His smile spreads, slow and vulpine. “Hmm. That’s some theory. Have you considered the possibility I merely find you interesting in a world in which very little interests me?”
“Maybe you also find ants interesting when they catch fire.”
He grimaces. “Lovely.”
I shrug, unapologetic. “You asked.”
“You really think I’m a sociopath?” Gideon chuckles, no offense in his tone.
I sigh. “Not really. A freak of nature? Yes.”
His chuckle gains volume, rolling warmly down my spine. And God, the sound is astonishing. Unencumbered. Authentic. I wonder what it cost him to claim that laugh. To be so secure in himself that he truly doesn’t care what anyone says.
Or maybe it’s all fake. He can’t be real.
The long night hits me with a sudden undertow. All at once, my feet throb, my back aches, and my eyelids become sandpaper. Since we walked into the gala four hours ago, it’s been nonstop handshaking, air-kissing, and superficial chitchat. Cocktails. Hors d’oeuvres. Dinner. Dessert. Auction and after-dinner drinks. Oh, how the rich love their extended evenings, energized by their own significance.
Everyone and their mother wanted to talk to Gideon Masters. Golden boy of art, prodigal son of the evening’s host. During the cocktail hour, he turned down over a million dollars’ worth of commissions.
With my help, he also dodged questions from several rabid entertainment journalists looking for something juicy. In the end my efforts fell short, and those weasels got their copy and back page photos anyway. Thanks to Gideon. When he dragged me onto the dance floor forty minutes ago, I went half-blind from the flashes. Sealing our fate as a tabloid sacrifice is the fact every time someone—male or female—has tried to cut in, Gideon has turned them away. Like we’re only interested in each other’s company.
What is his game?
“You haven’t been sleeping again,” he murmurs.
I ignore both the words and the worry in them. “Your wife visited my office on Wednesday.” Despite effort, my voice wavers.
Gideon laughs silently, breath puffing against my ear. “Ex-wife.” A pause. “Let me guess. She was pissed about me painting you.”
“Bingo.” I glance up, barely meeting his gaze before looking away. “Why didn’t you?”
“Didn’t what?”
“Paint her?”
A broad, warm hand slides across my lower back, anchoring me like he’s afraid I’ll bolt. I wouldn’t—won’t. I can’t even hear the music anymore. He’s the only reason I’m upright.
“I don’t paint what I love,” he says.
My lungs squeeze, shooting pain signals down my arms. I force a laugh, hating myself for the biological reaction. Hating that my heart somehow survived my childhood.
“Of course,” I snap. “Because that makes sense.”
“You don’t understand.”
His grip on my hand tightens, his other pressing hard to my back. We’re not dancing anymore. Couples glide around us, circling planets around the black hole we create.
“Look at me, Deirdre.”
I do, because I’m powerless. Weak. The realization is devastating, even though I already knew it for truth.
Gideon’s eyes simmer with feeling. Not love or even lust. Something more dangerous and damning than either.
“Snowflake—”
I cut him off, my words trembling with the vestiges of survival instinct. “You’re right, Gideon. I don’t understand. If jobs weren’t hanging in the balance, I wouldn’t be here. You and I—we’re not friends. I don’t trust you. I hate being near you. You’re… annoying. Self-serving and pompous. A brute. You mistakenly believe there’s some sick intimacy between us. Some… attraction? Devotion? Fuck that. You’re nuts.”
I try to pull away. His hold tightens further. Laughter brims in his eyes. Like he knows as well as I do that every word I spoke was a lie.
Just as abruptly, his gaze sobers. “You’ve never felt safe, have you?”
The words are a shock of cold. “Let me go,” I hiss.
He does.
For an instant, I regret it.
Then I stumble back, turn away. Push through startled couples, weave around tables littered with drinks and empty bread baskets and soiled napkins. Professionalism—my reputation, my career—is the furthest thing from my mind as I rush out of the ballroom, collect my coat from the lobby, and step outside.
Idling limos line the curb. One of them houses our driver. My purse and car keys. They all look the same.
“Dammit,” I mutter.
A shoe scuffs concrete behind me. I turn, unsurprised when I see Gideon. On his walk from the ballroom to the street, he loosened his bow tie and dragged hands through his ridiculous hair.
He sighs, gaze roaming but avoiding my face. We’re alone on the sidewalk, caught in a lull of exiting guests. I wonder if he said goodbye to his father.
“I don’t know,” he says at length.
I frown. “What?”
He finally looks at me, mahogany eyes glinting strangely. “I don’t know why I never painted her. Sometimes, I don’t know why I even married her.”
I take a step back, shaking my head. Words like that… I can’t afford to believe them.
“Stop right there, Gideon. I’m not going down this road with you. Boundaries, okay? Didn’t you hear me? We’re not friends. I’m your publicist. You’re—”
“Annoying.” He takes a step toward me. “Self-serving. Pompous. A brute.”
Another step and he towers over me, even my spiked heels no match for his formidable height. He could break me. Physically, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
I’m not afraid, though. Inexplicable—this feeling that swells inside me. As though the closer he is, the more relaxed I am.
You’ve never felt safe, have you?
He doesn’t know what danger feels like. He’s never been where I’ve been. Lived through what I’ve endured.
Goddamn him and his effortless superiority.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, and it comes out a strangled whisper.
His voice is just as low. “I’m still not entirely sure.”
I jerk when his fingers touch my face, the contact electric. Shocking. His thumb traces my cheek, his other fingers lightly gripping my jaw. With the lights from the hotel lobby behind him, his eyes are shadowed. Dark as sin.
“Come home with me, Deirdre.”
My breath catches, my body ignoring the divide between what I want him to mean versus what he surely does. Since I refused his offer to pick me up, my car is at his house. What he really means is, Don’t take a taxi, you idiot.
“Fine. But stop touching me. It’s confusing.”
I look away, annoyed at myself for revealing more than I wanted to. My face burns.
His hand falls, humor crinkling his eyes. “As my lady wishes.”
He gestures toward a limo down the line with its back door open.
Teeth clenched, I go.
17 compulsion
“My mother didn’t die in a car accident.”
The murmured words clash with the soft hum of the road. I stare across the back seat at him, unable to escape the abrupt unlocking of one of his secrets. Even as I tell myself I don’t want to know—don’t want the intimacy it will engender—my senses are poised to absorb his offering.
“She killed herself in the bathtub while my father was away for business. In case the bottle of pills didn’t do the trick, she followed it up with a razor to both wrists. I found her in the morning before school. I was twelve.”
My skin flashes cold. “Christ,” I gasp. “Gideon, I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head. “Not necessary, but thank you.”
Whereas moments ago his focus was intent on me, now he stares into the past. I recognize the blankness of his expression. I’ve seen it often in my mirror. Streetlights strobe over his face, alternating stripes of lightning and fire.
“A white-knig
ht complex, they call it,” he says on a sigh. “The pattern developed early on, my habit of trying to save people who can’t be saved. When I met Lucy, she was everything my psyche wanted—mentally fragile, emotionally volatile, spiritually adrift.”
I have no idea what to say, so I keep my mouth shut. The silence is thick, not with discomfort but with premonition. Something is changing between us. I honestly don’t know if I’m falling in love with him or if he’s becoming my best friend. Both options terrify me.
His soft, sardonic chuckle lifts goose bumps on my bare arms.
“Naturally, I thought I was saving her. She let me get her sober, put her life on track, introduce her to the right people in the fashion industry.”
Gaze on the passing cars, Gideon shifts in his seat. An innocuous flex of hips to free the tails of his tuxedo jacket. But I feel that movement like it was under me. Above me. Inside me. Against my lips.
Flushing, I jab the button to roll my window down.
“You think less of me now.”
“Not sure that’s possible.” My voice is sharp, my words acidic. I want to take them back but don’t.
Gideon doesn’t react or speak for long minutes. This time, the silence vibrates with tension. Not until the limo pulls up outside his house does he swivel to face me.
“Deirdre.”
Call me snowflake.
I grab my purse and discarded shawl. “Yes?”
“I know where your head went with all that, but I’m not trying to save you. That’s not what this is about.”
I freeze. Lift my head slowly. Feel our eye contact like a punch to my heart.
He’s telling the truth.
“What is it, then?”
He rubs hands over his face, shoulders bunched tight. Exhausted. Confused. I can relate.
“Do me a favor, Snowflake.”
Anything.
“What?”
“Keep me company while I paint. Just for an hour or so. I’ll make you coffee this time.”
He grins. Wiggles his eyebrows.
My face cracks a smile.
My heart cracks, too.
* * *
Steaming, oversized mug of coffee in my hands, I follow a newly dressed-down Gideon into his studio and hover near the door as he readies the space. He moves with easy grace, strong and limber, humming as he works. Adjusting lighting. Putting flame to half a dozen candles. Rummaging through drawers in one of those massive, freestanding industrial tool chests that’s been repurposed for paints and supplies.
Rapt, I watch him toss tubes of paint in a bucket along with rags, a rectangular wooden paint palette that has seen better days, and other implements I can’t name. Much more care is taken with brushes, a selection of which he tucks heads-up in the back pocket of his paint-splattered jeans.
Still humming, he approaches a haphazard stack of blank canvases propped against the wall. He flips through different sizes and finally grabs one, lifting it free and transporting it to an easel.
Bare toes tapping a rhythm only he can hear, he squirts and mixes paint on a tray with dexterity born of familiarity. When he’s satisfied, he stretches his arms over his head and bends his torso left and right. Muscles ripple under his threadbare gray T-shirt.
I could watch this all night.
My gaze lingering on his firm backside, I wonder how many women he’s allowed to witness this private ritual.
“Are you sure you don’t want to change?”
My head snaps up, cheeks heating when his smirk confirms he caught me ogling his ass.
Although I’d love nothing more than to cozy up in some of his clothes, I know better. I’m already slipping and sliding in a direction that will lead to nothing good.
Eventually I’ll throw myself at him, and I’m not sure I can handle the rejection. Let alone having to continue this farce of a working relationship for another five-plus months.
So I stay in my black satin and lace dress, designed to hide my scars. My falsely blond hair in an elegant updo. My makeup perfect. Diamonds glinting in my ears.
My armor.
Realizing Gideon is still waiting for an answer, I clear my throat. “I’m sure.”
“Suit yourself.” He gestures to a dingy plastic chair set up near the easel. “But stop lurking and sit. Talk to me. Tell me a story.”
I toe my heels off—my one concession to comfort—and pad across the floor, sinking into the chair with a rustle of fabric. I’ll probably stand up with paint dust all over me, but can’t bring myself to care.
Gideon tinkers with brushes. I watch his graceful fingers until he pauses, looking at me expectantly.
“Waiting on a story over here.”
I blink in surprise. “You were serious? Just put on some music or something.”
He points a brush at me, eyes dancing. “Your voice, mon bijou, is the only music I need.”
My laughter startles me. The sound of it, authentic. Unencumbered. For a moment, I feel the promise of a freedom I’ve never known.
His smile softens, becoming private. His eyes darken. “There you are.”
I roll my eyes to disguise my true feeling. My vulnerability.
“The only stories I know are sad ones,” I say, hoping he’ll dismiss the idea.
His gaze sharpens. “Any of them true?”
I nod, my skin tight. I’m standing on the edge of a cliff as it begins to crumble, with no memory of getting here. But I do know who brought me. I might hate him for it.
I might love him.
“Then happy or sad, it will be beautiful. Tell me a true story, Deirdre, and I’ll make art for you.”
18 depravity
Once upon a time, there was a girl who wore a mask. This mask was her own skin, crafted of delicate curves and innocent hues. Her real eyes, too, were disguised. Painted on as surely as her air of hesitant excitement.
They saw who they wanted to see—who they needed to see. A childhood friend who died. A lover from their youth. A fantasy of a life they would never live. But most of all, they saw beauty and innocence. And like flame to oxygen they came.
Consumed.
She was not alone. There was a boy, too, a special boy who was innocent in a way she had never been. Because of the goodness that clung to him, he was in more danger than she was. She worried for him, held him as he cried at night, after their door was locked and it was only them.
A year passed. Another. Then one day, the girl and boy did something they had never done before. When it was time for them to perform, instead they hid. They were tired of pretending. Playing the parts. Smiling and touching. Being touched.
They hid, but since there was nowhere to go—no way to escape—they were found.
The wrath of their master was great.
Because the girl was older and not as valuable as the boy, she took the punishment upon herself. But though she expected pain, this time was different. This time, she’d pushed their master too far.
She was his creation, and he had the right to unmake her.
And so he did.
* * *
Gideon is no longer painting but staring at a canvas streaked in blues and reds.
“And then?” he asks softly.
The air I suck into my lungs is thin, leeched of life through exposure—even minimally—to the past.
There’s no excuse for what just came out of my mouth. More than a shameful secret, it’s the key to a rusted, bloodstained door. As the only barrier between me and a lifetime in a windowless room, that door must stay locked. I know this.
Why am I knocking on it?
This man does something to me. Makes me want to remember, or forget, or destroy or create. I don’t know what I feel, confusion transcending my intellect.
Is any of this true?
Did all of that happen?
“Then,” I whisper, my gaze on his hand, poised with a brush-tip over the canvas. “The girl and boy escaped and lived happily ever after.”
“Ah, of course
,” he murmurs.
The brush touches the canvas, leaving crimson in its wake.
Awareness creeps in. The quiet room, stillness teased by ripples of sound. The paintbrush moving. My dress’s fabric as I shift. Sensation and taste. Cool air on my neck and coffee at the back of my throat.
This is real. I remind myself, even as I doubt. Perhaps this is real, but maybe I’m not.
“Tell me a story.”
My words, this time. My plea. Gideon lowers the brush, tossing it in a small cup, and faces me. He looks at me not like he’s never seen me before, but like he’s seen all of me. My naked center.
I hate it.
I love it.
“Once upon a time, for the first time, I met a woman I didn’t want to save.” His lips curve, eyes dark and humorless above the smile. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
Two steps bring him to me. He lowers gracefully to his knees before my chair. Fingers grip my thighs, spreading my legs apart to make space for his body. Electrocution. His nearness sizzles in my nerve endings. I gasp, eyes wide and mouth open.
“Gideon...”
He shakes his head, eyes soft—tender, even—their pupils dilated. He wants me.
“Let me,” he says, and I don’t know what he means until his hands drop and lift my dress from the floor.
I’m on fire before he even finds my bare skin. Hot, rough hands drag up my calves, seize my knees, and spread them.
Now I’m hyperventilating. Throbbing with knifelike precision, my arousal painful as he traces circles on my thighs. His fingers dip further inward with each circuit, a calculated, sensual assault. My eyelids dip, heavy, as I watch my gown ripple above his hands.
“Do you know Pascal? The French mathematician and theologian?”
Art of Sin: Illusions Duet : Book One Page 8
