The week passed in a blur as the newly discovered Reynolds painting became the talk of the art world. Mona spent hours on the phone with arts and culture reporters who’d seized upon the story in a slow news week. They all wanted to know how she knew there was a Reynolds hidden under the unremarkable Morland painting. All she could tell them was that a visitor to the gallery noted something off about the painting. When she examined the signature, she noticed the flaking paint and followed a hunch. When they wanted to know the visitor’s name to talk to him as well, she had to tell them the truth—she had no idea who he was. He came in, made a comment about the painting and left before she could get his name. The news drew visitors to the gallery. She sold two pieces for ten thousand each.

All thanks to the mysterious man in the three-piece suit.

She’d almost forgotten he’d promised to return in a week. But on the seventh evening she remembered and lingered long at her desk after the gallery had closed. She listened for the bell as she did her paperwork. She never heard it ring. But at five to midnight, Tou-Tou hopped out of his basket and ran through the door to the gallery as if he’d suddenly recalled he was late for a very important date.

Mona rose from her desk and walked as quietly as she could to the office door. She opened it a few more inches and saw the man in the gallery, holding Tou-Tou and stroking his head.

"You have a black cat, Mona,” he said. He wore the same three-piece suit as before. "How fitting.”

"Tou-Tou’s the gallery cat,” she said. Cautiously she approached the man and took Tou-Tou from his arms. She wasn’t sure she trusted him yet, and her cat was the closest thing Mona had to family. "Not much luck but he keeps me company.”

"A cat to be envied then,” the man said.

"Do you have a name?”

"Forgive me. I should have introduced myself last week. Malcolm.”

"Malcolm,” she repeated, liking the feel of it on her tongue. "Any last name?”

"Not at the moment. Was I correct about the painting?”

"You know you were. It was all over the news.”

He shrugged a shoulder. "I pay very little attention to the news. A Reynolds, I assume?”

"It was. Appraised at five million.”

"How much will you get?”

"Fifty-thousand-dollar finder’s fee from the owner. Yours, of course.”

"Why ‘of course’?” he asked.

"I didn’t even like the Morland. It was from his later years, after he stopped producing good work. I only displayed it because I thought it might sell for a couple thousand dollars. You’re the one who told me there was something underneath it.”

"What exactly was underneath it? Have you seen it?”

"The restorer says it appears to be a portrait of Nelly O’Brien. They’ve dubbed the painting The Courtesan. Reynolds even signed the canvas.”

"Ahh, Miss O’Brien. Reynolds painted her several times, I believe.”

"Once more than we’d realized. One art critic believes Morland painted over it during his debt years. Maybe he’d run out of canvases and couldn’t afford more. He put a two-thousand-dollar painting over a five-million-dollar painting. The owner has decided to keep it in the family, but he’s sending me the check this week.”

"Put it toward saving your gallery,” he said. "I have no interest in taking money from you. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

"Thank you, Malcolm.” She sat Tou-Tou down onto the floor. He didn’t run back into the office as she expected him to. Instead, he lay on the floor between her and Malcolm as if he were as much a party to this conversation as they were. "That’s very generous of you.”

"I would like to be more generous with you.”

"Why?” She couldn’t keep the note of suspicion out of her tone.

"I have my reasons and they are very good reasons, but you wouldn’t understand them, not yet. But eventually I will reveal all to you. If you agree to let me help you.”

"Fifty thousand dollars is a good start,” she said. "But I’m half a million in debt. I don’t think anyone can help me.”

"I’ve given you no reason to doubt me.”

"What is it you want from me?”

"May I be blunt with you?” he asked.

"I’d prefer it.”

"I very much wish to fuck you.”

She opened her mouth and said nothing.

"Too blunt?” he asked, a slight smile on his lips.

"No, no.” Mona waved her hand dismissively. "I appreciate the honesty. It’s refreshing. I’m not sure how fucking me can help the gallery, but I thank you kindly for the offer.”

"You must let me finish. But first, may we adjourn to your office? I prefer to discuss business in offices. That’s what they’re made for and they get a little jealous when they’re neglected.”

"Of course. This way.”

She told herself that if he wanted to rape her and kill her, he could have done it by now and done it easily. He’d already proven he could slip in and out of the gallery without her knowledge even when the front door was locked. He was very tall—six foot or a little more by her reckoning, which was half a foot taller than she. Yet he hadn’t so much as touched her. Not even a handshake. And Tou-Tou seemed to like him, not that she’d ever heard of a cat being a good judge of character.

Inside her office, she switched on the little Tiffany-style desk lamp and sat behind her desk. It was a small desk, feminine, with filigrees, and the chair was petite as well. But the chair across from her desk was made for a man of Malcolm’s dimensions. A leather club chair, it fit him like a glove. He seemed the sort of man one would find in an old English club, no women allowed, old boys with money and power discussing politics behind the scenes. She wondered if he smoked cigars. She could smell the slightest trace of cigar smoke on his clothes. It was a masculine scent and not unpleasant in small doses.

"Business?” she asked.

"You’re a very beautiful young lady,” Malcolm said. "I like very beautiful young ladies.”

"Do you?”

"I’m a connoisseur.”

"Are you? Do you have a favorite type?”

"Elegant prostitutes,” he said. "A perennial favorite.”

"You know I’m not a prostitute, yes?” she asked.

"Not yet. But I think you’ll make a fine whore.”

She flinched at the word although he didn’t say it like an insult. It sounded rather nice coming from him. Like a pet name almost.

"You enjoy using women for their bodies,” she said.

"Yes, very much so.”

"Most women prefer to be used for their minds.”

"Foolishness,” he said.

"Foolishness?”

"The mind is seated in the brain, yes?”

"Well…yes.”

"The brain is an organ of the body. Whether I use you for your mind or use you for your cunt, I’m still using you for an organ of your body.”

"You make an interesting point.” The brain was indeed a bodily organ as were the genitals. She could hardly argue his logic.

"You’re sitting on a goldmine, Mona. Literally.”

She blushed. "I’ve never had my vagina called a goldmine before.”

"Perhaps I was referring to your arse.”

"Oh yes, hadn’t thought of that.”

"Why do I want to be generous with you, you asked me earlier. The answer is simple: I want to. Reason enough for me. If you want more to specifics, well, you’re a beauty, as I said. Magnificent legs, marvelous ankles. And I love a girl with red hair, even if it is artificial. Your complexion is lighter than I prefer but it will show bites and blushes well. You wear your hair tastefully. Most women these days wear their hair shorn off or unbound and undone. Takes the magic out of the hair if it’s already down and loose before we’ve gone to bed. You wear yours pinned up and it makes me imagine what it looks like down. I like that very much.”

She warmed at the compliments.

"You could have seduced me for free, you know.” If he had no qualms about admitting his attraction to her, she’d have none about admitting hers to him. "You are very handsome.”

"Am I?”

"I like…” He’d enumerated her best features in detail. Surely he expected the same from her, yet she shied away from telling him how attractive she found him. He didn’t seem the sort to need his ego massaged. "I like your hands.”

"My hands.”

"They’re big,” she said. "And muscular. Sort of. They have lovely veins in them. I like male hands with veins. I noticed them the first time I saw you. And surely you noticed me noticing them if you’re such a connoisseur of women.”

"I did.”

"And yet you want to pay me for sex instead of simply asking me out on a date and getting it for free.”

"Let me explain, darling.” He leaned forward and rested an elbow on the chair arm. He used the hand attached to that arm and elbow to gesticulate as he spoke. "When a woman such as yourself and a man such as myself are lovers…” He pointed at her and then at himself. "Expectations are raised. Marriage being one of them. Lovers often love each other. I have no interest in love or marriage from you. Nor do I wish to take you to dinner. I simply want to fuck you in various ways that please me. It’s my preference.”

The phrase "in various ways” brought images into Mona’s mind. She warmed even more. She started to cross her legs but caught herself in time.

"I have heard that men don’t pay prostitutes for the sex itself. They pay prostitutes to leave.”

He laughed softly, a warm sensual laugh. Now she did cross her legs.

"There may be some truth to that,” Malcolm said. "A man can get the same thing from his wife as he could get from a whore, but the wife might want to talk after.”

"God forbid.”

"Indeed. I wouldn’t pay you to leave, however. I’ll do the leaving after. What I’m paying for, in fact, is permission. Carte blanche, shall we say.”

"Carte blanche? Meaning?”

"I want your permission to do whatever I want to do with your body.”

"Whatever you want? That doesn’t sound safe.”

"I realize that,” he said. "I’ll make you this promise—I won’t damage you in any way. Will there be bites? Of course. Bruises? Undoubtedly. One can hardly kiss a girl as pale as you without leaving a mark. Will I make you bleed? Probably not, but it’s happened before. I won’t pull out your fingernails or submit you to water torture. If you genuinely thought I wanted to do you real harm, I wouldn’t be in this office negotiating with you, would I?”

"No.”

"On the other hand, it’s a virtual certainty I’ll chain you to the bed and bugger you. I’m sure it will come as no shock to you that I am also very fond of riding crops.”

"Riding crops?”

"Riding crops. They make the most delightful sound on naked female flesh. Ever heard it?”

"I haven’t.”

"You will.”

"You think I’ll agree to this?”

"I think you will.” He sat back in the club chair again, steepled his fingers and looked at her over the top. "You’re twenty-five years old, yes?”

"I am.”

"A good age.”

"And why is that?”

"Twenty-five means you’re old enough to know better, young enough to do it anyway. Aren’t you?”

"I’ll admit I’m tempted. What are the terms?”

"In exchange for having carte blanche over your body—all three holes, thank you—I’ll save The Red.”

"You’ll save my gallery.” She ignored the comment about the holes. At least she tried to. Her body didn’t ignore it nearly as well as she would have liked.

"I will,” he said. "I can and I will.”

"What’s The Red to you?”

He raised his hands, palms up. "What can I say? I’m an art lover.”

She believed there was more to it than that, but she didn’t press him. The art world could be very shady—she knew that for a fact. Her mother had more than once allowed a painting with dubious provenance to be sold through the gallery. That was where Mona and her mother parted ways. Her mother loved the art world. Mona loved the art alone. But she’d also loved her mother, so she considered Malcolm’s offer very seriously.

Mona leaned forward, put her elbows on her desk, clasped her hands in a prayer position.

"Half a million dollars,” she said. "That’s what I need just to get The Red out of the red.”

"How long can you keep the gallery open with your finances in their current state?”

"One year at the most.”

"How much do you need to stay open for five years?”

"Another half a million,” she said, throwing out a grand sum.

"Are you making me an offer?” he asked.

"You are seriously willing to pay me that much money just to fuck me?”

He smiled at her. His dark eyes glinted like struck flint.

"You smile like the devil,” Mona said.

"The devil doesn’t smile,” he said. "The devil smirks.”

"You speak as if you know him.”

"Would it shock you if I said I did?”

"It might be the least shocking thing you’ve said to me tonight. One million dollars simply to fuck me? Really? That’s absurd.”

"I’m not paying you a million dollars just to fuck you. Fucking you is the least of what I’ll do to you. What I’m paying a million dollars for—minimum, mind you—is to fuck with you. Pardon my French.”

She pardoned his French. She pardoned nothing else of his, however.

"It scares me to think what you’ll expect from me for that amount of money. I’d rather sell myself for one hundred dollars than one million.”

"You shouldn’t let a man shake your hand for less than a hundred dollars, Mona. And you shouldn’t be afraid.”

"You won’t do anything perverse to me?”

"I’ll do everything perverse to you. But you still shouldn’t be afraid.”

"You threatened to fuck with me. What does that even mean?”

"We’ll play games, you and I. Or I’ll play them and you’ll play along. You won’t know reality from fantasy.”

"I’ll know.”

"You say that now…but I’m very good at the games I play.” This time he didn’t smile. He smirked like she’d heard the devil does.

"How often would you expect to fuck with me? Every week? Every night?”

"Nothing like that. I’ll expect no more than one night every one or two months.”

"That’s all?”

"I have…obligations elsewhere, let’s say. I am a man enchained.”

Married then? Sounded like it to her. Married or he had a girlfriend. Well, his other life was his business, not hers.

"How will you pay me? In cash? Check? We take cards at the gallery.” While cash would be ideal, she’d love to see a check to find out who he was and where he lived.

"I’ll pay you in the currency of the gallery. I’ll pay you in art.”

"You will pay me in art? You’re a collector?”

"I am. And my private collection has been hidden away far too long. I can’t think of a better way of bringing it to light again.”

"You’ll have to provide provenance. And considering I don’t even know your last name…”

"I’ll provide provenance at the end of the year. I’ll give you the artwork after each night and you can have it authenticated and insured. When our year together is up, I’ll provide impeccable provenance for all the pieces, which will increase their value and make it very easy for you to sell them.”

"Impeccable, you say?”

"Impeccable and unimpeachable.”

"Where will these assignations take place?”

"Your back room should do nicely for a playroom. The bed is back there, isn’t it? The antique brass bed?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You know about the bed in the back?”

"I’ve seen the back room. It’s where your mother kept the best pieces.”

"The erotic pieces, you mean.”

"Like I said, the best pieces.”

"My mother was quite shameless. I’m not surprised you knew her.”

"I am very sorry for the loss of your mother. Ophelia St. James was much beloved in the art community.”

"She was. And this gallery was her life. She told me to do anything to save it.”

"I can be anything,” he said with the slightest smile.

"Yes,” she said. "I imagine you could.”

"Do we have an agreement then?” he asked.

"I have to think about this some more,” she said. She turned in her chair to the side, rested her forehead on her hand and breathed.

"Do you have a lover?” he asked. "I won’t tell you to stop seeing him if you do.”

"We broke up,” she said. "After Mother died.”

"My condolences.”

"No need for that. We were never in love, only lovers. He was a boy.”

"Scandalous.” Malcolm sounded far more pleased than scandalized.

"Not quite. I was twenty-four. He was eighteen. He lived in the apartment across from my mother’s with his parents. In the last months I stayed with her every night, slept in the guest room. It was lonely sleeping there with my mother slowly dying in the next room.” She shouldn’t be telling Malcolm any of this and didn’t know why she was, only that he seemed interested and it had been a very long time since she’d had a conversation this intimate with anyone.

"I certainly would have seduced the nearest available person as well,” Malcolm said. "Even if my mother hadn’t been dying.”

"I can imagine that.”

"You’re welcome to imagine me seducing someone. I recommend it.”

"Sadly, it wasn’t much of a seduction,” she said. "He was young and pretty and, best of all, lived five feet away. We would talk in the hallway when we met there. One night a neighbor came out of their apartment and shushed us for laughing, so I invited him in to finish the conversation. Mother was already asleep. Her pills knocked her out around nine every night. I didn’t intend to go to bed with him, but the bed was the only place in the guest room to sit.” She smiled at the memory of taking Ryan’s virginity on the antique brass bed. She had to hold onto the headboard to keep it from rattling against the wall.

"You had every reason to, every right to,” Malcolm said. "Anyone going through what you were would need the comfort of another body in your bed. Do you miss him?”

She shrugged. "I miss that time. I still had Mother by day and a lover by night. It was a precious few months for me. After she died, I sold the apartment to pay off some of the medical bills. I kept the brass bed. Mother had bought it years ago at an estate sale. Mother said it had once belonged to a courtesan so she couldn’t resist buying it. Mother would buy anything if the origin story were good enough.”

"It’s a lovely bed. I’m certain it misses you. You should spend more time in it, with me preferably.”

She missed the bed as well. Although her affair with Ryan had been brief, only three months, it had been a delicious distraction. They were lovers for the summer and knew the end date of their affair when they started—September, when Ryan would start college. He’d been a virgin, a tabula rasa, and she’d taught him exactly how to please her…and please her he did, two and sometimes three times a night. He’d slip in around ten, joining her in the antique brass bed where she lay waiting for him, already naked. They’d make love for two hours or more before he returned to his apartment down the hall. They spoke of nothing to each other but the sex. It was all they’d had in common. Yet, she missed him, or more accurately missed it—the sex, falling asleep with damp thighs, waking up with tender lips, tender nipples, having a secret reason to smile when no one else was looking. Malcolm offered all that to her, plus the money to save the gallery. How could she refuse? And yet…

"Condoms?” Mona asked. She hadn’t used them with Ryan, but Ryan had been eighteen and a virgin.

"No,” he said simply.

She had guessed as much. No one paid a million dollars to fuck someone and then put a layer of latex between their bodies.

"But you needn’t worry,” he said. "I won’t give you any diseases.”

"That’s a comfort. Only one night every month or two?”

"That’s all,” he said. "But I assure you, they will be very long nights for both of us.”

"Ten nights is a hundred thousand dollars a fuck. You do realize that you’re overpaying me, yes?”

"I know it seems a bit, dear, but I will fuck you more than once a night. You’ll earn it, I promise. If you’re anything like the other Monas I’ve known, I have no doubt I’ll get my money’s worth and then some.”

Twelve months. A handful of nights. Four or five times a night, if not more. And all for one million dollars.

"If any of this art of yours is stolen—”

"I’m a whoremonger, a rake, and a degenerate, my dear, but I am not a thief.”

"Forgive me but I had to ask,” she said. "Art theft is the fourth largest international crime behind guns, drugs, and human trafficking.”

"Only fourth?” He sounded disgusted. He sighed, as if disappointed with the world. "No accounting for taste.”

It was that joke that did it. Until then she’d been sitting on the fence, torn between needing the money and wanting her dignity. But when he gave a little roll of his eyes as if affronted that anyone would consider drugs or guns more worth stealing and selling than art…she fell off the fence and right into Malcolm’s lap.

"One million dollars,” she said. "You have carte blanche for one year. We’ll meet here. Is that the agreement?”

"It is indeed. Are you saying yes?” he asked.

"The deal is done after one year? You won’t expect anything else from me? Any favors, sexual or otherwise? A stake in the gallery? Counterfeit provenance?”

"Nothing of the sort. After our final encounter you won’t even see me again. Ever.”

Ever?

"Well…you’ve certainly proven your bona fides with the Reynolds painting,” she said. "And I promised my mother I wouldn’t sell The Red.”

"Deathbed promises are the most serious,” he said. "We must keep them at all costs.”

"How did you know it was a deathbed promise?”

"An assumption. You see, I made one myself.”

"To your mother?”

"No. If she said anything about me on her deathbed it was to curse my name. Luckily I was elsewhere at the time,” he said and smiled. She had never understood the phrase "devastatingly handsome” before meeting Malcolm, but when he left this room, she would feel devastated to be in his presence no longer. It all made sense.

"My mother loved this gallery,” she said. "It was her life. Now that she’s gone, it may be the death of me.”

"I won’t allow that, Mona.” He seemed to find her name amusing.

"I have a feeling I’ll regret this…”

"I have a feeling you won’t.”

"You would say that.”

"I would,” he readily admitted. "But you’ll say it too in a year. I assume you’ll accept the fifty-thousand-dollar finder’s fee from the Reynolds as a down payment?”

"I think that’s reasonable,” she said.

"Then we’re in agreement?”

What did she have to lose? Other than her health, her sanity, her spotless criminal record, her business, and her life?

"We’re in agreement,” she said.

He clapped his hands, rubbed them together, and stood up.

"Excellent. Just what I’ve been wanting to hear for a very long time. We’ll start tomorrow night.”

"So soon?”

"Does your cunt have a prior engagement?” he asked, his tone mocking.

"Tomorrow night, then. Is there…” She paused, not sure what she was asking. "Are there rules? Expectations of me? Requests?”

He held up one finger, telling her to sit and wait. She sat. She waited. He walked to her bookshelf and perused the titles, the hand on his chin again like the first night. At last he seemed to find what he was looking for. He pulled a large white book from the shelf and leafed through the pages. Then he returned to her desk, bringing the book with him.

"That,” he said, laying the book open on the desk and pointing at a photograph of a painting. "I would like you to wait for me thusly.”

The painting in the photograph was one she knew well—Manet’s Olympia, a portrait of a young girl, naked, lying on a bed with her head up and staring directly at the viewer. It was an infamous painting, Manet making mockery of the tired old Venus-reclining-on-her-bed trope. Olympia was a prostitute and a shameless one at that. When it was first displayed, the crowds found it so vulgar they wanted to tear it to shreds.

"So I’m to be your Olympia.”

"For what I’m paying you, you’ll be everything I want you to be.”

She looked up at him, met his eyes. For the first time since they met, he touched her. He laid his hand on the side of her face, stroked the arch of her cheekbone with his thumb. Such a large warm hand. She truly believed she would regret making this agreement. But she didn’t regret it now.

"You were meant to do this,” he said softly. "You’ll see.”

"Why me?” she asked. "Millions of women in this country, millions in yours…why me?”

"Millions of paintings in this world. Only one Mona Lisa. Billions of women in this world. Only one you, Mona Lisa St. James.”

Then he left her in the office, blushing and shivering and undeniably aroused. She’d just agreed to become a prostitute to save her gallery.

Something told Mona that somewhere out there, her mother was proud of her.