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Rebecca twisted in his hold and gazed up at him. “There’s a back room? Will there be wine? Please tell me there will be wine.” He hadn’t let her have any until she gained permission. It was a little game they liked to play. She couldn’t drink until he did.
“Private bar, too.” He led the two of them past Rebecca’s portrait. Marta would know what to do next—bring the portraits of Rebecca and him to the back room.
After getting Rebecca her glass of chardonnay and Eric an excellent malbec, Alexander moved to the back wall, where a single painting stood on an easel shrouded in a gold swath of fabric. Two empty easels bracketed the hidden picture.
He taken one sip of his wine when Marta and her team, two men dressed entirely in black, entered. Each man carried a painting. They set them up on the two waiting easels.
Eric threw him a puzzled look. “What have we here?” He then glanced at an equally puzzled looking Rebecca, who shrugged.
After Marta and the two men strode out without so much as a backward glance, Alexander moved to the shrouded painting. “I have a present for us.” His hand reached for the fabric, but then he thought better of it. The moment would be pivotal.
Then again, so many moments in his life had proven so.
“Everything okay?” Rebecca’s hand fell to his arm. Perhaps he had frozen for a moment. Unlike him. Hesitation was for fools. The night had to go right, however.
“Fine.” He took her hand and gestured for Eric to come closer. He clasped the man’s forearm and lifted Rebecca’s hand to his lips. She graced him with a small, shy smile.
“Nothing’s wrong, you two. Let’s just say I haven’t been this happy in so long. It’s taking longer to get used to than I thought.” He sucked in a long breath and let it out as he drank in Eric’s hazel-green eyes. “I have a Christmas wish.”
“You got it,” Eric said quickly.
“Anything,” Rebecca answered.
He dropped his hold on them and unveiled the painting with a rather dramatic yank of the fabric so it fell to the ground. Eric’s mouth slowly dropped open while Rebecca stilled, though he saw her throat bob in a delicate swallow.
“This”—Alexander stepped backward—“is what I want.” He lifted a hand toward the painting. “I want all three of these scenes. I’ve had the first two. Now, I want this third one.” He pointed to the middle painting he’d just unveiled.
As Eric had worked on the portrait of him, Alexander had commissioned another painter—Francisco Sanchez, whose last portrait sold for over $100,000 in a bidding war. When Alexander, who’d funded his early days as a painter, requested a specific scene, the man had generously obliged.
“It’s …” Rebecca began.She wisely stopped. Rather, she dipped her head and stepped backward, leaving Alexander and Eric standing before it. She always had a sixth sense about things.
Eric swallowed slowly. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say anything. Or don’t.” Alexander shrugged. “But it’s what I want.”
Eric stepped a little closer and bent forward to get a closer look. The request Alexander had made of Francisco was simple. Paint him dominating Eric in a scene—but not just getting to the pain-pleasure mix. Rather, capture—if he could—how Alexander felt about the great honor of lording over the man.
In the picture, Alexander’s back was to the viewer. But he could be seen in that same full-length mirror as in Eric's portrait. His eyes were cast down on a kneeling Eric. Intense. Unwavering.
Eric’s face was tilted upward. He wore nothing but a lattice of ropes, his blond hair tousled as if it’d been fisted and yanked. It had been. The vision of the afternoon in the Library, when Francisco came by to do his early sketches, rushedback to Alexander’s mind like a flood. He’d been brutal on the man, but he had to have full control of every second for the two newbies that day. If they thought they could take an inch and turn it into a mile at his club, they’d be sorely mistaken. Eric had played his part beautifully. But it had cost them both.
The painting captured a rare scene with just him and Eric. He couldn’t even recall where Rebecca had been that day. But it was all right. He wasn’t concerned about his memory or the fact that he couldn’t pinpoint Rebecca’s location that night. She would always be safe so long as he lived. And she would always be his true love. But Alexander had found himself enthralled with Eric that day. And many others, if truth be told.
The only difference in the painting from that scene was that Alexander held the Contessa, an instrument he’d never used on Eric before. He wanted the message to be clear. His dominance—and love—belonged to both of them. Not just one.
Francisco captured their dynamic that evening perfectly. The painting showed every tense muscle under Alexander’s white dress shirt leaning toward Eric. His eyes honed in on the man kneeling before him as if he were prey and prize. Because that was what Eric was to him at that moment.
Eric hadn’t moved from his stance by the painting, except for his eyes, which darted around as if searching for any message in the painting that wasn’t exactly what Alexander had intended. He could search all he wanted. The picture perfectly captured who Eric was to Alexander.
Equal to Rebecca.
Alexander was the first to break the silence. “Do you understand now?”
Eric straightened and turned to Alexander. His eyes shone in the low lighting. “I think so.”
“I didn’t take you during that scene because you are mine and mine alone. No witnesses get to see the full story. And …”
He moved closer to Eric. “Rebecca, come here.” She did as asked and nestled into his side. “I need you to understand without a doubt”—he quickly glanced at the painting and back to Eric—“you are mine and Rebecca’s. Forever and as long as you wish it. You needn’t ever question it again.” He then leaned down, picked up a gift bag, and held it out to him.
