“You know how these things work,” Daniel tries to argue with him.
“I don’t care. I will not hide away anymore.”
“Fine,” Daniel reluctantly agrees. “Probably better to have you pegged as a bachelor. Women will want you more that way, which means all those rich ladies will buy your art to get a piece of you.”
“You sound like a pimp again… not my agent,” Louis says through gritted teeth.
“One and the same at the moment, brother.”
Tick goes that vein on Louis’ neck, and it’s pulsating, but he’s remaining calm.
“Anyway, better go. You’re not the only person I have to worry about. I’ll email all the details through to Emily. Please don’t fuck this up. Please don’t cause a scene if they are there,” Daniel warns, but Louis hangs up on him before he even has a chance to finish, the vein on his neck now throbbing in overdrive. Before I know it, he picks up the colorful painting from this morning and throws it across the room making me jump. He grabs another canvas and places it in its place on his stand, then Louis grabs the dark-colored paint pots and starts angrily painting.
“Louis?” My hand comes out and touches his arm, worried about his sudden change in demeanor, which only serves to make him flinch.
“What?” he snarls. Those beautiful blue eyes are now more like a swirling furnace of fire. “Did you think one day riding through the fucking countryside would help me?” His paintbrush violently stabs at the canvas, the black strokes only further stroking his black heart. “Did you think you could be my next muse?” he hisses at me.
The hunger that was there earlier has disappeared and has been replaced with darkness again.
His eyes look me over with disdain. “Muse,” he huffs, his lip curls in a snarl as he stares at me. “You wish you could inspire someone like me.” He points his paintbrush in my face as my throat becomes tight, and I fight back the tears.
I will not let this egomaniac see me cry.
I pick up the pot of paint beside me and hurl its contents at him. The midnight blue paint drips down his chest, while his eyes widen in shock.
“What the fuck?”
Paint runs down onto the wooden floor, and thick blobs drip all around him.
“Go fuck yourself, Louis Marchant.”
And with those few words, I turn on my heel and walk away from him.
I don’t have to put up with his shit!
20
Louis
What the fuck just happened? I grab a spare rag and try to wipe the paint from my skin. What the hell was I thinking to lash out at her like that? Moments earlier, I was propositioning her, seconds from picking her up and fucking her on any surface I could get her onto because, for the first time in a long time, I was inspired to choose another color other than the darkness. A tiny speck of light filtering through the dark has swallowed me whole. Then some stupid asshole switch turns on when people talk about Elisabeth and Yves.
Fuck!
I kick over my easel sending my latest demonic painting flying across the room. The hurt on Emily’s face as I said those things to her hits me hard in the chest. She didn’t deserve that. I open one of the cupboard doors and find what I’m looking for, my bottle of tequila, my old friend. I screw off the cap and take a couple of gulps to try and erase the images of Emily’s disappointed face. I don’t blame her for throwing paint at me, I deserved much worse.
Emily doesn’t deserve some washed-up has-been. Some idiot who’s messed in the head. A wannabe. A fucking alcoholic. A complete bastard.
I should be so lucky to have her as my muse. Nothing but sunshine flows from that woman, and some of it filtered through to me last night for the briefest of moments before the ingrained darkness took over again.
I slump against the sideboard, my head hanging between my legs, the bottle poised at my lips. I should stop myself falling into that oblivion again, but I don’t think I can, or maybe more to the point, I don’t want to.
“Wake up.” A voice filters through my consciousness, my eyes slowly open, but the world is a blur. “Wake up.” The voice is louder this time. “God, you’re pathetic.” The voice pushes me up from where I’m lying, and angrily says, “Drink this.” I feel a mug of hot coffee being shoved in my face, the aroma filtering through my nose, waking me a little more.
“Who? What?” I try to work out who’s in front of me.
“It’s Gabriel,” the voice replies.
“Oh.” I take a sip of the hot coffee, and it burns my fucking throat.
“You’re a fucking dickhead.”
My head begins to pound as I try to concentrate on the blurry image in front of me. “What did you say?” My words slur, even I can hear it.
“I said… You. Are. A. Fucking. Dickhead,” he annunciates each word, so I comprehend them more clearly.
“That’s what I thought you said.” My eyes narrow as he comes into focus a little more. His nostrils are flaring, and his eyes are cold and hard as he stares at me. “How dare you. I gave you this job. Sent you to culinary school. I expect loyalty from you.” I take another sip of coffee and try to blink away the fog.
“You have my fucking loyalty, you idiot. Especially when I turned your wife down numerous times after she asked me to fuck her.”
Lunging at him, I drop my cup and push him to the floor.
“Go on, do it. Hit me,” he urges me.
My hands are gripping his shirt tightly.
What the hell am I doing? I fall back and slump against the sideboard.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize and then hang my head in shame.
When all the shit came out about Elisabeth, he was one of
