AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She nodded. “From fear.”
“What is it that you fear?” Anwar drawled as his powerful frame moved closer to her.
You, she wanted to say as her traitorous body blazed with heat. “All my life, I’ve been marinated in fear. Fear of abandonment. Fear of loss. I wanted to feel forever love,” she exclaimed, wishing she had kept her mouth shut.
He would never know how much she had once loved him, how she still loved him, how she would always love him. She couldn’t be one of those women. A victim. A fool. A prisoner.Not for love. He had taken everything she had given him with the fullness of her hopeful heart, and he had callously tossed her aside with no more reverence than a dishrag.
“This love will never fade,” she flung at him, sweeping her fingers meters from the thickly applied magenta in the painting. “These colors are commitment keepers,” she said, “Three coats of UV protective varnish will ensure that,” she quickly added. “Of course, don’t place it in direct sunlight.”
Just like she wouldn’t be shining the light on her pregnancy, Lucy vowed as she slid her palms over the stiff folds of her shapeless, noir-black upside-down dress. The touch of tarpaulin did an adequate job of disguising her tiny bump, but even this wouldn’t detract from what she considered her biggest failing—stuffing up parenthood.
She’d always dreamed of being a mother and a loving,loved, wife. Now, she’d been impregnated by a man who could never give her what her child and she both needed. She’d let herself down. Worse, now she was inflicting her reckless mistake on an innocent child. He would be born out of wedlock and never know his father.
And then there was the matter of Anwar’s brutal betrayal.
“Why are you exhibiting now?” Anwar asked, jolting her back to the threat her condition posed.
How could she tell him, ‘Because I need the money? Because I’m having your baby. Because I’ll be raising him on my own without you.’
Instead, she said, “I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to see if it could be done.What I could do,” she corrected. “To sell my art instead of being the one promoting other artists.”
“You hid it from me,” he challenged.
For a stomach-clenching, heart-stopping moment, Lucy froze. He knows. Anwar knows. She forced a look of carefree innocence and smiled, careful to keep any hint of deception shuttered. How could he possibly know the truth, she cautioned. Her baby bump was so unusually tiny that she barely showed.
“Your talent. It’s magnificent,” Anwar said, returning his gaze to the painting. “The way you’ve captured the Kingdom of Avana. It’s fantastical, whimsical, playful—yet thought-provoking.”
Lucy hoped the whoosh of relief that gusted from her mouth wasn’t perceptible.
Anwar’s head was slightly bowed, but she could see his eyes were fixed in sadness and longing.
“I couldn’t wait to leave Avana for most of my life. My brother Tariq told me that one day I would understand the preciousness of the land.” He turned to Lucy, his eyes shining. “You have captured the soul of the kingdom. It is Avana, but it is, as you say, a landscape from your mind. I love it.”
She gulped hard and swallowed the urge to tell him the truth—the paintings weren’t from her mind. They were landscapes from her heart.
“Abstract painting may look simple,” she said, referencing the broad planes of color rendered in sensuous sweeps, “but it takes me hours to get the proportions and colors just right.”
She continued with what she hoped was a dispassionate, rational analysis of the works, wanting to wipe her heart free of the great compliment he had bestowed upon her. If Anwar truly understood why her paintings held the soul of Avana, the consequences would be disastrous. She needed to distance herself from him and the desert kingdom where their son was conceived.
Lucy pressed the catalog in her hand to her belly and held it there, feeling the warmth and the longing for the child she never thought she’d conceive.
She had trusted Anwar with her future once. And he had abandoned her. She needed to leave. Her eyes darted toward the entrance.
“Are you going to do another runner?” Anwar said, registering her panicked glance toward the door. His smoldering gaze narrowed and flowed to her palm, still pressed against her stomach.
Heat flared in her belly. “Runner? We both know why I had to leave Avana,” she hissed under her breath. “You’ve conveniently forgotten your role in detonating the art advisory firm I spent my life building.”
“About that—” Anwar began.
“So that’s why you’re really here.” Her gaze darted around the gallery, anxiously registering if anyone had overheard her careless revelation of the past she fought to keep hidden.
“I want to resolve this as discreetly as possible.”
CHAPTERFOUR
Lucy watched with mixed feelings as the art enthusiasts, fully sated after immersing themselves in her creativity, prepared to leave her art exhibition. She didn’t want to be left alone with Anwar, but what choice did she have, she mused as they swelled around the entrance.
Suddenly, a collective gasp rippled through the groups of people, drawing Lucy and Anwar’s attention to the street. The hum of anticipation grew louder as a sleek, gleaming gold Lamborghini, adorned with intricate designs and polished to perfection, effortlessly glided to a graceful halt in front of the gallery.
