I blink, thrown.
This isn’t what I expected.
I thought the elevator would lead to something darker. Something useful. A vault of secrets I could turn into weapons. Instead, it’s…this. A studio. Open. Honest. Almost vulnerable.
If it were truly secret, he wouldn’t have entered the code in front of me.
Disappointment flickers. I turn, ready to leave, already annoyed with myself for letting curiosity win—
Then I see it.
A large easel at the far end of the room, taller than the rest, draped with a cloth like a body under a sheet. My steps slow without my permission. Curiosity sharpens into something tighter, more dangerous.
Sebastian is a talented artist. I know that much. I’ve always known.
I walk closer.
My fingers hesitate for half a second before I grab the cover and yank it away.
The air leaves my lungs.
My heart slams so hard it hurts.
It’s me.
Not a suggestion of me. Not a memory softened by time. Me. My face, my eyes, the exact curve of my mouth when I’m not smiling but not quite guarded either. Charcoal strokes carve me into the canvas with brutal precision—every shadow deliberate, every line intimate.
My throat tightens.
He didn’t draw me as a fantasy.
He drew me as truth.
As if he knows me.
As if he’s been carrying me here, in this room, all this time.
The thought hits harder than I expect.
I’ve only been back in Sebastian’s life for days. Days. There’s no way this was drawn recently. No way he could have captured this—me—from a handful of stolen glances and guarded conversations.
My gaze drifts over the charcoal lines again, slower now. The confidence of the strokes. The intimacy of them.
He drew this before I returned.
Before the marriage.
Before he knew fate would shove us back into each other’s orbit.
Which means he carried me when I wasn’t there.
The realization settles into my chest, heavy and unwelcome. My breath trembles, shallow and uneven. He didn’t paint me from reference or fantasy. He painted me from memory. From the version of me that lived in his head for five long years.
Five years of distance—and I never left him.
Heat crawls up my neck, pleasure tangling with something far more dangerous. Something soft. Something aching. My fingers curl at my sides as if I might reach out and touch the drawing, trace the line of my own cheek.
I hate that my eyes sting.
