“I expect I will soon,” he said, as Caroline was unlikely to let this go.
Caroline pursed her lips, green eyes deadly serious. She tapped one of her big white sneakers on the scuffed wooden floor. “Okay, here’s my proposal. If you don’t have a roommate in two months, you will move in with me. I don’t even have any furniture in my second bedroom—you can put all yours there.”
The spike of irrational panic that idea sparked was in complete contrast to the actual image of sleeping in Caroline’s clean floral sheets every night. Higher thought warred against not-yet-banished voices that warned that it was never that easy, Caroline was taking pity on him, and she’d come to resent him being there. The bitter experience of living with someone who didn’t love him, of feeling trapped as they became desperately unhappy together, counseled against the risk.
“Why?” he temporized.
“Why? I mean, it doesn’t make sense for both of us to pay for two bedrooms, and my place has the bigger kitchen—”
“No, why are you asking?”
She tilted her head in confusion.
“Because I want you to live with me.”
And it really came down to that, didn’t it? He had to trust that this was what she wanted, his brave girl who’d climbed out a window and driven across the country in pursuit of a bigger life. All he had to do was be as brave as her.
He crossed the floor and wrapped one arm around her. He used the other to cage her against the front door.
Adrian leaned in and kissed the frown off her mouth. Then the tip of her nose and the bunching corners of her lips. There hadn’t been enough opportunities to kiss her that weekend. He hauled her tight against his body and rubbed his nose into her cheek.
“All right,” he said to her proposal. He stole another kiss off her soft pink lips.
“All right?” she said, a little dazed.
“In two months, if you still want me to, I’ll move in,” he promised. “And I will make you breakfast every morning.” He kissed her again. “And I’ll frame Tamsyn’s painting so that we can hang it over our bed.”
Caroline leaned back to squint at him. “You’re not very good at this. You’re supposed to make a counteroffer that improves your own position. You can borrow one of my negotiation books.”
“Do you want to make it three months?”
“Why would I ask you for something I didn’t want? You really need to read that book.” She shook her head in consternation.
That was a compelling philosophy when stated so plainly. Why had he done so many things he didn’t really want to do? Why had he spent so much time with people he didn’t even like? Why had he stopped painting flowers and started painting battlefields?
She’d offered him everything he’d ever wanted, and he just had to take it.
He gave Caroline another squeeze. “I know it’s getting late, but do you mind if we stop by my studio before dinner? I want to show you something.”
Chapter Nineteen
The acrid scents of turpentine and clay were as evocative as the first time Caroline had visited the studio building. It was quiet and dark so late on a Sunday evening. The atmosphere was nearly religious, as far as Caroline was concerned.
Adrian unlocked his space and flicked on a solitary floor lamp. There were blank canvases still stacked against the walls, crates of bowls and bottles, and boxes of art supplies, but only one finished work wrapped in a corner.
“I put my last series in storage,” Adrian said. He gave her half a smile. “For my biographers.”
“What’s this, then?” Caroline asked, pointing at the wrapped painting, even though she thought she knew.
Adrian turned and carefully unwrapped it, placing it on the easel in the center of the room where the floor lamp could illuminate the canvas.
Caroline stared at herself, made beautiful in luminous paint. Her breath filled her entire chest, suffusing into the corners and cracks in her heart until it felt overextended.
It wasn’t just that he’d made her beautiful. He’d made her radiant, soft, and adored by the light that cupped her face in the painting. Adrian moved behind her and loosely wrapped her with his arms. He rested his chin on her shoulder and pressed his cheek against hers.
“Do you like it?” he asked when Caroline’s dry throat could not produce words.
“Is that really me?” she whispered.
