Chapter Fifteen #2
She’d said that once, in his office more than a month ago. “I never do that.”
“You try it.”
“I have everything already.” Those words felt hollow, though, until she touched him, leaning against his arm, and right then he had the sense they could be true.
He said nothing, and the two of them continued to walk through the museum, back around into the hall filled with sculpture.
He looked at her standing there. “You could be one of these works of art,” he said. “Aphrodite.”
Her cheeks went flushed. “I think you’re flattering me.”
He grabbed her chin. “When have I ever given you the impression that I care to flatter anyone? I don’t.
I never have.” It was the deepest truth he had.
She was beautiful. She belonged here. She belonged.
..with someone who really cared about her.
She was precious and perfect and lovely.
And it was like a wall stood between them, and he did not know how to scale it.
A fog, a great mist. Or perhaps he was simply made of marble.
That was the truth of it. It was easy to say she belonged in the museum because of her beauty, but he was the one frozen.
He could be locked away in here for the rest of time and stay the same.
He felt a clawing desperation, to make these thoughts go away. To feel something. Anything. The way he could only feel when he touched her.
“Beautiful,” he said again. He leaned in and kissed her neck, and she shivered. “We are the only ones here,” he said.
“I know,” she whispered.
“There are no cameras. There are no guards.”
“We can’t,” she said, a fierce spark in her eyes.
“We can.”
He was beginning to realize something. And he didn’t want to have the realization. What he wanted to have was her. At least one last time. “Let me,” he whispered.
He reached around to the back of her dress, and unzipped it slowly, letting it fall around her.
And she truly did become one of the glorious pieces of art, standing there with her blond hair wild around her shoulders, her breasts full and glorious, her waist nipped in, her hips round.
That pale thatch of curls between her legs a glorious temptation.
This was the closest he would ever come. To feeling real. Because of her.
This was what he had known from the moment he had met her. That there was a power that she held to reach him. But he didn’t have the power to take hold of her. He could keep her. Physically.
But he would never be able to...
He didn’t want to think. For the first time in his life, he wanted to feel. Only.
He moved toward her, and kissed her on the lips. “Oh, Verity.”
He lifted her up, and laid her down on one of the white stone benches, and she let her head fall back as she looked up. She did look just like one of those statues. Except she was real.
Except she was there. He could touch her. He could taste her. He could have her.
They were flesh and blood. For now.
It didn’t matter he saw himself obscured in all of these art pieces. It didn’t matter if outside of these walls he was nothing more than cold marble. Right now, with her, he was a life. Breathing.
Right now he could have her.
Right now.
He began to undress, leaving his clothes scattered on the floor along with hers. She looked up at him, a smile curving her lips. “You look like you’re cut from stone.”
He grabbed her hand and put it up against his stomach. Moved it up toward his chest.
“Oh, but no you’re not,” she whispered. She closed her eyes. “I can feel your heartbeat. So fast.”
“Only for you,” he said.
He had never been conscious of his heartbeat before. Only with her.
He kissed her, all the better to drown out his thoughts. But he could still hear his own heart raging in his ears.
Kissed her neck, down to her breasts.
And he poured all of his desire out onto her. He told her how beautiful she was. Because he never got tired of praising her.
In this, he understood what it was to have someone. For the first time.
Oh God, to have someone and to want to keep her forever.
No one had ever wanted him in that way. No one had ever held onto him. But maybe it was because they couldn’t.
And maybe if you couldn’t, the kindest thing to do was to let the person go.
Verity had been trapped. In a house full of people who cared for themselves and not for her.
Here she was, free and beautiful and his, but what would the cost be to her?
She had been unhappy from the moment they had gotten here.
She didn’t like having to perform. Obviously reminded her of living with her parents.
Would he ever be able to be any different?
He had never wanted something for someone else more than he wanted something for himself, but he was feeling the deepest desire for it now. For her. To be happy. Even if it meant being away from him.
His first impulse had been to hold her forever. To hire her, to keep her with him.
It had been like that from the beginning. She had never only been an employee to him. Not even for a moment.
No. She had been special, from the very beginning. And he was...broken. He could hide it because of all the money he had made. Because of all the success that he had.
He had told her with such confidence he wasn’t broken, but where was the evidence of that?
His bank account? What did it matter? It meant nothing. Anyone could have money. Anyone could lose it. Anyone could be born into a family or make a child. But connection. Love. That was the one thing that wasn’t guaranteed to everyone. The one thing you couldn’t create or manipulate or buy.
He had none of it. If it was possible, his money would have been sufficient.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t.
And neither was he.
But he was too weak to let her go before he took her again. Surrounded by all this beauty.
He claimed her, he said goodbye to her, he kissed her, and he fought against the crumbling feeling at the center of his chest. Because there was no point.
There was no point. He had to keep the wall because it served him.
He didn’t know how to let go of the wall because it kept him safe.
And somewhere in there all of his thoughts became confused, because if he had to hang onto the wall then was it inevitable? Or could he knock it down, could he...?
No. No.
She arched against him, and he gave himself over to her as he felt her take her pleasure. He took his own. Clung to her until the last bit of pleasure had been wrung from him.
She sat up and touched his face. He closed his eyes.
“Let us get dressed,” he said.
She looked concerned, and he knew why. He was already putting distance between the two of them.
She dressed, and the two of them walked out of the museum, where their car was waiting.
“That was...that was quite literally the wildest thing I have ever done, or considered doing. That was—”
“I can’t talk about this,” he said.
She frowned. “That was... It was good, right?”
She was talking about sex. And something was falling to pieces inside of him. Anger rose up inside of him, and he knew it wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.
He texted instructions to the driver, who began to pull away from the curb.
“Where we going?”
“The airport.”
“Why?”
“You’re going back to Athens.”
“I am?”
“Yes, Verity. You’re going back to Athens. Because this... We cannot continue this. I’m sorry. I manipulated you into this, and I have been using you. I can’t do it anymore. This is...this is a broken man’s equivalent of trying to be a real boy, and I am not accomplishing it. I’m just hurting you.”
“I don’t understand. We just had the most beautiful evening. We just had... we just had sex on a bench in a museum. And now you’re telling me that you’re sending me away?”
“You’ve been unhappy since we came back from our honeymoon.”
She froze for a moment, looking straight ahead.
“I haven’t been unhappy since we got back from the honeymoon.
I’ve been freaking out. Because... It was so easy when we were in that little cocoon.
And suddenly we came back here, and I realized that my feelings were different.
It was easy to tell myself it was the honeymoon, but we came back to reality and they came with me.
I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. I love you, Alex. ”
The words hit him with the force of a slap.
“You don’t love me,” he said. Those words, those words that had never been said to him before, being spoken so easily in the silence of a car moving through the prison streets, seemed grotesque. They seemed like a farce; they had to be. Because it could not be so easy. It couldn’t be.
For someone to love him, after all these years. No one ever had.
No one ever had.
“I do. I love you and—”
“You loved Stavros two months ago.”
“I didn’t. I already explained that to you.
He was a distraction. Because the minute that I walked into your office I was drawn to you.
Why do you think I took the job? Why do you think I threw myself into being the best assistant to you?
Why do you think I said yes when you told me that I was going to marry you? ”
“I manipulated you. I manipulated the entire situation. I made it so you couldn’t say no, and you made it very clear that I did that.”
“As I’m fond of saying to you when I’m trying to be a brat, I do have agency.
And yes, I also like to avoid unpleasant situations, and I definitely didn’t speak up for myself when I should have or could have.
But I would’ve chosen to marry you either way.
You deserved to be scolded for the way that you went about it, but I would have.
.. I would have. Because...because I love you.
I made all these rules for myself. Not to get involved with an intense man.
Not to want a man that could hurt me. And I knew you were that man.
From the moment I met you I knew you were that man.
But that wasn’t about there being something wrong with you. It was about there being fear in me.”