“It won’t be necessary.” I stand and turn to pick up the check I made out to her. “I have something else for you, too.”
“What’s this?” She eyes it warily, as if I’m handing her a lit fuse. When she reads the amount written on it, her gaze snaps back up to mine in question.
“I’m breaking our contract. Keep the full amount, or give your boyfriend his share. I leave that up to you.”
“Daniel’s not my boyfriend anymore. I broke up with him.”
“When?” I don’t even try to hide my surprise.
“Last weekend. The day after I was at your studio.”
The day after we kissed and I made her come in my hand. “You didn’t say anything about breaking up with Hathaway when I saw you at the hospital.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t tell me later, either.” Later, when she confessed she wanted me, too, and nearly invited me to do a lot more than just fondle her like a hormone-crazed schoolboy.
“Would it have mattered if I had told you? I think you would’ve left either way.”
She’s right. I would have gone no matter what. To save her from me.
To save myself, too.
“Why did you break it off with him?”
“Because I’d rather be alone than with someone I can’t trust. He lied to me about his gambling and the trouble he’s in. I think he’s lied to me about countless little things since we met. How can I believe him about anything anymore?”
Her gaze pierces me, and I can see that she’s also uncertain if she can trust me. I know the answer to that question, and although I would do anything to shelter her from hurt or harm, right now I also understand that I’m the biggest threat to her happiness.
“You made the right decision. Hathaway doesn’t deserve you. He never did.”
Before I try to rationalize my way into thinking I can do better, I turn away from her and walk around to the other side of the desk. I feel her eyes on me as I move. I feel her confusion, and her hurt.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me?”
I meet her searching gaze from behind the safety of the barrier I’ve just placed between us. It’s not easy to hold my resolve in the face of her wounded bewilderment.
“What more is there to say, Melanie? Our agreement is no longer in effect. I have no interest in finishing the painting.”
“You mean, you’re not interested in painting me anymore.”
“Semantics,” I reply, knowing it’s cruel to let her think I’m as callous as I sound. It’s for the best, though. Best for her and for me if she leaves now and never looks back. “You told me at the hospital you didn’t intend to continue posing for me. I’m in agreement. I never should’ve proposed the arrangement in the first place.”
She scoffs softly. “Oh, that’s right. Because if you’d known about my fucked-up past, you would’ve had zero interest in me. I thought you only want to paint what’s real, Jared. Everything else is a waste of your time and your talent. Isn’t that what you said the night we first met right here in this room?”
“That is what I said,” I admit tonelessly.
“I guess it’s no fun for you now, is that it? There’s nothing left of me to peel apart on your canvas, so you can’t wait to discard me and move on to someone else.”
Her brittle stare shreds me.
“You couldn’t be more wrong.”
“You want to know what I think? I think you’re a fraud, Jared Rush. You’re an isolated, lonely man. I think you get off on manipulating people, not only through your art but in your life, too. You relish exposing people’s weaknesses only so you can convince yourself that you’re superior. I think you surround yourself with beautiful women and wealthy friends, but you’re always going to be that tragic, broken boy from Kentucky who’s not going to heal no matter how rich or powerful he is.”
Christ, her aim is accurate. Mercilessly sharp.
“You’ve seen through me from the beginning, haven’t you?” A dry, humorless chuckle escapes me. “I can see through you, too, Ms. Laurent. You surround yourself with people who lack your strength because deep down, you need to feel needed, indispensable. Because you never want to feel like you don’t matter again. You never want to feel like you can be thrown away by someone who should care about you. You never want to feel the way you did in the backseat of that speeding car as your father steered toward the guardrail.”
She reels back, her lovely face slack with shock. “I wish I’d never told you that.” Her voice is nearly a whisper. Mutely, she shakes her head. “I wish I’d never met you.”
The check I gave her is still clutched in her fingers. On a throttled cry, she tears the paper into confetti and casts it at me.
“Keep your fucking money, Jared. Keep your fucking pity, too. I don’t want either one of them.”
I’ve managed to hold myself in check since she stepped into the room, but I can’t let her remark go. As she pivots around and starts for the door, I round the desk in only a couple of steps, catching her by the wrist.
“This has nothing to do with pity. That’s the last thing I feel for you.” My words are clipped and harsh, my teeth clenched with the force of my anger. “I’m ending this because everything you said about me is right. And I’m getting too close, too fast. I care about you, Melanie.”
She gapes at
