Page 58 of Painted in Love

Her stomach hit rock bottom, her heart raced, and blood pounded in her ears. Her voice seemed so small when she asked, “What are you talking about?”

This time, he laughed outright. “That video. Hugo Lewis.” Then he looked at her, really looked, something indefinable in his expression. “You know about Hugo Lewis’s video outing you as San Holo, right?”

Her blood curdled into cottage cheese.

The young man went on relentlessly. “He did some YouTube press conference.” He shot her again with that cheeky grin. “But I knew it all along. Not that it was you, exactly. But that San Holo had to be a woman.”

Over the rapid beating of her heart, she knew he’d never had a clue. But now he’d convinced himself he did. “Let me see,” she snapped.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he held it in the same hand as his cooling food, while his fingers raced over the screen.

There was Hugo spilling her secret, claiming he was doing it for the good of the art world. She hated him all over again.

She had to get to Clay before he saw this.

“I showed it to Clay.” Dylan laughed as if he hadn’t just blown up her world. “I can’t believe I got the scoop on him again. He didn’t even know, and he never would’ve guessed.”

He was so excited, he didn’t pick up on her emotions or notice how pale she’d gone as all the blood drained out of her head.

“That’s just so cool,” he went on. “You’re San Holo. And you love my stuff.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “I love your stuff.”

Dylan beamed, then said almost sheepishly, “Can we talk later?”

“Absolutely. Later.” She couldn’t deny him.

Now she knew what Adrian’s calls and texts had been about. Everything had gone south. Sideways. Pear-shaped.

“Do you know where Clay is?” She could barely hear her own words above the roaring in her ears.

He shook his head, his hair wisping about his face. “No. He got another text and took off. I haven’t seen him since. That was like…” He gave a full-body shrug. “I dunno, a couple hours ago?”

She felt herself dying inside. Shriveling. Turning into a desiccated mummy without any wrappings.

Outside, darkness was falling. Already dressed in black from her sweater to her leggings to her boots, she grabbed one of the baseball caps in Dylan’s studio and clapped it on her head. “I gotta go,” she mumbled. “Work to do.”

As she fled, hopefully disguised beneath Dylan’s baseball cap, he threw out, “To your studio to paint canvases for the mural?”

She couldn’t get out a sound, just gave him a half-hearted flutter of her hand. Outside, she stood on the corner to wait for Clay where no one inside could see her. She could only hope he’d come back.

And that he would listen to her.

Chapter Nineteen

Clay ran.

He ran along the San Francisco streets, pulling down five-minute miles on the flats, seven on the hills. But the punishing pace didn’t work. He was only more worked up, especially when he passed a building covered with street art, even if it wasn’t San Holo’s.

How had he missed it? Her identity was so obvious now. But everyone—all those intelligent people—thought San Holo was a man, that he was British.

The ache filling his body wasn’t the grueling run or his stupidity at not figuring it out. It was the realization that he’d made love to her without even knowing her. The thought hurt so badly his legs might have crumpled beneath him if he hadn’t already been running on muscle memory.

She’d never cared for him at all. Because you couldn’t lie to someone you cared about.

He thought of his parents. They had been everything to each other, to the exclusion of everyone else in their lives, even their kids. They told each other everything. They were devoted. They did everything together.

They even died together.

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