Chapter 25 #2
I dipped my head to the side, shock wearing off just a little. “The romantic tone, the elegance. And the colour palette, I suppose.”
“You don’t see the sadness?”
I looked back at the work of art, hand jutting toward the gold frame. “She’s in the underworld. Of course she’s sad.”
Patrick hummed, like he was weighing up my answers. “Look at her eyes. Really look.”
I trained my eyes on hers.
“What do you see?”
I looked at the green orbs that made up her eyes, looked deeper for anything I could pick out.
I couldn’t at first, but as I shifted my head it became clearer.
There was a certain quiet resilience held within them, almost like she was waiting for something, or waiting for someone to decide her fate for her.
“Something’s coming for her,” Patrick said, his eyes on me.
I nodded, staring at Persephone. And when I held that stare I could see it.
“Heartbreak.”
“Good.” Patrick nodded, before fully turning to me. “Persephone is the prisoner, caught between two worlds and longing for something she knows she can’t return to. No matter how much she wants to let go, she can’t.”
I turned to him. “Why can’t she?”
His hum murdered the silence. “She knows she’s being tempted by something false. She knows whatever’s keeping her there won’t last forever.”
“Then why doesn’t she just leave?”
Instead of answering for me, as I looked to Patrick he nodded back at the canvas, telling me to find the answer myself.
And so, I looked. I sank into the colours, into her look that almost made me want to cry the more I studied it.
Instinct took hold of me when I felt the cogs in my head turning, and when I felt ready, I turned to him. “She’s in love.”
Patrick simply smiled, proudly. “And that alone can convince someone that even the underworld is the safest place to be.” Before I could let those thoughts sink in, Patrick fully turned to me.
“Curiosity is a rare accessory, Cora. And you wear it well.” Recognition flickered in his eyes.
“I think the Nouvelle Muse has been waiting for someone like you.”
A laugh slipped out before I could stop it.
The Nouvelle Muse. Waiting for me? Right. Sure.
My giggles doubled.
"How do you know I applied for that?" I snorted, as politely as I could.
"I told you," His palms flexed, clasped in front of him. "I'm here on committee business. As in the Nouvelle Muse committee."
My mouth tugged down as I nodded. "Right." Then the disbelief of this whole interaction caught up with me and I could help but laugh again. “Are you sure you didn’t mix up the names? Maybe glanced at someone else’s painting and thought you saw mine scribbled in the corner?”
But he didn’t laugh. Didn’t even flinch. Just stared at me like he’d personally signed the invite.
My grin wavered. “Oh…” My throat went dry. “Oh, you’re serious.” My stomach dropped like a shot put had been flung there, welding me in place. I felt my eyes widen as he looked at me, as I realised what he’d said. “You saw my piece?”
He nodded as he guided us back to the bench just behind us. “I did, and I also took the liberty of heading to your professors and seeing what else you’d created this year.” My heart dropped. “But all she could show me was something you did your first semester back in the fall.”
My head sank, my hands twitching. “I haven’t exactly been the most inspired artist as of late.”
He sighed in a way that told me he knew. “For what it’s worth, I’m so truly sorry you had to go through that, dear.” My eyes locked with his. “But that doesn’t change that your piece you submitted for the committee completely took our breaths away.”
My smile widened, aching. “Really?”
His chin dipped, his white brows tugging slightly. “Don’t mistake me—you have room to improve, but that’s exactly what the scholarship is designed to give you.”
I looked to him. “Are you…“ I stuttered. “Wait, I don’t want to say it in case I actually did drink too much last night and now I’m trapped in my subconscious.”
His laugh was quiet but full of power, echoing in our corner of the gallery. “Cora, we’re inviting you to the Nouvelle competition.”
My mouth beat my mind, hand hovering over his. “Are you sure?”
His eyes softened as his smile morphed into something knowing, his warm palm covering mine. “First my manners, now my intelligence. My my, you really are a stickler.”
I shook my head as a smile bloomed across my mouth. “Just making sure.”
He stood, and so did I out of instinct. “Someone from the committee will be in touch to confirm your works for the gala. But that won’t be until a week before.
So, enjoy your summer, and as much as I love our meetings, the next time I want to see you is when you’re walking into that gala you deserve to be at.
” He tipped his head at me as he sank into the shadows. “Always a pleasure, Cora.”
I turned around, my mouth gaped, but smile as wide as anything. I was speechless. Breathless. This was the only thing I’d ever wanted that hadn’t felt like I had to pretend to be someone else to get it.
I looked up and my eyes found Persephone. “Girl, thank you.” My hands cupped my head as I silently screamed with joy.
All of it felt like a dream. But I suppose anything good that had happened to me recently felt like a dream, too. And this moment was no different. Except…
I pinched the skin on my wrist.
Fuck.
Yeah, okay. Not a dream.
And I had to tell someone. Anyone.
In a flash his face was in my mind.
Marcus.
Before I rounded the bench, I whispered back to Persephone. “Sorry about your impending heartbreak.”
I didn’t stop running until I reached the exit, slowing as I jogged down the steps, pushed open the doors, and ran into the bright sunshine.
My head swung left and right before I spotted Marcus parked a few hundred yards away, like he’d promised.
His body was leant against the car, sitting in that shadowy charm he somehow always kept up.
I ignored the butterflies that took flight in my stomach as my eyes flew over him—the way I always tried to ignore them—and hurried my steps. I got a few paces away when he noticed me, slipping his phone into his jeans and pushing up from the car. His smile seemed to grow the more he noticed mine.
“What’s got you smiling like that?”
My cheeks ached as I kept my grin in place. “You remember the Nouvelle Gala I told you about?”
“The one you remind me about at least three times a week?” His face pulled. “No, I don’t think I do, tell me one more time.”
I reached out and knocked his arm with my fist. “You do. Just say you do.”
His laugh bubbled out of him. “Of course I do.”
My eyes squeezed shut as I ran the words through my mind, wondering how to break it all down without running out of breath or fainting from shock before I could even tell him. So I skipped to the good bit.
“I’ve been invited.”
Marcus’ head tilted in a way that told me he knew I’d have this news eventually. His smile lifted, and his brown eyes lightened as the sun caught them. “That’s incredible, Cora.” He stepped towards me. “How are you feeling?”
My hands ran through my hair as my smile ached. “Amazing?” I said it more like a question. “I think I’m actually deciding whether I woke up this morning or if this whole thing is a dream.”
His hands slowly slipped into mine, like we’d done this a million times and not once was it new, or strange.
He squeezed them gently. “It’s real, Cor.
Because you made it real. You fought for this.
” His head dipped low so we were eye level, close enough I could pick out the threads of gold laced in his eyes.
“Proud doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling right now. ”
I couldn’t tell you how long we stood there for, holding hands just as tightly as our eyes were, in one of the busiest cities in the world with the late July sun bathing us in a way that I don’t think either of us had truly appreciated before.
We were prone to the shadows because that was where we were safe, where our lives were safe.
It had certainly been where I’d wanted to keep my feelings for him recently.
But something about his smile and the sun and the feel of his pulse in my palms made me never want to retreat to the dark corners I’d made a home for myself in.
Then, through whatever moment that was forming, his phone began to ring.
My eyes darted between his, watching as they sank and he sighed. My hands went cold instantly as he slipped his from mine, his phone replacing them as he pulled it from his jeans. He looked between his phone and me before shaking his head.
“It’s Oscar. He said he’d call if anything came—”
“It’s okay,” I smiled, genuinely. “I’ll wait here.” I twisted my body and leaned it against his car. “Stay out of trouble.”
And of course, he smirked. That maddening, knowing, infuriating smirk that curled the corner of his mouth like he’d already won a game I didn’t know we were playing.
It wasn't even full, just the barest twitch of amusement, but on Marcus, it was lethal. He didn’t smirk like other people.
There was no arrogance in it, no boyish charm. It was subtle. Controlled. Dangerous.
When he disappeared into a side street, he didn’t say a word as he held my gaze. Didn’t need to say a word thats to the tug of his lips. And I hated that in that moment I wanted him to think of me as anything other than his client.
But I also didn’t really give a shit if he did, because it turns out letting myself be a little bit hopeless for him was one of the best things that’s happened to me in a long, long time.