I felt it rattle my very bones. Phillipe was furious. I had never seen him this way.
Tonight had gone completely wrong. We arrived at the gala, went inside, and then were separated. People wanted to speak to him. That was understandable. I disappeared into a corner, a place where I felt the most comfortable, but didn’t remain alone for long. No, not five minutes after I had retreated to my own space, I felt someone behind me.
Spinning back to where I knew Phillipe was, I asked him pointedly, “And what am I supposed to believe? You just left me standing there tonight! You didn’t introduce me to anyone?—”
“You didn’t want me to! Jesus, Chantel, make up your fucking mind!”
“Was she there?” I asked him softly, feeling my jealousy clawing at me like a vicious animal.
“Who?”
“Don’t treat me like a fucking idiot.”
“No. No, she wasn’t even there.”
Swallowing back my irrational tears, tears of anger and unwarranted jealousy, I spun away from him. “Just go away. Leave me alone.”
I heard movement, and then his hands were on my shoulders, spinning me back to him. I knew he was in my face because I could feel his breath, warm and intoxicating, floating over my lips.
“I wanted to kill him tonight,” he confessed.
I believed him.
“You almost did,” I pointed out. “Leave me alone, Phillipe.”
“No.” He gripped my shoulders tightly.
“Are you going to hurt me, too?” I asked him.
I knew it was a low blow. Automatically, he released me. “I’d never.”
I lowered my head. “Yet you have.”
Looking down at Phillipe, I notice his left hand is clenched into a fist.
“You know you didn’t hurt her that night, right?” I ask.
“I betrayed her trust that night.”
“But you told me you didn’t go with Susanna. I believe that. She would have too.”
Shaking his head, he grimaces and lowers his eyes to the page. “Not in that way, Gemma.”
He has finally left me alone for a moment. He’s given me time to think. He’s so all-consuming all the time. Everything about him binds me. Everything about him makes me love him.
Even as he was continually punching the ambassador, all I could think was,He is doing this for me, and I love him.
I don’t know what I feel. I think it is love. It steals every fiber of who I am and wraps around me like a tight fist. It makes me burn with jealous rage, and it also makes me cry at the thought of loss.
I’ve realized that I don’t know how to be without him. I don’t want to know. I want him to take me and mark me. Does that sound absurd?
Maybe, but that’s how I feel. I want it to be just him and me. I want him toownme.
Here with me—that’s where I want him to be. I want to be with him in this little room where we sleep and forget about the rest of the world. Forget about the fame. Forget about the stupid paintings. They are the reasons for everything that happened tonight.
Those stupid paintings. I wish he’d never painted them.
Now, the world wants him, and he wants the world.
