“I want to help you keep it,” he said. “Not by forcing my way in. Just… let me help.”

“I don’t need your charity,” I said.

“It’s not charity,” Jonathan said. “You have a restoration commission coming up from the Brooklyn Museum, don’t you?”

I stared at him, my eyes narrowing. “How do you know about that?”

“I know the curator,” he said. “He mentioned they were looking for an expert in nineteenth-century oils.”

“Did you interfere?” I asked, my voice rising.

“No,” Jonathan said, raising his hands. “I swear. I only told him that you were the best in the city.”

He looked at me with an intensity that made me want to look away.

“I didn’t pay them,” he said. “I didn’t bribe anyone. I just gave them your name.”

I looked at my hands, stained with dark blue paint from earlier in the afternoon.

“I want to earn my own living, Jonathan,” I said.

“You are earning it,” he said. “They chose you because of your work. I just made sure they looked.”

He walked back to the chair and picked up his coat.