Page 111 of My Sweetest Agony

“Okay, okay.” She holds up a hand defensively, then snags a truffle and bites into it with a little groan, chewing slowly. “God, these are good.” She swallows. “So, you followed him and…?”

“And he went to his studio.”

Her eyes widen, and she grins. “Ohhh.”

Curiosity piqued, she leans closer, waiting for me to expand, but something stops me.

All those beautiful paintings flash through my head.

So filled with everything that Cam is—beauty, tension, darkness, light, life.

But he keeps his identity hidden for a reason.

He doesn’t want the fame. He doesn’t need accolades. He just wants to paint.

And revealing his secret feels like a betrayal of the trust he put in me by exposing everything he did last night.

I take another sip of wine, but it almost instantly sours in my stomach, so I set my glass on the coffee table and swipe my sweaty palms across my leggings.

Not only am I a shitty liar, I’m apparently also awful at keeping secrets—my own or other people’s—because I don’t know how I can explain everything without telling Marlo who he really is.

So much of Cam’s identity is wrapped up in his art.

To understand him you have to understand it.

“I need you to promise me you’re not going to tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”

Her blond brows draw low over her eyes. “Okay, now you’re freaking me out…”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing bad, just…something that has to stay private.”

Marlo scoffs. “Who do you think I talk to you besides you?”

“Trina? Everyone else who works at the shop.”

“Oh, pu-lease.” She rolls her eyes. “I keep the good stuff to myself, and you know it. I’m fucking Fort Knox.”

She’s far from that, but I do trust Marlo more than anyone else in my life, so if anyone can keep this secret, it’s her. Especially now that she knows how important it is for her to keep her lips sealed.

“You’re not going to believe this but”—I lock gazes with her so I can watch her reaction—“he’s Cush.”

Her eyes widen, brows rising comically high. “That street artist who does all the murals on buildings and has his paintings auctioned for millions of dollars?”

I nod. “Camden Usher. C. Ush. Cush.”

Once I saw it, I don’t know how it never clicked, why I never made the connection between his name and the one scrawled at the bottom of all the art I’ve seen from him on the internet over the years.

Maybe because Nancy and Drew so casually brushed off talk of his art as if he were barely scraping by in London, working at some small gallery, selling other artists’ works instead of his own without anyone knowing.

“Ho. Ly. Shit.” Marlo’s jaw drops. “Drew knew, didn’t he?”

I nod, my stomach continuing to knot with yet another thing he kept hidden from me over the years. “Yes.”

“But he never told you?”

“Cam asked Nancy and Drew not to tell anyone.”

She gapes. “Why would he keep that a secret?”