Queen: BBW Billionaire Menage Romance (Billionaire Brothers, II Book 3) (5 page)

I could have gone down my private elevator that stopped conveniently in the warehouse, but I really wanted to surf through the crowd. I took my elevator down to the parking garage and then walked back up a quick flight of stairs to street level.

Gliding along the outside of the line, I found myself holding my breath. I could hear little snatches of conversation as I wandered, completely unobserved and unacknowledged, through the dozens and dozens of people that Owen and Lyle had invited to the gallery for its premiere night. I could hear them murmuring to themselves as they looked over the posters and billboards.

A couple times I thought maybe I was recognized but I just kept walking until I got to the edge of the carpet on the sidewalk, to where the photographers were gathered. I stood at the back of the carpet for just a moment and breathed.

Everything settled into the moment like it was coming into resolution, like it was a photograph being developed. I could hear everything almost as if I was underwater: the sound of the photographers, the members of the crowd that became progressively more hushed as people realized I was about to open the doors, even the sound of the traffic behind me. I wanted to remember everything because I felt like my entire life had been leading me right here this entire time. A swell of emotion and gratitude bloomed in my chest as I realized yet again that I was not alone.

Almost as if I had wished them into existence, Lyle and Owen seemed to magically appear at the front door, on the other end of the red carpet. Dressed nearly alike in impeccably tailored tuxedos, they stood tall and elegant like magazine models. They stared at me for a moment with matching expressions of what looked like admiration and maybe more than a little bit of lust.

I could barely keep from grinning at them and almost heard myself let out a squeal of excitement.

Keep cool, Brienne. People are watching.

I quirked an eyebrow at Lyle, who sniffed a subtle gesture of approval at me. Hanging one hand on my hip I paused for just a moment more as the photographers snapped picture after picture.

The dress was as black as night. The single crystal peony curled over one shoulder and the neckline swooped down toward the other side, somehow cutting low enough across my cleavage to show an ample amount without undermining the structural integrity of the garment.

The fit was impeccable, with ruched sides and a color block center in indigo that gave me the silhouette of a silent film star. I breathed deeply and gazed at Lyle, allowing him to see just how perfectly he had dressed me. Then I looked at Owen and dragged my lower lip between my teeth with my tongue, promising him an opportunity to undress me in the not very distant future.

The walk across the red carpet was less than a dozen steps, and yet it felt like I was climbing up a monumental threshold. Owen and Lyle turned smartly, each offering me an elbow to grasp as the doors were flung open from inside and we finally entered our gallery.

As if our entrance was a cue, the guests began to pour in. I could hear them behind me and listened intently to the sounds that I wanted to hear.

“All right,” Owen said with his ear with his lips closer to my ear than they had to be. I arched my back slightly as my skin prickled with goosebumps at the sensation of his breath on my collarbone. “Would you like to show us around?”

“Just this way, gentlemen,” I purred and led them toward the first gallery.

We walked into the space together, joined at the arms and unabashedly, romantically linked. I could hear people every once in a while making smug or snide comments about our merry threesome, but I just let those flow through me like water. I would deal with people's impressions and opinions later, I figured. Right now I wanted to deal with the art.

"Oh," I heard Lyle say in the small, surprised voice as we neared the first installation. “Wait, is that my Rothko?”

“That's not a Rothko. It looks like a Rothko, but it's not.”

Lyle shifted uncomfortably, holding my hand closer to his rib cage. “Well I paid for a Rothko,” he muttered.

I nodded and patted his arm sympathetically. “I know you did. I saw the shipping manifest."

“Oh,” Owen said in a low voice that changed as he figured out what was going on. “I guess… This is not what I expected.”

“This is not what I expected either,” Lyle answered.

"Well, this is my superpower,” I said as spectators swirled around us, some gasping in surprise and horror, some nodding smugly as though they knew it the entire time.

“I thought that you were putting together an exhibition of our collection,” Lyle said, a hint of disappointment creeping into his voice.

“Are all of these even ours?” Owen asked as we passed a tapestry showing a unicorn fenced in by flowering elm tree.

“No, not all. Some are mine, and some were made just for this,” I assured them.

I stopped and took a step forward, turning around to look them each in the eye. Their faces were under tight control, but I could tell they were not entirely pleased. I prepared the speech that I had rehearsed.

“Like I said, this is my superpower. I can spot a fraud. I know when things are real. Some things I know because of the small details but other things I just
know
, and I don't know
how
I know.”

"So you could be wrong, right?” Lyle asked hopefully. “I mean, I can at least pray that you're occasionally  wrong?”

“Well you could, but why would you?” I said, getting excited. “I mean, a forgery is its own kind of art, right? And we could have put together a show that was all about your collection as it is, and the same people would probably have come out, but nobody would've talked about it again. Don’t you see?”

I looked between them and confirmed: no, they didn’t yet see. They could probably only see that they’d been swindled more than once.

“Don’t be mad. This is… amazing. Because you had such an extensive group of objects from the last 1500 years of human endeavor, what I was able to put together here is something absolutely magnificent. I did the research, and no one has ever done it like this before. Not to this degree anyway. We are able to show people something that
no one has ever seen
in exactly this way."

I looked between them, my hands out, praying that they would start to understand.

“This is something no one else could have done, but us,” I reiterated breathlessly.

“Well, that certainly is something,” Owen agreed uncertainly. “Why didn't you tell me what you are doing? Why didn’t you just do what we thought?”

I put my hands on my hips and lowered my chin just a little bit.

"First of all, I really didn't know
what
you wanted me to do. You didn't exactly express that to me. Second of all, I knew you would trust me to do this. It's not your assignment to me; it's
my
thing and I figured you would be more impressed with a peer than an employee. And thirdly, you —” I pointed at Lyle, "insisted that I had a superpower, even when I told you I didn't. And lo and behold, you were right.”

I stood there and looked at them, practically bursting with excitement and pride. But their expressions didn't exactly match my enthusiasm.

“Lyle, Owen,” came a voice to my left. I turned halfway, startled to see Bill Murray just standing there, as big as life.

Bill Fucking Murray. Well I’ll be stuffed.

“Oh, hello, Bill,” Owen said convivially, as though they were old friends, “thank you so much for coming tonight."

Bill Murray shook his head, working his jaw back and forth. “Well, you've done it again,” he said in a smirking growl. “This is really something here. Leave it to you guys.”

“
Something
is what we’re all about," Lyle said glibly. He cut his eyes toward me and I just raised my eyebrows in response.

"Always with the spectacle," Bill continued. “We’ll be hearing about this one for years."

Owen crossed his arms in front of his chest and squinted slightly. I could see him measuring Bill’s attitude. “Yes, that was our hope,” Owen said cautiously.

“Guaranteed," Mr. Murray said with a rueful shake of his head. “I mean, this is brilliant. And with the Art Institute not two blocks from here, I think you've really done something outrageous. In fact I’m almost sure that a couple of these pieces that you’re saying are originals, here, appear in the Art Institute’s collection, am I right? So the ones at the Institute are phonies?”

Lyle opened his eyes at me, angling his body away from Bill so that his expression was private to only me.

“Brienne?” Owen said, drawing me into the conversation. “Bill, I'd like you to meet Brienne Colson. She put the show together.”

He stuck out a hand to shake mine warmly and with enthusiasm. My heart fluttered and I struggled not to babble like a cheerleader.

"It's true, right? You're basically saying that at least two of the pieces at the Art Institute are forgeries?"

“Oh I wouldn't go that far,” I said smoothly with just a little bit of an impish grin. “All I meant to show here was that the history of forgeries is almost as rich as the history of the original artworks."

“Ha!” he said, throwing his head back when he laughed. I suppressed the SQUEE that wanted to burst through my lips. “What an elegant answer, my dear. Well I daresay that you caused quite a lot of attention for the Jacks’ collection. I always felt it was utterly underused, as though Lyle here just had a worldwide network of warehouses he was trying to keep busy. It's great to see something new coming out of all this!"

Bill Murray shook my hand again, and I could feel Lyle's eyes plunging into my top as my cleavage jiggled extravagantly. As Bill trundled away, Owen and Lyle closed ranks in front of me, creating that tented private space that I enjoyed so much. It felt like they shut out everyone else in the room.

“So this was your plan, eh?" Owen growled and I saw the corner of his mouth twisted into an appreciative smile.

“You knew that people would like this?"

I was overwhelmed for just a moment by how precisely it was meeting my prediction. I didn't know how to tell them exactly what I wanted to say, and I searched frantically for the right words to explain everything.

“When you started sending things here,” I began cautiously, trying to convince myself to explain it as thoroughly as possible in the time that I figured we had left before somebody else wanted to interrupt, “I didn't know what I was going to do with them, honestly. You had told me you already had a curator, so I thought that perhaps you just wanted someone to organize displays of your various collections…”

“Well, that's exactly what I thought you were going to do, honestly. I thought you would give a public face to our private collections? Was that not a good assessment of your direction?” Owen asked.

“No, no, that was a good plan!” I said to reassure him. “Actually, that was a great plan. And I was really flattered that you thought that I could do that for you. But then I thought, what if I could do more? What if I could
really
challenge myself.”

“Frankly, I think it's brilliant,” Lyle interjected. His eyes danced across my throat and shoulders and I felt almost as though he was touching me. My heart swelled with the thought that he really understood and approved of what I had done.

“It's just amazing…” I said in a rush, “what you’ve just been holding onto. It's an absolute playground for someone like me. When I began to open the crates, some of the pieces were authentic and some of them were forgeries… And the more I looked into it the more I had this idea just take shape. And then when I realized that with you two, anything is possible…”

I faltered, emotion curling over me like a tidal wave, threatening to drown me right there in front of them. I wanted to tell them how this is the sort of opportunity I would never have even dreamt of before them. I wanted to tell them how I couldn't have even come up with the concept without them. I wanted them to know how completed I felt, how I was so much better than any version of myself I had ever dreamt of on my own.

But I couldn't say any of that. I just blinked at them with my eyes burning and going bleary as I filled up with overwhelmed tears.

“Well now, look at you," Owen said softly as though he understood. He edged closer to me and brushed his lips along my hairline. I could feel him inhaling me and the insistent pressure of his fingertips at the small of my back completed the circuit. Lyle's fingers stroked the bottom of my jaw and he tipped my chin toward him and placed a hot, lingering kiss on my lips.

“Do you think we’re going to keep underestimating her forever?” Lyle muttered, cutting his eyes toward Owen.

“Speak for yourself,” Owen shot back. “Remember, I found her. I knew she was perfect for us.”

“See, I told you he was never going to stop bragging about that,” Lyle murmured as he took my face in his hands. He kissed me again, his lips soft and insistent against mine. I felt Owen press against me, his manhood hard and urgent along my hip.

For just a moment it seemed like just the three of us, alone and insulated. But then I could hear the sounds of the crowd that throbbed around us. Everyone had seen us by now, and there we were: a solid and obvious threesome, completely past caring what any of them thought.