Read Online So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) by L.J. Kennedy - Free Book Online

Radiohead and Nicki
Minaj. But word had gotten around he was back in town for the NYU
retrospective, so his old art friends—along with wealthy patrons
and major press, like the New Yorker and the New York
Times— hadn’t hesitated to hit him up.
    Kendra and I were in an ocean of beautiful
people and those who were clearly just there to see and be seen.
(Apparently, there were movie stars in tow.) But Quentin Pierce was
nowhere to be found.
    “This is stupid, Kendra. This guy’s a douche
bag. He probably won’t even show up, just to make some kind of
antiestablishment statement—pretty lame, considering he’s such a
vital part of the system he’s attempting to undermine.”
    “Hey, don’t knock the system! BTW, movie and
rock gods wouldn’t exist if the little people didn’t need stars to
worship! Besides, you’re shit-talking my area of expertise,” Kendra
exclaimed. “Not to mention you’re supposed to be letting Professor
Claremont know you are now officially schooled on the fine line
between highbrow and lowbrow. I don’t know how you hope to get this
curatorship if you don’t even like the artist you’ll be working
for.”
    I had to admit she had a point. And from what
I could see, even if Professor Claremont had hinted I was in the
running (as one of her “ambitious” first-year students), I still
felt like I was a ways off from impressing upon her just how much I
deserved the curatorship.
    Actually, it had been Professor Claremont
who’d suggested just a couple days earlier that the students of her
Art 101 class check out the exhibit that Kendra and I were
currently at. It wasn’t open to the public, but the first ten
people to express interest could get on the guest list, considering
that she and Quentin were such good friends.
    As soon as the announcement was made, Kendra
(who refrained from sitting next to me whenever Yannis
Papadapoulos, a sexy foreign-exchange student who could barely
speak English, decided to remember to show up to class) texted me:
“LET’S GET IN ON THIS, OK?”
    I looked over at Elsie, who was probably
scheming about ways to bar my passage, given that everyone knew we
were head-to-head in this competition. Elsie wasn’t paying
attention to me, however, and had a characteristic frown on her
pretty face. She raised her hand and said, “Professor
Claremont?”
    “Yes, Miss Donegan?”
    “I’m not going to be able to make the show if
it’s in a couple days, because I have a family function to attend.
Do you know if there will be other opportunities to meet Quentin,
or at least to get some sort of insight into his presence in the
local scene? I’d really prefer to hear it from the horse’s mouth,
if you know what I’m saying.”
    I looked down at my phone. Another text from
Kendra: “PRETTY FUNNY COMING FROM A HORSE’S ASS!”
    I put my hand over my mouth to suppress a
giggle. But I had to hand it to Elsie. Her sense of entitlement had
reached a new high (or low, depending on who was judging).
    Professor Claremont smiled—a little too
tightly, I thought. I was pretty sure that as ignorant as I
sometimes came across as, Elsie’s whiny and demanding attitude
wasn’t scoring her too many points with Professor Claremont,
either. “Don’t worry, Elsie, going to the show isn’t going to give
you a leg up on the competition. And you won’t be getting extra
credit for going—it’s just a suggestion I’m delivering in a very
voluble tone, given how much I love Quentin’s work. Also, I’m not
entirely sure if Quentin will be there, since I know he’s finishing
up some work on the West Coast and I haven’t been able to confirm
with him.”
    From the looks of it in the warehouse,
Quentin had decided to pass up the wine and cheese in favor of
Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, or whatever celebrity’s image was in need
of some avant-garde jazzing up these days. More and more people
were streaming through the doors, but I didn’t spot Quentin
(although the only