Page 156 of Family Affair

Alex was more difficult to read. Although he appeared composed, she could detect tension running on the inside that showed in his fingers relentlessly twirling a lighter, tapping the table with it at measured intervals. Tap… Tap… Tap…

Ross plucked it from his hands and lit up a thin brown cigarillo.

A waitress materialized out of thin air.

“A bottle of Grey Goose. Nothing else.” Rick said curtly, forestalling her exuberant menu offerings. She vanished the same way she appeared, as if by magic.

“Do you like the club, Miz Coco?” Rick reclined in his seat, facing her. He crossed one foot over the knee and appeared at ease, except his foot moved in short jerky motions calling his posture bluff.

“I haven’t had a chance to enjoy it.” She gave a noncommittal reply. “It does carry an impact.”

“I think so, too,” he said, never dropping his heavy stare from her face.

The waitress reappeared with a bottle of vodka and glasses.

“So you wanted to talk to us, Miz Coco,” Rick said in a careless tone after the drinks were poured. “Here we are. Talk.”

“I was under the impression I’m meeting with Alex,” Coco addressed the table at large, wondering if it was too late to scrap her plan and call off the meeting, like Willis had suggested. But no. This conversation was happening tonight. Right now.

Alex stirred. “When you mentioned the Pollock drawing, it became a family affair. You need to understand that.”

The rules of the game were changing on the fly, and she had no choice but to go with the flow.

“I understand.” She wouldn't turn back now.

She opened her bag and pulled out a tight roll. Unfolding it, she pinned the drawing with her fingers in the center of the table.

As one, Rick and his sons leaned in to take a closer look.

“Is it… it?” Dan asked with reverence and fear. He hovered the farthest from the table, as if afraid the drawing might leap out and bite him. Which it could, metaphorically speaking. Which it had done.

“You disappoint me, Coco,” Rick drawled in his heavy honeyed drawl. “This isn’t my late son’s work.”

Without hesitation, she rolled up the drawing and stuffed it back into her purse. They thought she was bluffing? She was. And by all that was holy they were bloody going to fold.

“In this case, Mr. Sheffield, it wouldn't matter to you what I do with this drawing.”

“No, it wouldn't. But out of curiosity, whatareyou going to do with this crudely produced fake?”

She grinned; she couldn't help it. “I imagine your son Frank would have had something to say if he could hear you just now.”

“How much did you want for it?” Alex asked sharply.

She looked at Alex, making a mental note of how he was the first to negotiate.

“Not everything is about money, Alex. In fact, I already attempted to return this drawing to your family.” She cast a pointed look at Ross. “Right, Ross?”

Ross puffed out a cloud of smoke that went directly into her face. She coughed, like he undoubtedly meant for her to.

He hadn’t told them,Coco realized in a flash.

“Father has a point.” Dan gestured at Coco with his glass. “You haven’t convinced me it’s Frank’s work. I wouldn't want to pay money for a fake.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Ross murmured, earning contemptuous looks from all three of his kin. “What? Just making a point. Frank would have appreciated the irony.”

“You’re an artist. It’s your work, for all I know,” Dan pressed.

“In order for me to produce a copy, I have toseeFrank’s original.”