Champagne Deception Read online

  Champagne Deception

  Anisa Claire West

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and events depicted in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, either living or deceased, is purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Milan, Italy

  A Black, Moonless Night in May

  Inside the art gallery, Coretta put the finishing touches on a tray of Italian hors d’oeuvres set on a table lined with bottles of the finest champagne. It was eight o’clock precisely, and the gallery was about to open its doors to introduce her paintings to the world. Swallowing a breath of nervousness, Coretta smoothed the fabric of her scarlet cocktail dress while listlessly twirling her shoulder length mahogany hair. It was time to open the doors to the public; she couldn’t wait another minute longer.

  With trembling fingers, she unlocked the doors and opened them wide for the avid art lovers who stood queued up in the balmy spring air. Immediately, they pushed through the doors, clamoring to reach the walls and place early bids on her best paintings. Coretta smiled in stark disbelief; this kind of fame and popularity were completely new to her. A few months ago, she couldn’t even get an art dealer to look at one of her paintings and now here she was with a gallery opening devoted to her work. Discreetly, she pinched her forearm, giggling silently as she observed the customers fight over her paintings.

  From the darkest corner of the gallery, Coretta continued to watch in awe as the elegant art lovers fussed over her labors of love. Emerging from the shadows and strolling over to the buffet table for a glass of champagne, Coretta scanned the room for her lover. They had quarreled earlier when he misplaced three paintings that she had planned to feature in the display, and now she wanted to make amends.

  Coretta selected a flute of champagne and lifted the delicate glass to her lips, indulging in a sip. The icy bubbles rolled smoothly across her tongue, and she closed her eyes, savoring the moment. She pressed the rim to her lips for a second sip when a strident beeping assaulted the hushed atmosphere of the gallery and the lights simultaneously dimmed to black. The recently opened gallery contained no back-up generator, and the entire space was immediately as dark as the moonless spring sky. The glass of champagne slipped out of Coretta’s fingers and crashed onto the floor as she jumped in fright.

  Groping in the blackness, Coretta bumped her knee against a metal table and squealed with pain as the group on the other side of the room became agitated. The sounds of bodies bumping into each other and glasses crashing to the ground elicited a scream from one woman and grumblings in Italian from several of the other guests.

  Coretta spoke up and addressed the crowd in her most authoritative voice: “I apologize for this inconvenience. Apparently, there has been some sort of electrical failure that has caused a blackout. I would advise you to take out your cell phones and use the lights from those devices until I can find some candles. A candlelit art reception, not bad, right?” She spoke lightheartedly, trying to allay the concerns of her guests.

  As a handful of people dug into their pockets for their cell phones, Coretta felt a body press against her backside. “Excuse me,” she murmured to whomever had collided with her. The moment she spoke, a gloved hand smacked against her face and covered her mouth while a menacing arm pressed into her belly and knocked the wind out of her. Gasping for air, she wriggled in the death-grip of the gloved man, frantically biting on his covered hand to get him to release her. As her teeth sank into the thick fabric, his grasp tightened even more around her waist until she thought her ribs would shatter.

  Roughly, the man dragged her backwards towards the darker recesses of the gallery. Lighting the way with a tiny flashlight clenched between his teeth, he pushed Coretta down the stairs into the cellar.

  *****

  Chapter One

  New York City

  One Month Earlier on April Fool’s Day

  Dashing down the steps of her tenth floor walk-up apartment, Coretta Nicholas clutched the precious portfolio to her chest. Outside in Greenwich Village, it was a cool, crisp day that whispered of spring romance and leisurely strolls through Central Park. Maneuvering through the chaotic sea of people, Coretta screamed as her portfolio fell into a muddy puddle formed by last night’s thunderstorm. Scrambling to salvage her treasured book filled with photographs of her paintings, the young woman desperately wiped the mud on her black jacket.

  “Watch what you’re doing!” A bearded man dressed in bohemian garb shouted at her as specks of mud splashed onto his ripped jeans.

  “I’m sorry!” She cried, speeding past the offended pedestrian and waiting impatiently with a hundred other harried people at a red light.

  As the signal turned green, she raced across the street, accidentally smacking an old woman on the shoulder with her sullied portfolio. The purple-haired lady shot her a curmudgeonly glare as Coretta silently mouthed “I’m sorry” before clamoring to the other side of the street.

  Five more blocks of huffing and puffing took Coretta to her destination: a hole-in-the-wall gallery owned by a retired art history professor who was searching for new talent. Coretta had waited more than two months to get an appointment with Dr. Stella Bishop. As she sweat inside her stuffy jacket, she struggled to compose herself and at least catch her breath before entering the gallery.

  Still mildly wheezing, she squeezed through the narrow doorway and glanced around at the paintings that adorned the walls. Most of the paintings were shaded in bold colors with streaks of black and sharp geometric shapes interspersed. Approaching the reception desk, Coretta tried to ignore the fact that these rigid modern paintings were the exact opposite of her flowing pastel creations.

  “Good morning. I’m Coretta Nicholas. I’m here to meet with Dr. Stella Bishop,” she introduced herself to the girl at the desk, who looked no more than 18 years old and was probably an intern studying at one of the city’s many renowned art schools.

  “I’ll page her for you,” the girl replied, motioning for Coretta to have a seat on a bench facing a grotesque painting that depicted a grisly murder scene.

  “That’s an interesting piece of work,” Coretta remarked lightly while inwardly shuddering at the goriness of the canvas.

  “It is really awesome,” the girl agreed fervently. “It’s by our featured artist, Toy.”

  “Toy?” Coretta repeated blankly.

  “Yes, he’s going to be very famous someday. He only needs one name!” The girl sniffled with laughter as Coretta smiled politely, clutching her mud-stained portfolio protectively to her bosom.

  Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Stella Bishop finally appeared. She had hip-length snowy hair and wore a plaid dress that resembled a Scottish tartan. Wordlessly, she sat down next to Coretta on the bench and smiled wanly. Coretta extended her hand for a shake, which the eccentric woman refused. Audaciously, she pointed to the portfolio and instructed with bluntness, “Open it up.”

  Coretta was taken aback. In the ten years since she had been trying to get her paintings displayed, she had met with hundreds of gallery owners. There had always been some sort of small talk, some chance to pitch her work and summarize her artistic style. But this rude woman was cutting right to the chase. Coretta flipped open the binder and stifled a gasp as Dr. Bishop narrowed her eyes and grabbed it out of her hands.

  The former professor put on a pair of red-rimmed glasses and stared expressionlessly at Coretta’s most treasured painting: a watercolor scene of rural upstate New York featuring a silhouette of a beautiful woman gathering tulips. Hastily, she flipped through the pages of delicate landscapes and romantic images. Without warning, she snapped the book shut and regarded t
he young artist with pity.

  “Your work is trite,” she said simply, removing her glasses.

  This time, Coretta could not stifle her gasp. “Trite? How could you say that?” She fought back the urge to cry, as her paintings were her babies, and she felt as though someone had just pierced her in the heart.

  “Let me rephrase. You’re two centuries too late. Monet and Renoir already did what you’re trying to do, and they did it better. Impressionism is over. The New York art world wants edgy, fresh concepts…like the horror painting by Toy over there.” Dr. Bishop pointed admiringly to the disgusting picture that stared back tauntingly from the wall.

  “Impressionism is not over at all! And I’ve revamped it. Don’t you see?” Coretta reopened the portfolio and gestured to the figures dressed in contemporary fashion. “These are modern men and women at a crossroads between the past and present. The scenery is dreamy and reminiscent of nineteenth century art, but the people are contemporary. It’s like a journey between two different eras,” she passionately interpreted her own work, already knowing the gallery owner would not be persuaded.

  “Not for this gallery. Not for New York.” Dr. Bishop shrugged, rising to her feet to indicate that the meeting was over.

  “Not for New York?!” Coretta exclaimed incredulously. “Not for a city of eight million inhabitants? How ridiculous! Who are you to decide what type of art the most diverse city on earth will purchase? I guess this meeting was my April Fool’s joke for the day! But I’m not the fool!” She bolted to her feet with a face flushed from indignation.

  Without looking behind her at the smug face of Dr. Bishop and her teeny bopper assistant, Coretta fled the gallery, noting on her way out that the stuffy space smelled of moth balls. The uncouth woman had just done her a tremendous favor, Coretta decided. But at the age of 32 and with hundreds of paintings under her belt, she was tired of always being told “no.”

  When she had moved after college from suburban Connecticut to trendy Greenwich Village, Coretta thought that she was placing herself in the ideal location for an artist. But she hadn’t realized how cut-throat the competition was in the city. It seemed that half her neighbors were either artists, performers, or designers of some sort. She and her art were anonymous in New York.

  For more years than she cared to count, Coretta had been supervising a craft supply store two blocks from her apartment. She only stayed there for the 30% discount employees received on art supplies. But what about the other 70% of her life? She hadn’t been brave enough to delve into that question---until now. Working as a low paid retail supervisor just wasn’t good enough for her anymore. Tripping over an orange cone in the middle of a construction site, Coretta gritted her teeth and vowed to work harder than ever to gain acclaim for her beloved paintings.

  *****

  “Sushi again?” Coretta sighed, looking down distastefully at the rolls of eel and blobs of wasabi on her plate.

  “You’re so boring. If you had your way, we’d be eating pasta every night,” Jonathan, her boyfriend of a decade, complained.

  “What’s wrong with pasta? At least it’s cooked. And it reminds me of my semester abroad in Milan,” she replied sullenly, taking a sip of Japanese tea and unenthusiastically tearing the chopsticks open.

  “Oh, here we go again. How many times have I heard this story? Italy is paradise. New York is nothing compared to Milan. If it’s so damn great in Italy, why don’t you just move there already?” He asked in exasperation, stuffing a sticky ball of white rice into his mouth.

  “I’d love to, believe me,” Coretta groaned, looking away from her boyfriend.

  She had met Jonathan Trake in her last semester of college. At 22, neither she nor Jonathan had ever been in love before. When they met at an intramural game, she had fallen for his golden boy looks with curly blond hair, baby blue eyes, and stocky football player’s physique. Coretta had never expected that all these years later they would still be dating, while he earned a six figure salary as an investment banker and she scraped by supervising a craft store. It wouldn’t be presumptuous to expect an engagement ring after a decade of commitment, but every time she dared mention the idea of getting married, Jonathan clammed up.

  Watching him chug down another mug of beer, Coretta wondered why she was still with him. Inertia. That was the only explanation. Physics states that objects at rest stay at rest. And she had been in a comfortable, albeit chilly, relationship with Jonathan for so long that it was virtually impossible to imagine making a move.

  “Anyway, enough of this nonsense,” he interrupted her thoughts. “I picked up two very wealthy new clients today,” he announced proudly, sitting back in his chair for effect.

  “Mmm, that’s great,” she murmured, stabbing the sushi with her chopstick.

  “Yes, it is. It’s fantastic. And how about your paintings? Any luck finding a gallery?” He posed the question casually and with the expectation of the same answer she always gave: no. No, she had not had any luck with her paintings today, just as she had not had any luck for the past ten years. Jonathan sorely wanted his girlfriend to move on and forget the childish fantasy of being a famous artist.

  “I had a meeting this morning, but it didn’t go very well. The gallery owner told me my paintings weren’t her style.” She spared him the painful details of how the arrogant woman had skewered her paintings and proclaimed that all of Manhattan would feel the same way.

  “Well, don’t cry over spilled milk. I don’t want you to go crazy and cut your hand off like Van Gogh!” Jonathan snorted, reaching across the table to jab her in the shoulder as she glowered at him.

  Van Gogh cut his ear off, not his hand, you idiot. You can be so ignorant, she thought before replying, “Rejection is par for the course in the art world. I’ve known that for many years.”

  “But yet you keep pursuing it. Are you a glutton for punishment or what?” He shook his head disapprovingly.

  “No, I’m not! I’m ambitious. I believe in my work, and I’m not going to stop until my paintings are showcased in a real art gallery!” She cried on a crescendo of frustration.

  “Lower your voice! People are staring. If you want to be a masochist and keep putting your work out there, that’s your choice. But you know I don’t encourage it.”

  “I don’t care if you encourage it, and I don’t care if people are staring!” Coretta bit back. “Maybe I’ll just open my own gallery! Then I’ll have a perfect place to put my work!”

  Jonathan grunted, “Yeah, good luck with that in Manhattan. Even people making six figure salaries like mine can’t get much real estate for their buck in this city, and you know it.”

  “You wouldn’t help me? You have the money,” she pointed out, still baffled about how they could live separate financial lives after so many years as a couple.

  “I make a living by advising people on wise investments. An art gallery is certainly not a wise investment,” he insisted, motioning to the waiter to pour him another beer.

  “You drink too much,” she said plainly, staring down at the uneaten raw fish on her plate.

  “I can handle my liquor. Just lay off.”

  They fought like a married couple, but she experienced none of the benefits of marriage. She was as loyal to him as any good wife would be, and for what? They passed the remainder of the dinner in a tense silence. When he walked her back to her apartment, she did not invite him inside. Trudging up the ten flights of stairs, Coretta reflected wistfully on her semester in Milan. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and it might as well have been.

  As a college girl, Coretta had been bubbly and made friends easily. One of her closest friends at the university in Milan had been Lorenzo Fiatti, whom she met in a pottery class. She had always been secretly attracted to the tall, wavy-haired Italian with the mega-watt smile. Over the years, they had lost touch, but Coretta found herself suddenly wondering what had become of the green-eyed cutie. With vivid clarity, she could still recall the day they met back in fa
ll semester of her senior year…

  “What are you making?” A rich male voice inquired curiously.

  Hands saturated in clay, Coretta looked up and replied, “I wanted to make a vase, but Dr. Fiore says I should make an ashtray like everyone else.”

  The tall, lean boy looked at her with sympathetic amusement. “I know. This isn’t very creative for an art class! What’s your name?”

  “Coretta Nicholas. I’m from Connecticut. Doing my semester abroad here.” A flutter of nervousness assaulted her as she gazed into green eyes magical enough to cast a warlock’s spell.

  “I’m Lorenzo Fiatti. Welcome to my country! I would shake your hand, but…”

  “But it’s covered in clay,” she replied wryly. “Have you ever studied abroad?”

  “No, but I’d love to study in London. My minor is English literature, and I’d really like to go to Stratford-upon-Avon and see where Shakespeare lived.” The young man’s eyes lit up even more as he spoke of his dream.

  “Do you actually enjoy reading Shakespeare?” She asked, making a sour face.

  Lorenzo laughed heartily. “I know, everyone thinks his plays are so hard. But once you understand the difference between ‘thou’ and ‘thine,’ you’re all set.” He winked as she blushed. Chemistry vibrated between their young bodies, and Coretta felt an unfamiliar wave of exhilaration as they conversed.

  “I think it’s a little more complicated than that, but you’re funny,” she giggled.

  From the glazing station, an attractive girl with long, honey brown hair sauntered over. She lay a possessive hand on Lorenzo’s shoulder and asked with narrowed eyes, “Who’s this?”

  The introduction that followed had instantly shattered any ideas Coretta might have had about dating Lorenzo. The honey-haired art student was Barbara, Lorenzo’s steady girlfriend. Should she even bother to look him up now? What if Barbara the Girlfriend was now Barbara the Wife? There was only one way to find out.