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His mouth is broad and lush-lipped, his teeth white and impossibly straight. Twin dimples frame his grin, giving the brooding, dark stranger I first saw in the lobby last week a fleeting trace of boyish charm now. But I’d be a fool to mistake anything about this man for innocence. I know that instinctively. Why the hell that understanding doesn’t send me running for the nearest door, I have no idea.
“So, tell me,” he prompts again. “How come I’ve never seen you in the building before the other night?”
The truth stalls out in my throat for reasons I can’t explain. Maybe because I’m enjoying our conversation too much and I want it to continue. Against all better judgment, I’m enjoying him.
And some small part of me—the part of me that’s so curious about this dangerously compelling man it can only be described as reckless—is too selfish to ruin it all by telling him I’m simply hired help. He’s never seen me before because I don’t inhabit the same orbit he and Claire Prentice do. Even now, in the middle of Dominion’s gallery party, I’m just an impostor pretending I belong here.
As we stand there, all but a few of the small crowd of patrons moves on from in front of the painting. I say nothing for a moment, using the slow shift of people around us to give me time to formulate my answer.
“I’m house-sitting for a friend while she’s out of the country the next several months. My place is, um . . . being renovated, so the timing worked out well for both of us.”
Just a small bending of the facts. Harmless enough, I rationalize, as he holds my gaze and makes a low sound of acknowledgment.
“Have you lived there long?” I ask, awkwardly trying to make small talk when my body is still humming with awareness of him and a bit too much champagne.
“Yes, I have,” he says, and I can tell he’s only humoring me. He’s as much tuned in to whatever is arcing between us as I am. “I’ve kept an apartment in the building since it went up a few years ago. Is it Beauty’s pain or her pleasure that moves you the most?”
“What?” The abrupt change of subject catches me off guard. Especially when I know the handful of people standing near us can easily hear every word.
He doesn’t seem to notice or care. “You were on the verge of tears when I came up to you,” he reminds me. “I’m curious to know why.”
“Oh. Was I?” I want to deny it, if only so I don’t appear weak to him, but he’s seen too much already. I shake my head vaguely, then shrug. “I don’t know why it affected me like that.”
“Yes, you do. Tell me.”
I look away from him to the painting, glad for the excuse to free myself from his provocative stare. The impact of the piece hasn’t lessened now that I’m familiar with the subject, but studying it now, with Nick Baine standing intimately close to me, the air feels charged and pulsing.
Everything has taken on newer, weightier context now that he’s invaded my space. He’s invading my senses, too, making my skin tight with awareness of him and my body’s undeniable response.
“She’s being consumed by pain and pleasure. It’s shattering her,” I murmur, my gaze fixed on the woman whose image is reflected in the countless shards of painted glass on the canvas. “She’s alone, maybe she’s frightened. But she’s not bending to it. She’s not afraid to feel the pain . . . or the pleasure. She’s defiant. That’s what makes her so beautiful. Her eyes tell you everything you need to know. Nothing’s ever going to truly destroy her.”
The words spill out of me, and I feel suddenly, irrevocably, exposed.
I haven’t known disease, but I do know pain. I know corrosion—the kind that comes from within and from without. I’ve survived both. But as I look at Beauty, still whole and unbroken, despite the sharp fragments that comprise her, I’m reminded that deep down, I am a coward.
Inside the facade of my intact shell, I’m a thousand jagged pieces held together by fear and sheer will.
“You see more than most,” Nick tells me, his praise and the low vibration of his voice wrapping around my senses. “Do you feel envy when you look at her?”
“No. It’s not envy.” I shake my head solemnly and turn to face him. “It’s hate.” My honesty is raw and real. It’s got the bite of acid on my tongue, even though my tone is quiet with shame. “I hate her for what she makes me acknowledge about myself.”
His eyes hold mine unflinchingly, and for a moment, I wonder if he understands. Does he have sharp fragments of his own hidden behind those mesmerizing blue eyes and smolderingly intense good looks?
I can’t take his silence. And I’m afraid of what else I might be tempted to reveal to him if I allow this strange meeting between us to continue. Until now, I haven’t noticed that all but a couple of people have left the display where Nick and I stand. Leaving suddenly seems like a very good idea to me too.
I break his stare and awkwardly clear my throat. “I think I should go. I’ve had a little too much champagne tonight on an empty stomach. It’s making me say and do things right now that I normally wouldn’t. Things I’m probably going to regret.”
“Is that so?” He doesn’t smile at my attempt to deflect his study of me. Dark interest sizzles in the penetrating gaze that only homes in deeper now. “I don’t think it’s the champagne talking. I don’t think you really believe that either.”
When I don’t answer, he reaches over to cup my jaw. The shock of his touch startles me. More than that, it inflames me. He bends toward me as if he might kiss me right in the middle of the gallery. But he smoothly bypasses my parted lips, bringing his mouth to the side of my face, maddeningly close to my ear.
“Art is meant to provoke emotions, Avery. Its sole purpose is to arouse our senses, even if it disturbs. Even if it’s ugly. Even if it fucking scares the living shit out of you.”
A gray-haired lady directly in front of me swivels an uncomfortable look at the both of us before shuffling away. It isn’t long before the other remaining patron drifts away, too, and then it’s only Nick and me in front of Beauty.
His voice is a velvet caress against my cheek. “Are your senses aroused now, Avery?”
I close my eyes in an attempt to deny what I feel. But I can’t deny it. I can’t deny him, even though everything cautious and rational inside me warns that I am venturing into dangerous territory with this man.
