Private Internship

by Kitsy Clare

  Private Internship

  An Art of Love Novel

  Kitsy Clare

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, or events is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case the author has not received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Private Internship

  Copyright © 2014 Kitsy Clare

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13 (ebook): 978-1-939590-33-6

  Inkspell Publishing

  5764 Woodbine Ave.

  Pinckney, MI 48169

  Edited By Kate Richards

  Cover art By Najla Qamber

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. The copying, scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions, and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  PRAISE FOR PRIVATE INTERNSHIP

  "Beautiful. Amazing. A fantastic read that left me wanting more." -XoXo Book Blog

  "A juicy read full of passion and magnetic chemistry that will have you hooked from beginning to end." -From the Purple Matter Book Blog

  DEDICATION

  To The amazing Domino Sugar Factory,

  Williamsburg, NY, the inspiration for Caz's Sugar Castle

  1 CHAPTER ONE

  I’m already a jangle of nerves when the ping of an incoming text startles me. One of my heels catches in the crack of the gritty Brooklyn sidewalk and I pitch forward—very unladylike—latching onto a stop sign for dear life. Shaken, I right myself, wipe off my dented cell, and flip it open to a text.

  Sienna, he’s a freaking monster!

  My friend, Harper. Who’s the monster? Has she gotten into a fight with her boyfriend, Dave Hightower, over who should load the dishwasher? Or in a snitfest over whose turn it is to drive their new fire-engine red BMW? They fight a lot—for sport. Harper is kind, but hot-blooded, and Dave is well bred, but arrogant, generous with laughs but stingy as an addict with one bag of dope left when it comes to money.

  Or, is Harper referring to her new-ish boss? The very one about to interview me about a private internship.

  No, not her boss. Please.

  I reach down, brush off my scuffed stilettos, and then ping her back.

  Who’s a monster?

  Caz! He fired me!

  My stomach feels like it’s splatted into the glass-strewn gutter and is pooling around the shards. I stare ahead at the glitzy Schneitryn Sugar Factory turned art castle where the art king lives and breathes. Where I’m headed. Where I’m dreading to go. Its towers and spires, gothic barred windows glow against the city’s purple-twinkled dusk. Casper Mason lives and plays there. The Casper Mason: mythical he-man from the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, who trekked up north ten years ago to make his fortune. Last year’s feature in ArtNews made him seem like some fairy tale lumberjack in rawhide boots, hauling everything he owned in one bulging pack during his trudge up the coast and right onto the mean streets of Manhattan.

  Supposedly, he even slept on a park bench in Central Park those first few nights, braving the thugs and nuts who shambled through its meadows sniffing out folks to rob or even murder. Only stupid or desperate people stayed there all night. Caz was, apparently, desperate. The story, as I vaguely recall, skipped magically after that to when Caz hit it big, way, way out of the park, with his wacko, over-the-top art pieces and installations, mostly about sugar.

  Sugar? No shit.

  I’ve seen the photos of his installations in magazines. Recently, I went with Harper to see his work at the Museum of Modern Art. His show featured three dead snakes in a translucent vat of pink sugar-water and five-hundred-pound bags of sugar hung at all angles in the gallery for we, the clueless art aficionados, to wonder what the bloody hell Casper Mason is possibly thinking when he conjures up such things.

  I ping Harper back.

  Why did he fire u?

  Not that I really want to know. In fact, I do not want to know. Caz has a terrible reputation for sacking his staff. Harper told me he’s already booted three girls this season. And if polite, beautiful Harper can’t please him, there’s no way in hell that I, Sienna Karr, ornery, slightly rebellious, and definitely flawed potential employee, will last a hot minute.

  Because I wandered into the wrong room, she texts back.

  Wha? Come again?

  She spits out a full rant this time. I went into his back storage room and he effing freaked on me. He yelled and threw a bag of sugar at one of his art installations. It broke all over everywhere and he made me clean it up before he fired me. He’s a horrible person and he’s truly scary. I don’t care how famous he is or how rich. Sienna, I’m sorry I recommended you for the internship. Don’t work for him! He’ll ruin your life.

  I take deep breaths and stare harder at the Sugar Factory, its smokestacks rising into the skyline like gothic, warlock-y skyscrapers of doom. Three more blocks and I’ll reach the outer door of the villain’s art castle. What should I do? If I thought I was a mess of nerves before, well, that was just a twinge of nothing compared to the jingle-jangle-Jello in my stomach.

  Sorry to hear about this, Harper. I’ll stop by later. Off to an appointment.

  Not to interview with Caz. Sienna?

  I snap my cell closed. I’m not into lying, but I won’t be giving her the answer she wants.

  I can’t turn back, can’t afford to listen to my best friend. I need this internship, this stamp of approval. Need it on my work résumé. I want to see how the experts do things—how they create, who they party with, and who their clients are. I want to have a living example of how to do it. A road map.

  Connections are everything—Harper’s boyfriend, Dave, heir to Studio Hightower, the super-glitzy gallery in Chelsea, taught me that. Dave knows about the art business. He talked me into this as much as she did. Plus, Harper and I both thought it would be big fun to intern together. Now, that won’t happen. Why do all of the fun things fall through? The world is hard enough.

  Suck it up, Sienna. Quit your whining. Harper got fired, not you!

  I’m never one to turn away from a challenge. In fact, I love a challenge, whether it was undertaking my very first sloppy oil painting last spring or trying out some bitching, hard new art software like Creative Suite or QFX. I mean, how bad can this internship be? Being this close, I have to admit, I’m eager to see this guy, eyeball-to-eyeball. I’ll do my own little glad-handing of the royalty of the world I so fervently want entrée into. Harper is exaggerating. She’s got to be. Sometimes her frothy topping of sweetness doesn’t gel with people. They think she’s fake and superficial. They just haven’t dug down to the heart of Harper, where she’s as hardheaded as the most ambitious of us.

  Plus, she told me Casper Mason is a lady-killer in the handsome department. I just have to have a look-see, just one….

  I’m here! Stepping up to the wide metal door, I breathe in the lilting river air. Casper is one lucky guy to live right on the East River. My apartment is on a crowded East Village street lined with trashcans and Please Curb Your Dog signs, which most ignore. That’s New York for you. After four years in the Big Apple, I’m still not used to that. I’m from the hollers of Central Pennsylvania, where we don’t even jaywalk.

  Looking farther out to the sailboats and an adorable tugboat pushing a barge, I thi
nk I could get used to working here, in the trendy wilds of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. One last look in my pocket mirror.

  Blond hair still pleasantly wavy from my curling iron-check. Fashionable application of pomegranate lipstick and matching nails-check. Sexy dash of smoldering Midnight Mode eye shadow and eyeliner-check. Tight, shimmery black dress with wide red belt that cinches my slim waist even slimmer-check. New bitchin’ stilettos—scuffed.

  Aw, hell, no one’s perfect.

  My heart’s rattling as bad as ghost chains in a carnival funhouse when I lean forward and ring the bell.

  Who is this Casper Mason, and how bad can he possibly be?

  2 CHAPTER TWO

  I have to ring two more times before the heavy metal door creaks open. Blinking in surprise and amusement, I stare shamelessly at a guy dressed in a lavender shirt and, is that a plaid pink?—yes, a skort—that dubiously funky designer concept from way back in the dark ages of kitsch that merged a skirt and shorts into one abomination. But, somehow, this guy is pulling it off. First of all, he’s loose-limbed and elegant, like a willow tree, swaying from one long leg to the other on an unseen breeze. He’s sporting purple platform sneakers and chunky purple glasses with no actual glass interior, just the frames. It’s too early in October for Halloween parties. In that case, it must be cutting edge, mad contemporary urban gay fashion.

  Harper never told me Caz was gay. Maybe he’s bisexual, the kind of bi women are magnetically attracted to and are always trying to convert into their hetero boy-toys. Stop, your overactive imagination, Sienna, and introduce your lame self.

  “I’m Sienna Karr,” I squeak. “Are you Caz?”

  The guy’s face warms into a charming-as-all-get-out grin. I should’ve Google-imaged Caz so I’d know what he looked like before I came. That article I read about him had no photo. If this is Caz, it’s easy to see how anyone could fall for him, no matter he’s a bit effeminate. More than a bit.

  “Ah. You must be the intern,” he says, still not revealing his identity. “Come in.”

  I follow him down a sconce-lit hallway with metal walls, rough and blackened in areas from whatever they experienced as a well-oiled cog of the industrial age. I love old factories—total sucker for them—and this one doesn’t disappoint. It smells of old maple sugar and boiled candies. Maybe that’s what the black stuff is that’s slickened the floor and walls. Holding onto one wall to make sure I don’t slip on the black sheen, I follow the guy’s neon-pink skort down one hallway and make a sharp left along another, this one studded with a maze of tarnished pipes.

  As we pass what looks like a giant witch’s cauldron, Mr. Skort flashes his hand over it. “That’s one of the original sugar vats. Caz wanted to leave many of the original devices in here as possible when he renovated. They say some unfortunate workers met their maker in the vats. The sugar was heated to a very high temperature. Melted skin and bones. Nasty business, sugar.”

  I nod, stricken.

  Oh-kay! At least I know that this gay dream apparition is not Casper Mason. I also know that people died in here. TMI.

  It feels like we’ve hiked half a mile when Mr. Skort finally comes to a wide white door. He stops. I hear the wail of heavy guitar music inside. Reverently, Mr. Skort whispers, “Ready to meet the master?”

  What? Is Caz some Zen master? Can you hear the sound of one hand clapping? My treacherous mind recites a random phrase from Buddhism for Dummies, and I barely suppress a guffaw.

  “Care to share?” Skort asks dryly.

  “No, sorry, I’m fine, ready.” I have the unfortunate trait of laughing when I’m nervous. Must watch that. I smooth down my dress. Ack! The thing is so darn tight it’s inched up way too high on my thighs. “Oh, sir, what’s your name, by the way?”

  “Shh, Caz likes it quiet,” answers Skort, and then, in a murmured refrain, “I’m Tommy Treelane, his assistant.” He inches the door open, and with his index finger poised over his mouth, we tiptoe in. He didn’t need to shush me because the heavy metal music would drown out the screech of rusty subway brakes.

  The scene playing out in front of us is out of some larger-than-life movie. A man who I assume has got to be Casper Mason is hanging upside down like a monkey from one of those witch’s cauldrons, suspended by mega-chains from the ceiling. He appears to be affixing something to it—something rubbery and curvy. One of his rubber water snakes?

  I wonder why he didn’t simply attach the objects to it before he suspended the cauldron from the ceiling. But who am I to ask such questions? Maybe the difficulty factor figures into the piece itself somehow. I glance over at Tommy, who is stone still, not calling out our presence, so I follow his cue and stay put.

  This gives me a chance to study the great and weird Caz. I can’t see his face since he’s turned away from us, his feet curled around the vat rim, his arms gripping the chains. But, oh, I can sure see the rest of his magnificent body. He’s wearing a sleeveless tank and it showcases his massive shoulders, and, shall I say—guns? His biceps are inked to an inch of their lives, and with each flex of his muscles, the images ripple suggestively. I’m too far away to make out any one distinct tattoo, but together they create a bold matrix of art. He shifts his legs out of the vat and into a snakelike braid on the chains. I see he’s wearing tattered jeans with more holes than fabric, and his butt is tight and muscled under them as he strains in his work.

  Normally, I prefer men in new jeans rather than the weatherworn look, but heck, this may be the exception. His hair is longish, almost to his neck, and it’s cascading down in waves, almost too pretty for a guy. Oh, but not really too pretty, never too pretty. It is red-chestnut fire under the shimmer of the floodlights, and he has a nicely-trimmed goatee. I hear Tommy’s sharp intake of breath when Caz torques his well-toned body and, in the slick leap of a panther, releases his leg hold on the chain and lands on the floor, facing us. He’s barefoot and panting.

  Caz. Oh my God. He stalks toward us to the shrieks of Metallica’s newest track, and now I totally understand why Tommy is mooning like a kid with a schoolyard crush. I get why Caz has a reputation as a lady-killer. And it’s so damn easy to forget in this one moment that this A-hole art dick has just fired my best friend, Harper.

  He locks his rich, hot-chocolate eyes on me and studies my every curve and angle, seeming to be piercing right through my skin into the alleys of my mind and heart. Curious, he’s so curious. I sense him asking where I’m from and why it took me so long to find him and what kind of art I do and whether I’ve ever sold it or gotten a review, or who I know, who I hang out with. He’s asking how much experience I’ve had in galleries, in school, in the world, in bed. My neck heats up. Did I just think that? Or was that something in his head that crossed wires and invaded mine? He’s close to me, still staring boldly, when suddenly I feel his inner questions stop. And a wall, like one of those metal store gratings, clatters downward and slams. Closed for business, closed for questions, closed for good.

  This, all before we’ve exchanged one word. When I come back into myself, I’m embarrassed to realize I’m wringing my hands—the old-fashioned, hysterical Victorian-damsel-in-distress kind of wringing. I stop, immediately. Rub my sweaty palms on my dress. Buck up! I scold silently. And I extend my hand. “I’m Sienna. I’m your new intern.”

  Casper Mason doesn’t take my hand. The nerve. He’s standing there boldly, legs wide apart in some twisted warrior stance, arms folded across his wide chest. Jaw jutting rebelliously, eyes daring me...to do what? So, after an excruciating few seconds, I retract my hand.

  “My new intern?” Caz mumbles, as though an intern is a radioactive space rock or some otherworldly object, and he never ordered one. “It’s about time. That last one was a disaster.”

  My hackles rise. No one disses my friend Harper. I want to say, You mean the smartest, most generous intern ever? What did she do? Not put up with your heinous bullshit? But I don’t. What do I know? Besides, Harper warned me not to come here.

&nbs
p; So, I simply nod and say, “New intern, yes. That would be me.”

  Tommy seems stricken, too. His willowy body is stiff, one hand fumbling at his skort. Is he sick and tired of parading interns in here only to witness them being fired? Or is he territorial about Caz? Hard to tell, but he manages to speak up. “Do you want to put her to work here? Or shall I have her do something in the outer office?”

  Hmm, precious inner sanctum or distant hall where the uncool go?

  Caz gives me another long stare, but his virtual door remains shut. I feel it—cold, distant, angry. What did I do to piss him off? He doesn’t even know me. The answer floats in, possibly wrong, but feeling right. Someone must’ve really hurt him. “Leave her here,” Caz decides. “I’ll find something for her to do.”

  Tommy nods and spins around on his purple platforms. When he disappears through the studio door, I’m tempted to scream after him, Don’t leave me here! Take me with you because I’ll never find my way out of this labyrinth alone. I flash on his story of the victims burned alive in the cauldrons while I gaze on nervously at the one dangling precariously from the ceiling. Caz Mason could easily toss me in and fill it with molten cane sugar, or not. Stop thinking stupid thoughts.

  “What would you like me to do?” I ask timidly. I’m more assertive but I feel like a kindergartener on my first day of a new school, with a cowlick and a scratchy, over-starched dress.

  “Come,” is all he answers. I watch the fine muscles of his firm butt shift suggestively as I trail after him. It occurs to me that I’m tracking more butts today than I have in months, years? Since birth? It would be improper to laugh. He’d think I was laughing at the fact that, through a rather large rip over his left cheek, I can see he’s going commando, or that I’m chuckling over the shape of his butt. Far from it. His movements mesmerize. Not to mention the way his rusty brown hair waterfalls down the crown of his head, and the way his shoulders glisten, still sweaty from his earlier acrobatics. He takes me into what appears to be his office. It’s so impressive!