His Inspiration by Ava Lore

skin?”
    I stiffened, inhaling sharply. The strictures of the corset
restrained my ribs, and I became lightheaded. “That's none of your business,” I
said. “But yes. Yes it does. Now don't change the subject.”
    He blinked, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. He hadn't
expected me to admit anything. “What subject?” he said.
    “The subject where I tell you I know you aren't crazy, so why do
you act the way you do?”
    He tilted his head. “And what way is that?”
    I narrowed my eyes. “You know exactly what I mean. Skipping the
country with a woman you barely know and buying her thousands of dollars worth
of clothes.” God, tens of thousands, probably. The thought made me slightly
sick to my stomach. Eschewing decorum, I nibbled on a piece of bread to settle
my stomach before continuing. “Declaring yourself to be a tortured artistic
genius. Singing with homeless men on the subway and then giving away a thousand
dollars just because. Spouting off religious aphorisms in every day
conversation. You know. That sort of thing.”
    He was silent for a moment, and we stared at each other as
Dominic emerged from the kitchen with our first course, a delicate display of
fresh mussels with a drizzle of cream sauce. The bread had settled my stomach
and it smelled heavenly, but I didn't want to be the first to look away.
Dominic, clearly sensing something had gone awry with his fated lovers, faded
back into the kitchen.
    Finally Malcolm picked up his fork and deftly pried a mussel
from its shell. “Who was that on the phone, Sadie?” he asked me. He didn't
exactly sound like a disapproving father from a sixties sitcom, but it was
close.
    “Why?” I demanded. “What does it matter?”
    “Because the moment you came out of the bathroom after speaking
to them, you acted differently. Whoever it was told you something about me, or
warned you against getting involved with me, or something else to that effect,
and I would like to know what it was, and who told you such things.”
    I pressed my lips into a line. He didn't have a right to
know. But then again, I didn't have a right to interrogate his personal
secretary.
    And I really liked Malcolm Ward. He was weird, but he wasn't
trying to be. He was just a guy who had removed his social filter and decided
to do whatever the fuck came into his head. The only reason he wasn't singing
on the subway as a homeless person himself was because he was so goddamn rich.
Why he'd decided to do that was the question.
    Surely it didn't have something to do with the fact that he was
being investigated by the FBI, could it?
    It was all the wine, I swear. And I guess some of it was my own
bad judgment, but mostly it was the wine.
    “Your secretary called me,” I confessed at last. “Don Cardall,
or whatever.”
    That surprised him. His eyebrows nearly shot into his
hairline. “Don called you? How did he know your number?”
    Now I had to look away, worrying my lower lip with my teeth. “He
sort of called you on your cell phone about a thousand times while you were
asleep and I answered, thinking it might be important.”
    I sneaked a glance at him from the corner of my eye, and was relieved
to see he looked more puzzled than anything. I'd expected him to be angry. I
pressed on. “I asked him what he wanted, and he said he needed to talk to you.
I tried to wake you up, but you were passed out. Like, drugged passed out.”
    “Mm,” he said. “I do sleep fairly heavily. And I haven't been
sleeping much in the past few weeks.”
    Few weeks? So not just since he'd met me. Interesting. “Anyway,
he was really rude to me, so I was rude back, and by the time you woke up I'd
had too much wine and watched too much Croatian television to remember that he
wanted you to call him back. So he got my number from somewhere and
called me to yell at me for not informing you that he'd called.” I thought for
a moment. “And now that I say it out loud, it's all very high school. I also
told him I'd