19. Eliana
Eliana
I pushed the door open and stepped inside, expecting to find something that might finally explain the secrets Adrian had been keeping from me. Instead, I found myself standing in what looked like an abandoned art studio, a room that seemed to have been untouched for years.
Dust drifted through the shafts of sunlight filtering between the curtains, settling over everything in a thin gray veil.
Tall windows stretched along one wall, allowing the early summer light to spill across rows of covered canvases.
White sheets concealed most of them, their edges brushing against the wooden floor.
I stood near the doorway, taking it all in.
There was something strangely personal about the room.
It didn't feel like a storage space or an unused part of the cottage.
It felt preserved, as though someone had deliberately left everything exactly where it belonged because disturbing even one object might mean disturbing a memory.
An easel stood near the windows, its wooden frame worn with age. Beside it sat several brushes in cloudy glass jars, their bristles stiff with dried paint. Tubes of color were scattered across a long worktable, some unopened and others squeezed nearly empty.
My curiosity overcame my fear.
I walked toward the nearest canvas and reached for the corner of the white sheet covering it. My fingers hesitated against the fabric before I finally pulled it away.
I froze.
The painting showed a woman sitting beneath a tree with an open book resting across her lap.
Me.
I stepped closer, convinced for a moment that my mind had somehow made the face resemble mine. But there was no mistaking it. The shape of my face, the fall of my hair, even the small crease between my eyebrows when I became absorbed in something were all there.
I stared at the painting, unable to understand what I was seeing. At first, I told myself it had to be a coincidence. Perhaps the woman wasn't actually me. Perhaps there was someone who looked enough like me to make the resemblance unsettling.
Then I noticed the book in her hands.
It was one of my favorite novels.
I reached for another sheet.
This painting showed me standing in a kitchen, laughing as I tried to reach for something on a high shelf. I recognized the kitchen immediately. It was mine.
The same chipped blue mug sat on the counter beside me.
I remembered that mug. I had bought it years ago from a little shop near my house.
My fingers slipped from the sheet.
"No."
The word left my mouth before I could stop it.
I moved to the next canvas, then another, and another.
Every time I uncovered one, another piece of my life appeared before me.
There I was sitting on my couch with Cookie perched beside me, my head tilted back as I laughed at something on television.
Another painting showed me asleep beneath a blanket, one hand tucked beneath my cheek.
Another captured me standing beside a rain-soaked window, tears visible on my face as I stared into the darkness outside.
I knew those moments.
That was what frightened me most.
These weren't generic portraits based on photographs. They were moments no stranger should have known about.
I moved farther into the room, my breathing becoming increasingly uneven as I uncovered more paintings.
One showed me walking barefoot along a beach, the hem of my dress lifted slightly above the sand.
Another captured me sitting at my desk late at night, surrounded by books and scattered pages from my manuscript.
One painting showed me asleep on my couch.
I remembered that night. I had been exhausted after grading papers and had fallen asleep without realizing it.
But there was no way anyone should have been there to see me.
My eyes moved across the room. There were dozens of canvases, perhaps more.
Some were large enough to cover almost the entire wall, while others were small studies painted on narrow wooden boards.
Each one contained me in a different moment, wearing different clothes, surrounded by different rooms, different seasons, different versions of myself.
It was as though someone had spent years memorizing me.
I approached another canvas and slowly removed its covering. The painting showed me sitting beside a window with my knees drawn toward my chest. My expression was distant, almost fragile, and there was such tenderness in the way the artist had painted my face that I instinctively stepped back.
The paintings were beautiful.
That should have comforted me.
Instead, it terrified me.
There was too much feeling in them. Every brushstroke seemed deliberate, intimate, almost reverent. Whoever had painted these portraits hadn't simply wanted to capture what I looked like. They had wanted to capture who I was.
My smile.
My sadness.
My habits.
The small expressions I probably didn't even realize I made.
I backed away from the painting.
Adrian.
His name appeared in my mind before I was ready to admit it.
Could he have painted these?
The thought made my pulse race. I remembered the way he had looked at me from the first day we met, the way he seemed to know exactly what I liked, what frightened me, and what made me laugh.
I thought about the flowers he chose, the songs he somehow remembered, the places he took me, and the things he said that sometimes felt strangely familiar.
I had always thought it was part of his charm.
Now I wondered whether it had been something else.
How long had he been watching me? Had he been painting me for weeks, months, or years?
My mind immediately returned to Ethan's warnings.
That man isn't who you think he is.
I swallowed hard.
Had Ethan been right?
Had Adrian been secretly following me long before our fake relationship began? Had he been watching me without my knowledge, collecting these private moments and turning them into paintings?
I wanted to reject the thought, but the evidence surrounded me.
I walked toward another canvas with trembling hands.
This one showed me standing beside the ocean, my hair blowing across my face as I looked toward the horizon. The expression on my face was peaceful, almost hopeful.
I touched the edge of the frame.
Something about the painting felt familiar in a way I couldn't explain.
Then pain exploded behind my eyes.
I gasped and grabbed the edge of the table to steady myself. The headache came without warning, sharper and more intense than the ones I'd experienced before. My vision blurred as I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to breathe through the sudden pressure pounding inside my skull.
Then something flashed through my mind.
A pair of familiar hands reaching for mine.
The image disappeared before I could recognize the person.
Another memory followed.
A piano.
Fingers moving across ivory keys while a familiar melody filled the room.
Then something smaller.
A tiny knitted sock resting in someone's palm.
My breath caught.
A baby's sock.
I didn't know why that thought hurt so badly.
Another fragment appeared, softer than the others. Someone was holding me, and a voice whispered close to my ear, telling me that everything would be okay.
I tried to hold on to the voice. I tried to see the face, but the memory dissolved before I could reach it.
The room came rushing back.
I opened my eyes, breathing heavily as I stared at the paintings surrounding me. For several seconds, I couldn't move. The memories were gone, leaving only the dizziness and the terrible certainty that whatever had happened in this room was connected to me.
I looked across the room at the countless portraits of myself, all painted from moments that had happened long before Adrian and I supposedly met.
I couldn't explain how he had known those moments.
I couldn't explain why he had preserved them.
And most frightening of all, I couldn't explain why some part of me felt as though I had seen this room before.
* * *
Adrian
The moment I stepped through the cottage door, I knew something was wrong. The place felt different, too still and too exposed, as though someone had opened a door that was never meant to be touched. I walked down the hallway, already uneasy, and then I saw it. The locked door stood open.
For several seconds, I simply stared at it. No. I moved toward the room, my steps quickening as a terrible realization took shape. Then I saw her through the doorway.
Eliana.
She stood in the middle of the studio, surrounded by the paintings I had spent years keeping hidden. White sheets lay scattered across the floor, and canvas after canvas stared back at me with her face captured in moments she had never known anyone was watching. My heart seemed to stop.
She had found them. Everything I had tried to protect her from, everything I had promised myself she would never see until I could explain it properly, was standing in front of her now. And the expression on her face told me she had already created an explanation of her own.
"Eliana."
She turned, and her eyes met mine. What I saw there nearly destroyed me. Fear. Not confusion or curiosity, but fear of me. For the first time in years, I had no idea what to say.
I wanted to cross the room, take her into my arms, and tell her that none of this was what she thought. I wanted to close every door between us and keep her here until she understood me. A darker part of me wanted to make sure she could never walk away from me again.
Don't leave me.
The thought came with such force that I almost moved, but I stopped myself. I knew where that instinct led. I had spent too much of my life learning that you could not hold someone tightly enough to make them stay. Force did not create love. It destroyed whatever love remained.
I would not do that to her. Not Eliana. Never her.
"I can explain," I said carefully.
She gave a small, disbelieving laugh. "Can you?"