He was touching me and talking to me as though he had never seen me before. Maybe he hadn’t.
My mother always told me that I came alive when I was on stage. Maybe that’s what he saw.
“I knew you’d be amazing tonight, but Chantel, I have no words.” He sighed. “You were simply breathtaking.”
I kissed him softly. “Well, I don’t want you to stop breathing.”
His lips covered mine in an almost desperate kiss. When he pulled away, he ran a hand down my cheek. “I don’t plan to, not for a very long time, and neither will you.”
He kissed me again and, almost as though he couldn’t stand to be still, lifted me off the ground, twirling me around as I laughed. He slowly lowered me down his body. “Will you come and stay with me, Chantel?”
Automatically, I started to sayyes, but he kissed me before I could even make a sound.
“Don’t say no, please. Tell me you’ll move in with me? Let me see you when you wake. Let me be inspired every time I turn a corner, and you’re there.”
Laughing at his eagerness, I stroked his impossibly high cheekbone. “My parents and Beau wouldn’t understand why I would choose to stay here in France or why I would move in with you, a man I have just barely met.”
He kissed my mouth, and I felt myself sliding under the waves again.
I asked him, “Is this wrong? Are we crazy?”
This time, his lips pressed against my forehead. “Probably. But who cares? How does it make you feel?”
My answer was simple. It made me feel complete.
The next day, I moved into the chateau.
Nine
WANT
Day 8
I AM ASHAMED to admit that I hid for two whole days. As I am lying here in bed, I continue to find myself reflecting on everything that happened that day up in his studio. With a paintbrush, no less.
I’m still trying to understand all that took place, but what it ultimately comes down to is that I invited Phillipe Tibideau into my body.
Well, in actuality, there was no inviting. It was more of a hostile takeover. He took over my senses, including any common sense I possessed before arriving here.
I touch my lips and remember his on mine as he played my body so expertly out in the vineyard only a couple of days before.
One thing is certain: my judgment becomes compromised when it comes to Phillipe, and I have no immediate idea on how to stop myself from wanting to be compromised over and over again.
Today, though, I want some answers from him. I want to know why people thought their relationship was unhealthy. Whydid the world turn against a man that only months earlier they had revered?
The obvious answer seems too simple. There has to be more to it, because the man I am coming to know doesn’t fit with all that I have read.
Why doesn’t he defend himself publicly? Why doesn’t he save his name?
Twice now, I’ve sat in a dark room—a room that for all intents and purposes is cut off from the world—and he blindfolded me. He had every opportunity to do as he pleased, yet he didn’t touch me while in pose.
No, he waited until my sight was restored, and my attention was focused, focused solely on him before he…What?Seduced me? Tempted me?Destroyed me?
That is the word that my mind keeps returning to—destroyed. That is the word that has been thrown around in conjunction with his name, but I don’t feel destroyed. I feel alive. I feel needy and hungry.
Lying here with just my thoughts for comfort, I’m shocked to discover that I feel no shame in what we did, even though I probably should. I’m craving what I am seeing instead of running from it.
Suddenly, I understand Chantel’s words because the wave has come, and I feel it pulling me under.
