Chapter 394: What He Wanted

"I…honestly, I don’t know what to say…" I admitted dumbly.

This was just so beyond my expectations that I was left utterly speechless. It had always been a dream of mine to have my own studio and art gallery. I mean, this was probably a common dream that many artists shared. When I looked around the empty building again, I began picturing this place as an art gallery. My art gallery.

"Well, if you don’t like this place, we can visit a couple more options," Hayden told me calmly.

"Thank you, Hayden. This is like a dream come true…I never really thought this far ahead…" I thanked him before I offered him one of my sweetest smiles.

"It’s nothing. I just thought that you might like it and it looked like something that would benefit your career," Hayden said curtly.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

I smiled at his reaction. It was so like Hayden not to take credit for anything although he did so much for me. I didn’t see this coming at all. While I was living in a bubble and just floating around freely for the past days, Hayden had been working on this little secret mission of his.

"Let’s go see the next place. You might like it better. It’s bigger than this one too," Hayden suggested after we had taken a walk around inside the building.

"Sure. Thank you so much for doing this…" I thanked him softly as I reached for his hand.

"Well, you’re not going to be locked up in the mansion anymore and no one will probably care much about who you are now that I’m no longer the heir, so I figured you might as well get a move on with your job, right?" Hayden replied with a sardonic grin.

Despite his sarcastic tone, his words felt like music to my ears. Getting my life back, was already more than enough. Adding an art gallery on top of it just felt like a massive amount of icing on top of the cake along with a bunch of deep red cherries.

"I guess you’re right. Let’s do this!" I replied enthusiastically.

Hayden laughed a little at me while I suddenly felt a rush of renewed motivation flow inside of me. It was undeniable that my career had taken a back seat a little during the time when I couldn’t leave the mansion. Now was the perfect opportunity for me to focus and work harder at building my career to make up for lost time.

Hayden drove us to another building that was a candidate for my new art gallery. This building was slightly bigger than the previous one and had a higher ceiling on all floors. It made the space seem more open and spacious.

"This place is nice. The high ceiling and the simple layout of the rooms…" I said admiringly as we walked around.

The thing that I didn’t dare ask at that moment and the thing that Hayden never brought up was the rent of the place. There was no way that renting out an entire building like this was going to cost nothing. Although it wasn’t a huge building, but it was still a two-story gallery. The location was quite convenient too.

"On to the last place?" Hayden asked.

I nodded because I’ve had my fill of the place. So far, I liked this place better than the first option, but then again, we haven’t talked about the rent for these places yet. Something told me that it wasn’t going to be off-the-charts expensive, but it wasn’t going to be a small amount.

I better have a decent business plan for how to make this place breakeven before I even considering renting anything.

Hayden probably planned to pay the rent and everything else just so I could get an art gallery for myself; however, that wasn’t how I wanted things to be done. If possible, I wanted my career and business to be self-sufficient. With the rate that I was charging for my commission work, that shouldn’t be impossible. Getting rich was another thing all together, though.

The third building was much larger than the second option. It was still a two-story building, but it was wider and even had a small parking space out front. Out of all the options, this one resembled an art gallery the most to the point where I thought that it must have been used as an exhibition building for something before. Perhaps, it wasn’t exactly used to display art.

"This place is huge. Do we need something this big?" I asked when we stepped inside.

"You never know. I think it looks nice and grand in here," Hayden replied as we looked around.

The second place was nice in a homey way, but this place just seemed like a proper gallery where real business would be done. It was leaps forward, and I wasn’t sure if I would need something of this scale for my humble business. Just painting enough work to fill up this place would already be too much for me to handle alone.

"Shall we check out the second floor?" Hayden asked.

"Sure…" I replied.

He offered me his hand and I took it without a fuss. Hayden led me up the stairs to the second floor. To my surprise, the second floor also had a large open space that seemed ideal for hosting an exhibition along with some doors to one side.

"They’re smaller rooms here. They would be good for meeting rooms or offices," Hayden pointed out as he led me to one of the rooms.

He opened the door and pulled me inside. The room was empty save for a work desk and two chairs. This room was clearly used as an office before. The sound of the door locking made me turn around towards the door.

"Hayden?" I called his name softly and questioningly.

Hayden didn’t reply to me, but I knew that he had just locked the door. It had to be him because we were the only two people here. The way he looked at me told me that I wouldn’t be able to leave this place until I gave him what he wanted.

--To be continued…