He was a terrible sitter.
Where Fiona had relaxed into the process, Christian sat rigid with tension—shoulders tight, jaw set. He shifted repeatedly, adjusting his collar, running a hand through his hair. Every few minutes, he suggested she draw him in profile, or asked whether the birthmark might be easier to omit entirely.
“Hold still,” Fiona said for the fourth time. “And stop touching your collar.”
“It is habit.”
“It is avoidance.” She looked at him over the edge of the paper. “You are trying to hide. Even now—especially from me—you are trying to hide.”
He stilled.
“I am not—”
“You are. Each time your hand goes to your collar, you are checking that the mark is covered. Each time you turn your head, you angle it so I see less of it.” She set down the charcoal. “Christian. I have kissed that birthmark. I have traced it with myhands. I have memorised it. Why would you try to hide it from me now?”
He said nothing for several moments. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough.
“Because seeing it on paper makes it permanent. Real.” His gaze fell to the floor. “It is one thing for you to love me despite it—”
“Not despite,” she said quietly. “Because.”
“But to draw it—to make it exist outside this moment…” He swallowed. “What if you draw it and suddenly see what everyone else sees? What if your own hand reveals how ugly it truly is?”
Fiona rose and crossed to him. She knelt before the settee, taking his face gently between her hands and lifting his gaze to hers.
“I am going to draw you,” she said. “All of you. And when I am finished, you will look at that drawing and see what I see—a man who is strong, and beautiful, and entirely worthy of love.”
His eyes shone.
“And if you cannot see it,” she continued, “then I will draw you again. And again. As many times as it takes.”
“Fiona—”
“Hush.” She laid a finger lightly against his lips. “No more arguments. Sit there. Let me look at you the way you looked at me.”
She returned to her chair.
Picked up the charcoal.
And began to draw.
***
She was not, as it turned out, a natural artist.
Her lines were uncertain, her proportions slightly uneven, her shading hesitant. The Christian emerging on the page was a rougher, less polished likeness of the man before her—his features a little exaggerated, his expression harder to capture.
But the birthmark—she drew that with care.
She spent nearly half an hour on it alone, studying the portion visible above his collar: the way the colour deepened in some places and softened in others, the way it followed the line of his throat.
She drew it not as a flaw to be minimised, but as something integral—as central to the portrait as his eyes or his mouth.
Christian watched her work. She could feel his gaze on her, steady and intent, yet she did not look up. She was too absorbed, too determined to do it justice.
At last, she set down the charcoal. Her fingers were dark with dust, and her shoulders ached from bending over the paper.
“It’s finished,” she said.
