet—and most especially his heart—right out from under him.

And she’d done it with a lie.

Saskia had waited to hear from Clay. And waited. Until she couldn’t stand one more minute.

Adrian had called and texted multiple times, but Saskia ignored each one. She couldn’t tell Adrian that she had to let Clay know the truth, afraid her friend—and agent—would try to talk her out of it.

But the longer it took Clay to call her back—or even text—the more it made her crazy.

She raced the couple of miles from her Victorian sanctuary in the Haight to Clay’s warehouse in the Mission District. To his home.

When she ran up the stairs, he wasn’t there. None of the artists knew where he was or when he’d be back. Even Dylan wasn’t around.

She’d have to hang out until he returned. She had to talk to him. Because if Fernsby had figured it out, then Clay would too.

She closed her eyes, standing in that long hallway, the sound of music and voices and grinders and potters’ wheels burrowing inside her, making her want to explode. Until finally Dylan walked in, a bag of takeout food in his hand.

He stopped short a dozen feet away, staring at her like she was the bug-eyed alien in her last work.

His feet planted wide, his boots slapping the concrete, he pointed at her with his free hand. “You are way more sneaky than I ever gave you credit for.”

His words made no sense. “What do you mean?”

He laughed, a chortle rather than a loud sound that would fill the entire warehouse. He closed the distance between them until he was two feet away, a cheeky grin filling his face. “I always figured you were a woman,” he said. “Your art has such sensitivity.”

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