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Too deep.

I look away before he can see the sudden sting in my eyes.

We stay another half hour. He shows me one room twice. I ask about paper stock, framing, lighting, all the things that live in the artist part of my brain like they never really left. By the time I step back into the late afternoon sun, something in me feels almost electric. Tender. Awake.

And terrified.

When I make it back to the villa, the sun has already gone honey-soft over the water.

It's later than I meant to stay out.

I come through the kitchen doors with the satchel hanging against my hip and my canvas tucked carefully inside, and the first thing I see is a silver cover on a plate at the island.

I stop.

There's a folded note propped beside it.

In case you didn't eat.

That's it.

No signature. No flourish. Just Everett in five words.

My chest squeezes.

I glance automatically toward the study. The glass doors are shut.

Through the panes, I can see him inside with his back half turned, phone to his ear, jacket off, sleeves rolled, one hand braced against the desk as he says something sharp and low that sounds serious enough I can't make out the words, only the tension in them.

He's right there.

Visible.

Unreachable.

The shut doors say more than a speech ever could.

I take the plate and note upstairs to the bedroom.

There's sea air drifting in through the cracked terrace doors, and somewhere in the villa below, his voice rises and falls through the muffled barrier of glass.

I sit on the edge of the bed, lift the silver cover, and find grilled fish, vegetables, warm bread, and lemon tucked neatly at the side.

He remembered I'd be hungry.

He ordered dinner anyway.

He left the note instead of making a thing of it.

And somehow, because he's Everett, that small quiet thoughtfulness hits harder than grand gestures ever could.

I eat slowly, bare feet tucked under me, the painting propped against the wall near the dresser where I can't stop glancing at it.

The lonely billionaire.

Gabriel's words won't leave me alone.

Sometimes our art comes out subconsciously. Sometimes it's an emotion. Sometimes it's a feeling. It's almost always something we don't express anywhere else but on a canvas.