I swayed in his touch, suffering heat and hunger.
The same violence that clawed for a fight returned, and I didn’t entirely know why. Gil had apologised. I’d forgiven him. We should be able to move on.
And yet...we couldn’t.
We kept clinging to each other in unhealthy ways, making us weak and wanting.
My lips throbbed for his.
His body stepped into mine until no space existed between us and his head tipped down. His mouth descended, and we both jerked at the connection.
Hot.
Painful.
Unforgiving.
I sighed.
He groaned.
His hands fell from my cheeks to wrap around my hips, pulling me into him, making my stomach flip.
The kiss wasn’t planned.
Our confessions messy and dangerous.
But as his tongue touched mine, and we began a dance that twisted me up and made me fly, I didn’t care.
I hugged him back.
I kissed him back.
And then it was over as he pulled away.
The early morning sunshine shone through the window, highlighting a shadowy bruise on his jaw and the discolouration under his eye, reminding me violence had found him once again.
That his troubles weren’t over.
“Are you okay?” My question was breathy, my heart out of control.
He chuckled darkly. “No, I’m not fucking okay. I miss you, O. I’ve missed you my entire goddamn life.”
My knees wobbled. “I meant your incident with whoever hurt you.”
“Oh, that.” His forehead furrowed. The connection between us faltered as he took a step back. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
His departure wrenched deep inside me but my question had done what I’d intended. I’d popped the bubble we’d been in. The bubble we had a habit of creating. The precious, perfect moment where it was just us and kisses and nothing else mattered.
If we could live in that illusion, we could be happy.
But we couldn’t because real life wasn’t that easy.
“Justin said a few men surprised you outside your warehouse. That they were friends and family of one of the painted girls.”
Gil stroked his jaw where a bruise hinted he’d been punched pretty hard. “They got a few strikes in, but I didn’t let them use me as a punching bag like I did my uncle, if that’s what you’re worried about. I fought back.”
“I’m just worried that society is lynching you.”
“They don’t know I didn’t kill those girls.”
“No, but vigilante justice is dangerous.”
He shrugged. “Nothing I don’t deserve.”
“Don’t. Don’t keep saying that.”
He didn’t argue. Instead, he stared at me the way he’d stared at Olive. With undying affection and unconditional love. “Feel free to throw a punch too, O. A fist would hurt far less than you cutting me out of your heart.”
Tension once again detonated around us.
My heart flurried.
My stomach knotted.
I couldn’t look away from him.
This was another blistering moment.
A moment that could fix all other moments.
A fragile moment where we could break the ice, talk, and find happier ground than this precarious plateau we currently navigated.
But I didn’t know how.
Gil raised his hand as if to touch me. He licked his lips as my name fell with a whisper, “O...I—”
I shook my head. I backed away.
Gil honoured my wishes.
Barely.
His body bristled with explosive need. The sudden softness of before vanished as he clipped, “If you don’t leave to go to work now, I won’t be responsible for what I’ll do. I won’t care my daughter is the bathroom. I won’t care that I hurt you beyond anything. I’ll grab you and fuck you, and I won’t let you out of bed until you forgive me.”
I stood rooted to the spot.
Unable to move.
Unable to stay.
It was my turn to struggle with a sentence. “Gil...I—”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, his hand trembling. “Go, O. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have.” He looked up, his eyes blazing emerald desire. “And I will hurt you. That’s why you’re keeping your distance, isn’t it? Because you know that soon I’m going away. And no one knows for how long. I could be an old man before they let me out. I might die in there. What sort of bastard would I be to fight for you to love me, only to abandon you all over again?”
He gave me the saddest smile. “Fuck, I wish I’d never let you go when we were younger.”
I tripped backward.
I’d waited so, so long to hear that.
It sucker-punched me in the chest. It ripped out my soul. It brought tears to my eyes.
Olive darted from the bathroom with toothpaste dripping all over her pyjamas and her toothbrush in her hand. “Dad, I don’t like O’s toothpaste. Do you have the stuff we use?”
And just like that, another moment was gone.
Again.
I sucked in a breath, jittery and lost.
Gil swallowed back the hurt between us and ducked to scoop his dirty daughter from the floor. “Sure, it’s in my bag.”
Life once again carried us in different directions as he performed fatherly duties, and I grabbed my handbag, looked at him one last time, and slipped out the door.
I was two hours early for work.
I was trembling like a fool.
I was in so much more trouble than I feared.
Chapter Twenty-Two
______________________________
Gil
I LASTED THREE days.
Three long, terribly excruciating days of loving O, wanting O, knowing I couldn’t have O.
We’d both come to the same painful conclusion.
This was all we could afford.
This tentative friendship.
This tense flatmate arrangement.
After that first day when O went to work and I did my best to come to terms with letting her go, I looked for apartments so I didn’t have to destroy any more of her life.
But the market held no decent rentals and the ones viable required a one-year lease. I had no idea when I’d be called to trial, and frankly, I couldn’t fucking afford anywhere anyway.
Not with my business in ruin and hate still vicious online.
I had to accept that for now, I had no choice.
No choice but to stop cursing Justin for his charity and stop hating myself for taking O’s generosity. This was my life right now...no matter how I wished it wasn’t.
Life slipped into a routine.
O would go to the office, and I’d spend the day with Olive, all while doing my best to find work. I allowed the necessity of earning money and the needs of life to drive me, but I also permitted myself space to enjoy my daughter. To make up for lost time. To learn all about her and the growth she’d done in the year that I hadn’t been part of her life.
I did it for her.
I did it for me.
We made memories that hopefully would sustain me through whatever was coming.
By the time O returned in the evenings, I’d already have dinner cooking and conversation carefully stayed on Olive and her increasing excitement of returning to school.
O’s idea of a tutor was great but just added yet another financial strain.
I made a note to see about taking out a loan, so I could make Olive’s hopes a reality. Not that I held my breath with my current shitty situation.
When bedtime came around, O would vanish into her room, and I would lie on her couch doing my best not to get hard or burst through her door and force her to listen to me. To tell her I was wrong in staying away. That I needed her to fight beside me...like she always had.
I missed her.
I wanted her.
But I wouldn’t do that to her.
A
t least having Olive between us gave us safe harbour and prevented any chance of breaking our strange, brittle truce.
Our voices had to stay light and civil for innocent ears. Our interactions had to be upbeat and chipper, all while we acted our arses off for my daughter’s sake.
It physically crippled me watching O laugh with Olive and Olive fall in love with O. They’d been thrown together by a mad man—two, including me—and that bond only grew stronger the longer we stayed in O’s tiny apartment.
I knew I couldn’t let them get any closer. I was only setting Olive up for yet more heartbreak if I did. O was leaving on a jet plane, and Olive would soon have to face my disappearance for a second time. Plus, O couldn’t be expected to share her heart with a child created by our old teacher and me.
But knowing all that didn’t mean I could stop the inevitable connection they shared. The sweetness when Olive showed O how to blend watercolours, and the pride when O showed Olive how to dance.
Fuck, it would’ve been so perfect if O was mine.
We could’ve been a family.
A true, happy, perfect family.
Instead of this pretend pocket of time, both of just waiting for it to end, preparing how to tell Olive that life wasn’t fucking fair and her hardships weren’t over yet.
“Dad....Dad! You’re not painting.”
I snapped out of my thoughts, slamming back into the present where I hung with Olive across the street from O’s apartment. I hoped the distance from the approved flat and this park wouldn’t set off the sensor in my anklet.
Poor Olive had cabin fever.
We’d come to the tiny square between four busy roads to paint the fountain splashing over marble swans and lilypads.
I’d carried my portable easel, a selection of paints, and a packed strawberry jam sandwich—her favourite—and spent the afternoon while O was at work painting the sun-glittering structure with my daughter.
“Sorry.” I held up my paintbrush. To be fair, I wasn’t doing much. The sketch and slowly-coming-to-life painting was all Olive’s, and once again, I was blown away by her young talent.
She had the scale nailed. The shadows perfected. The bend of the swan’s neck lifelike.
“What’cha thinking about?” she asked.
I smiled, nudging her small shoulder with mine. I didn’t have chairs, so we’d set the easel low so we could sprawl on a blanket. “Nothing much. Just how talented you are.”
“Nah, I’m not nearly as good as you.”
“You’re getting close.” I eyed up the way she blended white, blue, and black to make a shade of grey so similar to her eyes. “I’m very proud of you.”
She blushed. “You’re a good teacher.”
“Nope. It’s all you, kiddo.”
Her tongue stuck between her teeth as she shaded the swan’s neck. “O said she was proud of me too. She showed me another dance move this morning while you were still sleeping.”
“She did?”
How the hell did I not hear them?
“Yep. In her room. She said I have good balance.”
I pretended to shove her, jerking her back into place before she fell. “You do. Look how stable you are.”
She snickered. “Do you think we can stay with O? I really like living with her. She’s super nice.” Her sweet gaze met mine. “I like her and you like her. I know you do. You more than like her. But you’re sad too.” Her head cocked, sending shiny hair over her shoulder. “Why are you sad? Don’t you like living with O and me? Do you want to go back to the warehouse?”
I swallowed the sudden obstruction in my throat. I’d long ago learned not to be shocked at the intuition of children and their perception of the truth, but it still punched me in the chest. “I’m not sad. I’m so happy we’re together again.” Dropping my paintbrush into the water jar, I added, “And you know we can’t stay with O for much longer, right? This is only temporary. She has her own life to live, little spinach. And we’re not part of it.”
“We could be. She likes you too, even though she’s mad at you right now.”
I froze. “How do you know she’s mad at me?”
Had O talked to her?
She wouldn’t.
Would she?
Our drama was our own fault—my fault—and shouldn’t be dumped on a kid.
Olive scowled as if I was an idiot—which I was, so I couldn’t argue. “I know the way she talks to you. She really likes you, but you did something, and she’s mad.” She pinned me with a ruthless stare. “Whatever you did, you should apologise and then we can all move into a bigger place where we all have bedrooms and can be happy forever and ever.”
Shit.
This was getting bad.
Olive had attached herself way too much to O.
I should’ve taken her to Justin’s so she could bond to him instead. How the hell was I supposed to dump her on him when I got sentenced and expect her to be comfortable living with yet another strange man?
Fuck.
My phone rang, vibrating in my pocket.
I didn’t want to answer it.
Nothing good ever came from answering my goddamn phone, but I pulled it out and climbed to my feet. “I’ll be a sec, okay?”
Olive nodded, pinning all her attention on her painting again. “Okey-dokey.”
Pressing accept, I walked away, answering the unknown number suspiciously. “Hello?”
“Gilbert Clark?”
“Who’s this?”
“This is Brad Scott from Scott, Smith, and Grampton. I’m calling to inform you that a court date has been set, and you’re expected to be at the crown court in six days’ time at nine a.m. sharp. Please be presentable and prepared. I request we meet tomorrow to go over your testimony and explain in detail what to expect.”
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
“Six days?” My heart sank to my toes. “That soon?”
“They’ve hurried your trial. These things happen with high-profile murder cases, especially when pressure is put on the system by the public.”
I rubbed my mouth, spinning to face Olive who sat innocently on the blanket. “How long with the trial take?”
“Not sure. Depends how much evidence there is to present. You’ll be subjected to a jury trial. Your verdict might be given that day or it might take a week or a month, who knows. I’ll be able to advise more once we’ve sat down, and you’ve answered my questions.”
“Questions?”
“We’ll run through a fake trial. I’ll pretend to examine you, you answer, we get our ducks in a row, and you’ll be prepared for the real thing. Sitting in a courtroom can be scary business, Mr. Clark. It’s my job to ensure you’re ready and nothing goes wrong.”
I couldn’t stop looking at my daughter.
I wanted to be fucking sick.
“What if I’m found guilty? Will I be sent to prison straight away?”
Brad made a noise; paper shuffled in the background. “I’m afraid so. It’s best to get your affairs in order and prepare your family, just in case.”
Pacing the soft grass, blanketed by warm sun, I asked as quietly as my nerves would allow. “Do you think I have a chance of walking out of there?”
After a long pause, Brad muttered, “You killed a man, Mr. Clark. It might’ve been in defense of Olin Moss being assaulted, but the fact remains, you took a life.”
“He held my daughter hostage for over a year.”
“He was your family.”
“He was a liar and a traitor.”
“So you say.”
My hands curled. “What are you implying?”
“I’m implying nothing. Just showing you how the court will be. No one will be on your side, Mr. Clark. Except me.”
“So you believe I deserve to go to jail?”
He sighed with exasperation, as if he’d had this conversation with so many criminals. “It’s not about what I believe. It’s about what the facts prove. I’ll do my
best to ensure they work in your favour. But you confessed to the murder. You are being lynched online. The possibility of this all blowing over and you remaining a free man are slim to none.”
Silence filled in the gaps.
I had nothing more to say.
He cleared his throat. “Tomorrow at my office. We’ll go through everything and I’ll make sure you’re prepared. Until then, enjoy today, Mr. Clark. Enjoy all your days because you might only have six free ones left.”
He hung up.
I stared at the traffic surrounding us.
I tripped back to Olive and collapsed beside my daughter just as a stopwatch started a countdown to the end.
Tick.
Tock.
It’s over.
Chapter Twenty-Three
______________________________
Olin
I DIDN’T KNOW how much longer I could take it.
Seeing Gil every day.
Having him in my house.
Watching the incredible way he loved his daughter.
Suffering a stupid heart that still wanted what it couldn’t have.
It was too much.
I needed space.
Time alone.
I needed to rein in my rapidly fraying life before I was left with tattered pieces and no hope of ever sewing myself back together again.
The civility between us was worse than fighting.
The fakeness between us far more draining than being honest.
But we couldn’t have a fight, and we couldn’t be honest because Olive was there.
Every night.
Every meal.
Every morning.
That sweet, adorable little girl who watched me and Gil with far too much understanding in her grey gaze. She saw what we were trying to hide. She heard what we weren’t saying. And it worried me because the longer we skirted around each other, pretending we could be friends when it was obvious that we couldn’t, the more Olive watched with a plan gleaming in her eyes.
The Living Canvas Page 21
