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Leo folds his arms in front of him. “Explain the city, then. Explain Daphne’s apartment.”
“Exposure therapy.”
He doesn’t buy it. “You practiced stalking until you got good at it?”
“I practiced walking on the street until I could attend private showings. I saw her when I was on the way to one.”
“And then you got obsessed with her. Obsessed enough to leave your house.”
“You say that like it’s a surprise.”
“You’re pale. And we’re on the beach in sight of the house. Of course it’s surprising.” He lets out a breath. “You’re obsessed with her. Not her work?”
“I love her.”
He waits, his expression neutral.
“I understand you hate this. I understand you want to kill me, and you probably should. I’d deserve it. I knew this might happen when I came here. I just couldn’t be away from the house. But it was worse being away from her. It was killing me.” I glance down at his wedding band. “You don’t feel like that about your wife?”
Leo laughs out loud. His laugh is so like Daphne’s that I hear hers, too. “I would do anything for my wife, up to and including kill for her. I won’t pretend the beginning of our relationship was…conventional. But she wanted to stay with me. I couldn’t convince her otherwise.”
The heart of the matter. “Daphne wanted to stay. I don’t know how to prove that to you.”
Leo looks away. “Did she?”
“What did that painting tell you?”
“That fucking painting.”
“It wasn’t a commission. She wasn’t lying to you. She refused to tell me the meaning.”
He clenches his jaw. Works to relax it. “The meaning has to do with desire gone wrong.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
Leo Morelli looks me in the eyes, and I’m painfully aware of the thin line between life and death. I half-expect him to walk away. To end the discussion now. Strangle me, even.
“There’s no need to get into the details, except to say that—” The conversation almost ruptures again. “I was younger. There were too many risks involved to even think about disclosing—” His eyes go dark. “It could take years for her to tell anyone, if she ever did.”
“That’s not what this is. It’s not desire gone wrong. She knows what that looks like. She painted it.”
“You think you’re good enough for my sister?”
“Jesus, no. She’s too perfect for the world. No one on the face of the earth could match her. But she didn’t come back here because I hurt her. I would never. And if that’s not enough proof, if you still want to kill me for loving her, then just do it where she can’t see. Where it won’t hurt her.”
“It would still hurt her,” he says, under his breath. “Goddamn it. What would possess you?”
“The same thing that possessed you, I imagine.”
“I couldn’t stop wanting her.” Leo addresses the ocean more than me. “It wasn’t without its consequences.”
“Were they worth it?”
“I’d rather get shot every day for the rest of my life than be without Haley.”
“You were shot for being with her?”
“It was slightly more complicated than that.” Amusement curves the corner of his mouth. “Daphne didn’t tell you?”
