Page 132 of A Taste like Sin

shelter of the building, they provide no cover from the avalanche of questions.

“Mr. Thorne! Do you regret withdrawing from public office?”

“Is it true that you plan to publicly renounce your judgment in the Borgetta murder case?”

“Ms. Thorne! Are you still involved with Damien Villa?”

As we finally climb into the waiting limo, the metal frame mutes the noise enough for me to hear my

father ask, “You’re still coming to dinner, sweet pea?”

“Yes,” I rasp. “I just have something to take care of. That’s all.”

Something that requires that the driver drops me off at the private residential entrance of the Lariat.

Leaning toward him, I kiss my father on the cheek. “I’ll see you later tonight.”

Questions burn in his gaze even as he physically bites them back. “Of course, sweet pea.”

I enter the hotel and cross the lobby. My hand slips into the pocket of my coat, withdrawing a slip of

paper I’d crumpled and thrown away—only to salvage later—so many times that the font has worn

away in places. An invitation to a private gallery held in a more secluded ballroom of the Lariat.

A part of me knows better than to attend. I should have been packing my things, preparing to move in

with my parents at their newly purchased family compound on the outskirts of the city. I should have

been helping my father prepare his public address on his role in the injustice against Mathias Villa.

Anything but inching down a deserted hallway and entering a closed room.

This showing lacks the pomp and grandeur of Sampson’s first splashy outing. Only a few paintings

are on display: each one portraying the same woman in excruciating detail.

I move, drawn forward to a painting hanging at the back of the space. It’s beautiful, even if

grotesquely raw in a way. Pale limbs were on shameless display. Scars. Curves. Pimples.

But her eyes are the most striking—almost impossibly so. Tears brim in them. And anger. And rage. A

pain so raw that it takes my breath away.

“My finest work, I think,” a man announces, his voice low near my ear. “What are your thoughts?”

My breath catches, and I reach out, unconcerned as my fingers brush the canvas directly. Whirls and

divots in the layers of paint reveal a painstaking level of artistry. Devotion to capturing every single

strand of hair. Every flaw that could be discerned through touch.

Everything aboutmein stroke after stroke.

“I’m afraid that you keep straining the theory that you are truly blind, Mr. Villa,” I rasp.

“Not blind…” Fingers like silk caress the flesh of my shoulder bared by the neckline of my sweater. I