“Sophie, stop,” he growled, throwing the sheet back and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
But she shot her hand out, grabbing his wrist. He could’ve easily shaken her grip free, but he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt her, and she had no problem taking shameless advantage of that display of thoughtfulness.
She rose to her knees and crossed the small space of the bed until she knelt at his side. Tentatively, she reached for him, her hand hovering above his shoulder. Not willing to back down now, she gently touched him. He didn’t jerk away, but he remained stiff, unyielding. A slash of pain lacerated her heart, but she refused to back down.
Not when his happiness could be the casualty.
“You’ve lived in your father’s toxic shadow all these years. When do you come out of it?” she asked softly. “When do you get the chance to live in the sun in your own light?”
“That sounds like a pretty fairy tale, but there is no coming out of it for me. Not as long as my last name is Lowell.”
“But what if there is? You have nothing left to prove—you’ve rebuilt what Vernon almost destroyed. You’ve repaired your family’s reputation with your hard work, dedication and loyalty. You’ve reimbursed the families your father stole from. What more can you give? Your life...your soul?”
He scoffed, but she didn’t let him accuse her of being dramatic, which she was certain had been his next comment. Before he could reply, she slid off the bed and scooped up her discarded shirt from the floor with a “Be right back. Don’t move.”
By the time she returned moments later with a black binder in her arms, she half expected him to be already dressed and ready to leave her apartment. He had pulled his pants on, but they remained unbuttoned, and he sat in the same place she’d left him.
Relief flooded her, even as fear trickled underneath. Would she be revealing too much when she handed him the binder? Would he see what she so desperately tried to keep hidden?
Inhaling a breath, she crossed the few feet separating them and perched on the mattress next to him. “Here,” she whispered, handing him the thick folder.
He glanced at her, his gaze steady and unwavering on her face. Searching. Though everything in her demanded she protect herself from that too-knowing, too-perceptive stare, she met it.
“What is it?” he asked, voice low, intense.
“Look,” she instructed instead of answering. “Please.”
After another long second, he finally nodded and accepted the binder. Her heart slammed against her rib cage like a wild thing, reverberating in her head and deafening her to everything but the incessant pounding.
Slowly, he flipped the top open.
And froze.
Afraid to lift her gaze to his face—afraid of what she’d glimpse there—she, too, studied the image of one of his mixed-media collages. This one reflected the tragedies of war. With haunting photographs, pieces of metal that appeared to be machinery, newspaper and paint, he’d created a powerful work that, even though it was a black-and-white copy, thrust into her chest and seized every organ. She felt when she looked at his art. Anger, grief, fear but also hope and joy. Jesus, how could one man create such raw, wild beauty? How could he walk away from it? Had it been like cauterizing a part of himself? She couldn’t imagine...
Silent, Joshua flipped to the next page. A black-and-white copy of a piece commentating on homelessness. Another page. A work celebrating women, their struggle, their suffering, their strength, their beauty. Page after page of his art that both criticized and celebrated the human condition.
When he reached the last copy, he sat there, unmoving, peering down at it, unblinking.
“Why?” he rasped, the first word he’d spoken in the last ten minutes as he perused his past and what had once been his future.
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand his question. “When I was researching you and your family for the first article, I came across several stories about you as an artist. From your college and local newspapers as well as several art columns. They carried pictures of your art. And they were so... Good is such an inadequate choice. They were visceral. And to think you, Joshua Lowell, had created them...” She shrugged a shoulder. “I guess it became kind of an obsession. I hunted down any image of your work I could find. Finding out about this man who could drag this from his soul and share it with the world? I needed to talk to him, to discover how he’d become a CEO instead of an artist. And that’s why I wanted the article to include that side of you. Because I was struggling with reconciling the two.”
“That man doesn’t exist anymore,” Joshua stated flatly. “You’re searching for a ghost. He was buried fifteen years ago.”
“I don’t believe that,” she countered. He glanced sharply at her, but she didn’t tone down her vehemence. “You might have tried, but he trickles through when you help others follow their own dreams about art. When you support them and give your time and money toward them. If you’d truly put that man aside, he wouldn’t help others who need him. That passion to educate people about this world may not have been exhibited in artwork these past years, but you still reveal it in your actions.”
He shook his head, and despite the grim line of his full mouth, a tenderness entered his gaze. “You see what and who you want to, Sophie.”
“No, I see you. This.” She smoothed a hand over the image of his artwork. “This is you. A visionary. An activist and change agent in your own way. An artist.” She tilted her head, studied his face. “What if your life doesn’t end with
