Chapter 37

• I waited a few minutes, running my fingers over my hair trying to comb any knots out. I had no idea where the pin Sterling pulled out was, so I couldn't tie it back up. There wasn't even a mirror here to see if I looked presentable. I waited an extra few minutes on top, just in case I was still flustered, I waited till my body felt like it had cooled down to a reasonable temperature before I opened the door, peeking out to see an empty corridor and the glass door. The inner voice in me, the anxious voice, was expecting a crowd, it was irrational as always. Thank gosh. For some reason, I felt like a teenager that was caught with their boyfriend, I tried to remind myself I was allowed to be in Sterling's art room but I still felt like I was doing something illegal. My heart was still beating fast as I walked down the corridor, almost worried someone was going to jump out from behind me. But no one did. Everyone was far too busy in the main room, no one was around as I slipped through the glass door back into the air conditioned studio and I could finally let myself catch my breathe and relax. I couldn't see Sterling or Sam, so I wasn't sure what or who I could talk to so I walked back to the main area. I decided to start looking at the rest of Sam's paintings that I never got to finish. It seemed like the venue had gotten even busier, there were more people roaming around and the chatter was loud. "A drink for the lady?" I felt a presence behind me and I looked around, surprised to see Dominic, holding two glasses of sparkling. "Dominic," I said surprised, "Surprised to see you here." I admitted. His hand was still holding out the outstretched glass of bubbles so I decided to take it. He gave me a half smile as he turned around to face the painting I was looking at. "I didn't think you had any relation to come here? Or is this another business you're trying to acquire?" I asked, taking a sip of the chilled drink. "I'm simply showing my support for upcoming artists, you know I'm not totally a bad guy," he said, placing a hand into the pocket of his grey suit pants. He was in a tight fitted grey suit, almost as overdressed as I felt. "Yeah I guess so," "Guess so?" he asked. "I mean you sort of gave me a deadline and never kept to it," I pointed out. The day he told me I was slightly worried, until I had reassured myself that there was no way he could just buy us out unless he somehow got all the shareholders to sell their shares to him, which wasn't going to happen. "Oh right, yeah," Dominic shrugged, taking a step towards the next painting and I followed, "I guess I was having a bad day, speaking off, have you accepted my deal yet?" "No," I said, with zero hesitation as I took another sip of the drink. "Bold move Miss Aedan Hart." "Is it? Perhaps your outrageous offer was bold," I pointed out. His brown eyes regarded me for a long moment, before he took a sip, his eyes not breaking eye contact with mine, almost like he was challenging him to a stare off. Lucky for me, I was the queen of stare offs and he didn't intimidate me one bit. Perhaps other people would be intimidated by his strong build, but it didn't phase me, after all my father was a ruthless business man when I was younger. "How about 50-50," he said, "I normally don't offer such a generous deal but you've charmed your way to it." "It's still a hard pass from us," I told him. Dominic chuckled, shaking his head as he grabbed the empty glass form mine and then passed it to the waiter, grabbing two new filled glasses, passing one to me. I hesitated again, before I took it, I guess another drink wouldn't hurt. "Alright enough business for now, where is your husband? Isn't he exhibiting tonight?" "No these are his friend's works, he's...somewhere," I said, casting a look around me to see if I could spot him. I wonder where he had gone off to and when the closing speech was. A part of me was quite eager to go home. "And leave his wife all alone by herself, what a silly man, " Dominic said, doing that half hearted chuckle again, "I don't mean it in a creepy way, I mean it as a compliment, you look quite nice tonight, different to your work attire," he added. "Are you trying to compliment your way into buying the shares?" I asked. "No," Dominic said as he started moving to the next painting, we had been mindlessly moving from one to another, given up on looking at them, "I'm just giving credit where credit is due, we can talk about another way to pursued you into a deal next time." "And how can you guarantee that there will be a next time of running into you," "It's a small world Aedan Hart, I'm sure I'll run into you soon, now come on, they're doing the closing speech." I followed Dominic to the main room where I could see both Ethan and Sam, on a little mini podium already addressing the crowd, but I couldn't see Sterling. My eyes slowly went over the massive crowd trying to spot him, but there was far too many people. I looked down at my phone, just in case he had left me a message or a call, but I had the lovely greeting of no notification. Where could he possibly have gone? The sound of applauding brought me back to listening to the rest of the speech as they thanked everyone for coming. They walked off the stage and people started to mingle again, most making a dash for the door. "Where is your husband?" Dominic asked, noticing my eyes darting across the room. "I'm not too sure..." I said, maybe I should check his studio room again. "Is he still here?" "I'm pretty sure he is," I said, excusing myself from Dominic and walked towards the studio room, except this time the handle was locked. So surely there was no one on the other side. I turned back walking through the other rooms when I saw Sam, rushing over to her. "Hey, do you know where Sterling is?" "He's not with you?" she asked, her arms were full of boxes, she was already in clean up mode, she looked over the shoulder, "I thought he came back to you." "No...I tried calling him," I said, but all I reached was his message bank. "He'll be around here somewhere, if I see him I'll let you know. I'll just finish cleaning," After another five minutes and more people leaving, there was no sighting of Sterling. "Do you need a ride home?" Dominic asked, finding me standing by the door a few minutes later. "No that's ok." "Are you sure? It's quite late...I won't talk contracts I promise," he said a smile on his face. "No no, I'll wait for Sterling." I told Dominic. "Very well Miss Hart, I shall see you...next time," he held out his hand which I shook and he slipped outside. I waited another few minutes before I decided I was just going to order an Uber, it was only Ethan, Sam and a handful of the catering staff left. A part of me was now annoyed, that he didn't even tell me where he was going, or even a message so I could have left earlier. How could he just vanish without telling me? After all I put in all this effort to come. The annoyance inside of me was starting to ruin the night, I opened the door stepping out into the cold and quite night, now regretting not calling a taxi earlier. I ordered my ride walking down the street when I heard voices from the alleyway. I couldn't tell if that was his voice, but I took a small step towards the alleyway trying to see down the end of it. It was the same alleyway we had taken the first time that led around to the back of the studio. I took a few more steps down it before I saw a few people at the end of it, they seemed like party guests, judging by their attire and the smoke around them, they were smoking, but none of them looked like Sterling. "I'm going to kick him," I muttered turning around and walking back to the main street, picking a spot under the street light so it was bright and less scary to wait for my ride. I looked at my phone that now had only twenty percent battery left, I could really kick him. This was the thing with Sterling, he was always so...unreliable, unpredictable. Why did I think he was changing? And then the annoyance turned into anger when I could hear noises in the distance, did he really leave me alone at this time ? Perhaps it's not his fault, maybe I should have left earlier, but no, I was too worried about him and hung around. I could hear the sound of a bottle shattering, making me look over my shoulder uneasy, my mind going back a few weeks to the incident under my work making me worry where my ride was. My phone was dying, and the app said the driver was still ten minutes away, he was ten minutes away for nearly ten minutes now. A sudden honk across the side of the road made me wince, I looked up, not expecting Dominic to be poking his head out the window. "Get in Aedan." "It's fine, my ride is coming." I called out, why was he still around? There was the sound of breaking glass again. "Fine." I yelled, a bit of my frustration slipping through. I was going to really kick Sterling now, preferably where it didn't shine.