As the sheer monetary value of the artwork settled into the room’s collective consciousness, Matthew Liptak felt his stomach lurch with a violent, nauseating mix of regret and desperation. He practically lunged across the table, his fingers twitching as he reached for the frame he had just dismissed as garbage.
"Wait a minute! You can't just take it back!" Matthew stammered, his face a frantic shade of mottled red. "You brought this as a gift for me! It was an offering for the grand opening of my restaurant! It belongs to me now!"
Dominic Mylod didn't flinch. He placed a hand firmly on the frame, his expression as cold and unyielding as a mountain peak. "I did bring it as a gift. I brought it with the intention of wishing an old classmate success. But you didn't see a gift; you saw a rea
