Page 80 of Sticky Fingers

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Malcolm

1,885.

That’s how many fucking paintings Picasso produced during his lifetime. One of those eventually made its way to Daphne Abbot and then to the Clarendon Tower Art Gallery.

And just like that, as destiny wove a web of coincidences and circumstances, my life collided with Sonia’s.

Beautiful fucking Sonia. Crazy fucking Sonia.

What could I have done differently?

Even though our relationship started rocky and was based on a cheesy game of cat and mouse, it’s developed into the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I’m just so fucking in love with her.

I think about her all the fucking time.

When I think back to our time in the Caribbean, I justknowit’ll work out between the two of us. Every moment there with her was effortless. Without all the fucking bullshit of life around us, we get along great.

I can make that happen again. There’s no reason either one of us has to deal with my mobster buddies. We’ll have plenty of money to live in luxury for the rest of our lives together.

I just have to ride this out, and in a couple weeks, she’ll know the full extent of my commitment.

Someday, we’re going to look back on the beginning of our relationship and laugh. There is so much we do have in common—not to mention the fucking amazing sex.

I don’t just miss the sex though. With her, there really is so much more. I miss her funny faces and how happy she seemed.

Soon.

Seventeen.

That’s the amount of business meetings I attended in the past two weeks. And let me tell you, fucking bankers are the stiffest and most boring people around. They drive me crazy.

Half the time I’m with them, I have a really hard time staying awake.

I know this is all necessary, but it seems like they can do it without me. Do I really need to be there for them to run through all the numbers?

Profit and loss charts, balance sheets and cash flow bullshit. Fucking hell in a handbasket.

What a drag these last few days have been.

And these assholes are all so sweaty all the time. Holy shit.

What do their schooling and learning consist of, because apparently it didn’t involve a Speed Stick. I can see the logic with bakers and chefs sweating in a kitchen, but we’re talking about glorified fucking accountants. Maybe it’s the sedentary lifestyle with a lack of anything interesting in, so they literally sweat the small stuff?

One of them, Mr. Dandier, sweat like the Olympic fucking medal sweater or something. After a couple of hours, the board room we use always starts to smell like the meal he ate the night before.

Today it was curry. It will be a while before I can fucking eat Indian food again.

If it wasn’t so important to get all these companies sorted and shuffled, I wouldn’t be putting myself through this.

Sonia is always the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about as I nod off to sleep. She’s like a drug that I’m craving morning, noon and fucking night.

It’s all to get her back because, if it wasn’t for her, like so many times in the past, I’d probably just blow this off.

I think Dandier and his cronies were all really surprised to see me show up on time on Monday. I know I’ve cancelled at least twice in the past year.