“I love it,” Jared says, staring in awe at the work. “I’ll take it.”
“Excellent.” Francesca can barely conceal her excitement. The commission will be considerable. “I’ll ask Gemma to print out the paperwork. Sydney can answer any questions you may have,” she says, throwing me to the wolves before walking off.
“Do you still paint?” he asks without taking his eyes from the Amadeo.
“Yes.”
Vittoria’s eyes narrow to slits before she rakes a derisory look over my body. My middle finger twitches, so I shove my hands in my pockets to contain any rash outbursts that might cost me my job.
Jared turns to look at me, pretending not to see the scowl on his fiancée’s face. “Are any of your paintings here?”
I shake my head.
“Why not?”
“My work isn’t for sale.” Francesca has offered me an exhibition on several occasions, but I always decline. Her praise and belief in me bolstered my confidence, but I’m not ready to put myself out there. I may never be. And I’m okay with that. I paint in my free time and work a job where I help other artists to fulfill their dreams. That is more than enough for me. Compared to the cage I was living in for years, this is the ultimate freedom. I get to choose what I do with my life, and right now, I’m exactly where I want to be, doing what I love.
“Wasn’t that your dream?” His eyes pierce mine, searching and searching, but he’ll never find whatever it is he’s looking for.
“Dreams change, and I’m no longer that girl.”
You made sure of that.
I think it, but I don’t say it, working hard to school my features into a neutral line. It was easy to get caught up in my passion for art and for Amadeo’s work and to temporarily forget who this man is to me and what he’s done.
“That’s probably not a bad thing.” The glare is firmly back on his face, and inside I’m screaming and throwing punches at him.
Why does he seem angry at me when I’m the only one entitled to that emotion?
If this was any other situation, I’d be spitting in his face and kicking him in the balls.
I have often wondered what would happen if I saw him again. How I would react. What we would say.
Never in a million years did I predict it going down like this.
I remember the headlines a couple of years ago announcing Jared’s engagement after only a few months of dating. It devastated me. That was already a dark time in my life. When Father had forced me into marrying the son of his business partner. The marriage was fake, yet Sawyer and I had slept together the night of our wedding, and I had thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Until he rejected me, leaving me alone in his soul-sucking obsessively clean penthouse with a head full of depressing thoughts and every mistake I’d ever made in my life replaying on a loop in my brain.
I’d cried myself to sleep most every night.
I’m sure Sawyer thought it was over him. But he was barely a blip.
It’s always been about Jared.
No matter how hard I have tried to evict him from my head and my heart, he stubbornly refuses to leave, claiming squatter’s rights and the intent to reside there permanently.
I hate him. I truly do. But hate and love toe a very fine line, and the love I had for him has never gone away.
It’s pathetic. Every time I think of him, I feel like that foolish, weak, gullible fifteen-year-old who gave everything to a guy who toyed with her emotions.
I also remember, as clear as if it was yesterday, him telling me I was the only one and I’d be his wife someday.
I guess there is no end to his cruelty.
A new layer of pain joins the bubbling hatred swirling in my veins as I watch his model fiancée digging her proverbial claws in her man. She may as well hold up a sign reading, “He’s mine. Back off bitches.” I wonder if there’s a reason she seems insecure. Maybe Jared got a taste for cheating as a teenager and he no longer knows the meaning of loyalty and faithfulness? I’m sure he has groupies throwing themselves at him wherever he goes and sex on tap.
I should probably feel sorry for her, but she’s too calculating and transparent to deserve any pity.
I’d like to say I’m shocked Jared has ended up with someone like her, but it’s just further proof I did not know him like I thought I did.
