by Pratt, Lulu
Table of Contents
Copyright
Author's Note
Well Hung
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Thank You!
Auctioned (Preview)
Lulu Pratt's Books
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by Lulu Pratt
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Author’s Note
Well Hung is a full-length 60,000+ word novel. Please note it ends at 90%.
Thank you for reading this. I hope you enjoy Well Hung.
I’ve also included a preview of my book, Auctioned, for your enjoyment.
Happy reading,
Lulu xoxo
Well Hung
Xavier turns up back in my life by chance, at work of all places.
Despite everything, I find myself in his powerful arms again and again.
Now, I’m carrying his child but can’t find the words to tell him.
Because no matter what I say it will ruin us.
We were college sweethearts until Chloe took off.
Even my billions weren’t enough to keep her in my life.
The worst mistake I ever made was letting her go.
Imagine my surprise when she turns up on a work project.
Before long I have her under me, screaming my name.
Chloe makes me forget everything, only her kisses and her touch.
Problem is that I am supposed to marry my dad’s business partner’s daughter.
*** A steamy STANDALONE contemporary romance with a smoking hot hero. No cliffhanger, no cheating and a guaranteed happily-ever-after.***
CHAPTER 1
Chloe
THE COMINO Gallery café in New York was lit with starburst pendants, three deep, that illuminated the small, cozy spot. I sipped an Earl Grey latte and opened my newly purchased copy of Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, ready to dive into the novel. An etched mirror-clock on the wall told me it was half past one. Alexandra would be here soon, once her lunch meeting with some bigwig donor or another was over.
I didn’t mind. I was one of those people who could sit by themselves in a crowded restaurant and never feel lonely. This might be because I’d spent the last two years traveling Italy and beyond on the weekends and holidays all on my own, and had gotten used to dining solo — or better yet, entering a restaurant alone and leaving with a new group of friends. My mother used to say I had a wild heart, which spread open like a pair of lungs, tender and pink.
While in Italy, I’d been studying art history and classical restoration techniques, taught by the absolute masters of the form. Every night I’d come home with dabs of paint and turpentine around my hairline and beneath my fingernails, which I’d then scrub out in a white ceramic wash basin that might have been from the 1600s. The walls of my decaying yellow apartment had been cracked and peeling, but I couldn’t have loved it more. When the wind blew the right way, I could leave the windows ajar and watch the breeze buffet my small cotton curtains, stirring the sprigs of lavender I’d arranged across my sill.
It had been, in a word, wonderful. My time in Italy had shown me not only how much I didn’t know, but how much I didn’t even know I could know. The country had pried my mind open, leaving me receptive and eager to do more, to take a bigger bite of life and swallow whole.
But like all good things, Italy came to an end and I returned to New York, my adopted home. Once you live in the Big Apple, it’s hard to feel truly at ease anywhere else. There’s something about the constant pace that teaches you to relax within turmoil. So, as much as I adored Italy’s sleepy, slow luxury, my heart pounded for a city that bustled and boiled over.
Just when I’d been tapping my feet, trying to figure out how to return home, my friend Alexandra had reached out. We’d met in Italy, both students of the same master’s program, and immediately taken a liking to each other, so much so that we became roommates. For the first few months of the program, we’d lived together in a double suite, prints of Renaissance art stuck up to our walls with tape and thumbtacks, silk scarves draped over the lamps.
Alexandra, who had a few years on me and was a year ahead in the program, began to feel like the older sister I’d never had. She showed me how to do a fishtail braid, how to prepare a cheese plate and how to see if a vinyl record was scratchy or in good condition. We spent the evenings huddled around a flickering candle between our twin beds, leaning against the green wrought-iron frames, picking at the metal roses that climbed the headboard bars and whispering secrets to one another.
Eventually, she met Radolpho, an Italian butcher with the loudest laugh I’d ever heard. He made Alexandra light up from within, and much to my surprise and delight, she almost immediately moved in with him. They shared a humble apartment above his shop, which I visited every few days or so to say hi to my friend and get some prosciutto and wine.
It surprised no one when Radolpho popped the question. Our entire grad program, plus Radolpho’s family and friends, gathered on the beach to watch him dip Alexandra in his arms and swear amore. Everyone wiped tears from their eyes with linen handkerchiefs and watched the sun set as a hearty cabernet was passed around.
Since then, Alexandra had moved back to the US with Radolpho in tow because she’d received a job offer with Comino Gallery, one of the most prestigious fine art galleries in New York. Radolpho was working on buying another little butcher’s shop in the West Village.
We’d stayed close even with the Atlantic between us, alternating between composing each other texts and sending one another hand-written letters on tiny postcards labeled with the funniest stamps we could find. How can the vastness of an ocean compare to the wingspan of a friendship?
And then suddenly, Alexandra was pregnant. There was a joyful announcement sent out to all within her inner circle, myself included. Not long thereafter, she told me she was going to take a leave from Comino to have the most leisurely pregnancy possible. Alexandra was prone to some health issues, and didn’t want to overexert herself. She’d suggested that I apply to cover her leave, but that I was basically a shoo-in because of my training and my talent. By the time I’d boarded the plane home, I’d been offered the temporary position at
Comino.
When I got the call, I was only a few weeks out of my grad program and trying to decide whether or not to file for an extension of my Italian visa. Alexandra’s suggestion seemed like a sign from above that I was meant to be back in New York. So, with only two leather suitcases plastered over with stickers from my travels, I’d boarded a plane back home.
Now here I was, mug warm in my hand, a book lying open in my lap, ready for whatever the world threw my way. At the age of twenty-four, I knew that I was in the prime of life. This was my time to seize opportunities, no matter how daunting they may be.
“Chloe?”
I looked up from the book.
“Alexandra!”
I threw the book down and leapt up from the table to envelop her in a hug. We squealed into each other’s shoulders, embracing in the all-encompassing way only female friends can. Home was New York, yes, but home was also Alexandra.
“Wait, wait, let me see it!” I insisted, pulling back to get a look at her belly.
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, Chloe, silly goose, bumps don’t show for months.”
“Yeah but your skin is already perfect. How does that work?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” she beamed. “Come on, let’s sit down, catch me up.”
She joined me at the round tabletop, running her fingers along the edges.
“It’s like the ones in Italy, only ten times bigger,” she joked.
We’d had a running gag between the two of us that all the tables in Rome were bafflingly small, certainly not large enough to hold the mountains of pasta we ordered with every meal.
I leaned across our present, New York-based table and grasped her hands, my fingers sliding over the metal band she wore, set with a petite but proud ruby that perfectly complimented her brown skin. She was Indian, and had once told me that red was a lucky color for her. Had Radolpho known that, or did he just instinctually gravitate to the authentic Alexandra?
“So?” she pressed, tucking a strand of her brown bob cut behind her ear, her gold earring dangling as she moved. “How’s New York?”
“I hardly know, I just got back three days ago.”
“Have you found an apartment?”
I nodded. “A friend from NYU set me up with this furnished sublet.”
“Classic Chloe.”
That was kinda true. I was one of those girls for whom things just... came together. I got invited to concerts by strangers, I inherited designer clothing from old women who I met in the street. I was lucky, and I knew it.
“And you?” I asked, changing the subject. “How’s the baby? And Radolpho?”
“The baby’s very new, but good so far. The doctors say all my tests are perfect. And Radolpho is as handsome and wonderful as ever.”
She always got this small, dreamy smile when she spoke of him, a smile of secrets I would never understand, no matter how close we were. Though she was my friend, and I wished the absolute world for her, there was an uncomfortable, pulsating jealousy that clenched in my throat whenever I saw how seamlessly the two of them worked together.
“If only you were pregnant too,” Alexandra said, absently rubbing her belly. “We could be mommies together. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“We’d brunch and then go to Lamaze classes.”
“Exactly!”
In reality, I wasn’t so sure about kids. I loved spending time around them, especially breathing in that baby smell, but when I tried to picture myself with a child, I came up blank. Or, rather, I saw the image, but it didn’t fit in sequence with the rest of the fantasy I’d composed for myself.
In addition, I was single and quite happy to remain so for the foreseeable future. I’d known from a very young age that I wanted to travel the world, to trod a path through the great unknown, to taste new things and meet new people and live to the hilt. My mom had been the same way, lusting after adventures in far-flung locales. But she was a single mother, without any financial or emotional support, and had never managed to find the time to plant her flag, so to speak. Her life had been full — I hoped — but even still, I knew that before she passed, she regretted not traveling.
Thus, I’d resolved to wander the earth for the both of us, carrying the indelible fragments of my mother’s spirit within me, using my eyes to see for hers that were now somewhere in the great beyond. And art was the way to do that.
“Comino Gallery is the perfect stepping stone for me,” I told Alexandra. “Once I get my foot in the door here, I can network with other museums and galleries around the world, going to fill a gap wherever it’s needed.”
She agreed. “This job will give you access to all the connections you could dream of. Buyers, dealers, authenticators — it’s the place to be, no doubt. But Chloe?”
“Yes?”
“Promise me you won’t get so lost in leaving that you don’t think about the joys of staying put, okay?”
She pursed her red lips and stared at me, her deep brown eyes searching mine, asking for an answer.
What did she mean by that? I was just embracing the present, existing on a whim. Settling down was for retirement communities. Alexandra and I had so much in common, but on this, perhaps we were born to differ.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, mostly to placate her. “In the meantime, thank you for letting me take over your position here while you’re on maternity leave. It’s going to be great for me, I can feel it. This is where I start to make a name for myself.”
“I’m sure you will. You’re the only person I’d ever trust to take over for me.”
“That means a lot, Alexandra, thank you.”
“And,” she continued, a blush coloring her cheeks, “I might’ve talked you up just a little bit to the director.”
“Oh no.”
Alexandra had a penchant for hyperbole. It was endearing when you were listening to her describe with gusto a trip to the Met, but this… well, this was nerve-wracking. What had she told my future interim boss about me? Would I be expected to be the next Gertrude Stein? My palms grew sweaty at the thought of how high the bar had been set without my even knowing it.
“You’ll be great,” she replied, as if reading my mind. “Don’t panic.”
She was right, there was no need to worry. Besides, I wasn’t the worrying type. It didn’t go well with my bronzy glow and beachy blonde waves. Whoever this boss was, and whatever expectations Alexandra had set for me, I would rise to the occasion. If that meant working harder and longer than everyone else, so be it. I wasn’t afraid to sweat.
“I can do it,” I affirmed. “I’m tough.”
“Tough as hell. You ready to meet the director and start your first post-grad job?”
I downed the last dregs of my drink. “Lead the way.”
CHAPTER 2
Chloe
I PUT AN arm around Alexandra’s waist as we strolled out of the café and into a hallway filled with natural light. The skylights in the ceiling were cantilevered at such an angle that the marble pillars around us were basked in a dim glow, but none of the Modernist paintings that adorned the walls in the Comino Gallery were in the direct glare. As a preservationist and art restorer, I thought a great deal about how sunlight bleached our most prized treasures. The act of protecting art is just as much a show of love as observing the art.
“We have a collection that’s just come in,” Alexandra explained as her ivory-colored boots clicked across the floor. “It’s several paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Are you serious?”
Gentileschi was one of my most favorite artists of all time. She painted during the Baroque period, an era which I’d studied extensively in Italy. Not only were her pieces magnificent, she was a trailblazer. She was the first woman ever admitted into the esteemed Accademia di Arte del Disegno, and much of her work was concerned with the realities of women, an aspect of art that her male colleagues never paid much mind. Her use of light and form never failed
to bring me to tears. I recalled seeing her painting, St Cecilia Playing a Lute, in the Galleria Spada in Rome and needing to sit down on a bench to collect myself.
“They’ve been sitting in a private collector’s hold for decades,” Alexandra continued. “I’d doubt they’ve been displayed since, I don’t know, maybe the 1950s.”
In my book, that was practically a crime against civilization. Private collectors in general got under my skin — they often amassed vast troves of art because it was an easy, untaxed money sink. If you’ve looked in a newspaper recently and thought, Why the hell did that painting just sell for one hundred million dollars? it’s because billionaires have set an artificial inflated price on art. I suppose paintings were more convenient than trying to store an ill-begotten fortune somewhere in the Caymans.
Anyways, my field has been growing recently as billionaires try to do some much needed press rehab and display their collections to the public. Only problem is, none of them tend to take great care of the art because, say it with me folks, they don’t actually give a fuck about the art! Sorry to get so heated, but these people get under my skin. The amount of knowledge and human achievement kept under lock and key just so some rich people could get richer… it was repulsive.
But I digress.
Alexandra, blithely unaware of my steeping fury, said, “There’s one piece in particular that will need your attention. There’s staining and fading, as well as some flaking.”
“That’s normal. Why does it need special attention?”
“There might be, um, a little, teensy hole in the corner.”
I sighed. Of course there was a hole, there’s always a hole. It happens more often than you’d think. Rather recently, Steve Wynn — the owner of the Wynn Casino — blindly put his elbow through a Picasso. Billionaires made a mess, and I cleaned up after them.
