King rolled onto his back again. “That’s when he offered me a fuckton of money for the sketch. At first… at first, I thought I was selling him pieces he could display in his home and impress his friends with. He requested these lesser-known pieces that weren’t on prominent, public display. I got rich really quickly and thought… this isn’t so bad. And in the meantime, the man was charming as hell. He’d immediately apologized for the way he’d discovered me and the way he’d manipulated me. He admitted that he was just so enamored with my talent.”
I could tell by the tone of his voice he was rolling his eyes.
“I was so gullible, Falcon. I look back on it now and cringe. But at the time… I was a twenty-four-year-old grad student with stars in his eyes. And here was this wealthy art collector who wanted to wine and dine me while praising me to the heavens.”
“How did it turn from creating forgeries to participating in art heists?”
“After about six months, Elek took me to a fancy cocktail reception at the interior minister’s house. We mingled with all of these high-level politicians and local celebrities. It was a far cry from little Hobie, Texas. I was finally in the kind of social sphere where there was true art on the walls. Except… except I realized that one of the pieces was mine.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. At first, I assumed he’d been selling my stuff behind my back. And that was bad enough. But then I got home and researched the provenance of the original because something about it was ringing alarm bells. Sure enough, the original was owned by this interior minister. He’d bought it at auction eight years before. But I knew the one he had on display was mine.
“When we got back to Elek’s place after the reception, I confronted him about it. That’s when he told me that he’d been using my forgeries to cover his thefts of the originals. He eagerly offered to cut me in on the action. I literally threw up. Suddenly, I was in way over my head.”
I still held his hand and could detect a faint tremor in it. I wondered if it was from his memories or fear of confessing all of this to me.
I asked a stupid but necessary question. “Why didn’t you go to the authorities?”
He swiveled his head toward me, and I wished more than anything there had been enough light for me to see into his eyes. “He told me he had enough evidence to pin it all on me. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stolen artwork and forgeries would put me away in a French prison for a very long time. Meanwhile I had nothing. No evidence of his participation in any of it. It would be his word against mine, and let’s not forget he was friends with people like the interior minister of France.”
Anger burned in my gut for that young art student.
“How could you fall in love with a man like that?” I blurted without thinking.
“I wasn’t in love with him. Ever. But I’ll admit it didn’t take much for me to become accustomed to living a big life. As soon as he’d talked me into working on jobs with him, I got addicted to the high. It was like being able to nail a forgery only this time there was an actual adrenaline shot that went along with it. And I’ve always been competitive. So becoming the best at something? Well, that was seductive.”
King let out a soft chuckle. “I’m the middle of ten children, Falcon. I wasn’t the best at anything. Ever. Hudson was the nicest, West was the smartest, MJ was the most high achieving, Saint was the toughest, Otto was the most sensitive, Hallie was the funniest, Winnie was the moodiest, Cal was this weird kind of sailing expert from a young age, and Sassy was the cutest, sweetest thing we all doted on. Then there was me. I was just… the plainest. The boring one. I didn’t excel at anything except copying graphic novel illustrations I liked.”
Now it was my time to laugh. “I think you mean most clueless. You’re one of the most beautiful, intriguing men I’ve ever met. You have a mind for strategy, and you’re diligent and thorough.”
“Stop. I didn’t say that to fish for compliments. I’m just… I’ve just been trying for years now to figure out why I was such an easy catch for him. And all I can think was that I was so desperate to be great at something, to be recognized for my talent and appreciated by others.”
“It makes sense.” I reached out and ran a hand through his hair again because I could, and for some reason my fingers felt like that’s where they belonged. “Why did he leave you on the Van Gogh job?”