by JA Low
“You might be right,” Daniel comments sadly. “Remember a while ago before everything happened that I told you that Yves seemed jealous of you, of your success, of your life.” It was an interview Yves gave just before I found him with Elisabeth where he told the magazine that his dream was to be me. I shrugged Daniel’s comments about the article away at the time because I was flattered that he thought so highly of me, but now I see that he was telling the world that he wanted to be me and not a copy of me but actually me.
“But he has it all now.”
“Maybe having it all hasn’t fulfilled him the way that he thought it would,” Daniel adds. “Maybe he wants more.”
“How much more does he want? He has my wife, my career, my home.”
“Maybe it’s not about having it, maybe he enjoys the chase.”
“And now he wants Emily?” I sink onto my bed.
“Judging by what you’re saying happened in the garden, he must.”
“Fuck” I yell down the phone.
“She was so scared, Daniel. It took me ages to get her to stop shaking. I can’t put her through this. She’s innocent.”
“You want me to fire her over this?” he says angrily.
“What? No!”
“Good. One, it would be a HR nightmare, two, a PR nightmare and three, she is great at her job. Plus I’ve heard that you experimented with colour recently.” Of course he did, damn Gabriel.
“What has that got to do with anything?” Daniel chuckles at my defensiveness.
“Just saying it’s interesting.” I frown at him even though he can’t see me, I don’t make a comment. “Anyway, look, I think Emily is perfect for the job. I will make sure that we beef up security, that you don’t attend any events where Yves will be and if we have to I will give Emily a bodyguard. The best way to mess with this little prick is to show him you’re the real man and to bury him in art. Your exhibition needs to be your best work yet.” A small groan falls from my lips. “I’m not trying to put any more pressure on you, Louis, but…” He lets the words hang.
“But you want me to fuck his shit up.” This makes Daniel chuckle.
“Yeah, pretty much.” I let a smile form on my face, the first time all evening.
“Nothing like revenge to fuel creativity,” I joke.
21
Emily
The music is pumping, the lights in the club have started to sway. Is there a smoke machine? Why can’t I feel my lips? I don’t think I’ve drunk that much, have I? I stumble amongst the crowd. Where did my friends go?
“Stupid drunk bitch,” someone hurls in my direction.
“I’m not drunk,” I slur back. But maybe I am.
“Are you okay?” a male voice asks.
“Um, no. I…I don’t feel so well.”
“Let’s get you some fresh air.” The kind voice helps me, I feel arms wrap around me, making me feel safe. My body sags against his hard body. My legs begin to wobble but I’m able to make it with his help. I hear a door creak open and then the cool night air against my face, which feels divine. My blood feels like it’s on fire, bubbling underneath my numb skin. We keep moving even though we are outside.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m just taking you somewhere more comfortable.” I nod my head, which is pounding, I could really use a nap.
Everything's dark, I’m being tugged, I feel a hard body against me, my hands try and push them away but they just laugh.
“I’ve wanted you for so long, Emily. I knew one day you would notice me.” The voice filters through the darkness, a breeze blows across my skin, my vision starts to return, but my head hurts. I begin to struggle as I start to come to.
“Get off me,” I scream, but it sounds like I am in a tunnel. “Get off me! What are you doing?” I feel more tugging at my clothing.
“You’re mine, Emily, mine.”
I wake up with a start, my body is laced in sweat, my heart is pounding. I haven't had a nightmare about my attack in years, obviously tonight has brought it all back up in my mind. I jump out of bed and make my way into the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. I look like shit. My eyes are red raw from crying; my face is splotchy from the dream. I need a drink or two to get back to sleep. Making my way downstairs in the darkness, the house is quiet, there’s no staff because Louis gave them all the weekend off. My feet pad along the cool tiles, the only light coming in is via the moon. I make it into the kitchen and scream.
“Emily!” The male voice echoes through the darkness. I scream and fall to the ground, pulling my knees up to my chest. “Shit, Emily.” Louis is in front of me, but I can’t look at him. My whole body is shaking and I am trying to starve off a panic attack. “You’re safe. You’re safe.” Louis wraps himself around me, pulling me into his lap. “I’m so sorry I scared you. I didn’t think you would be up.” It feels good being in his arms, the hard plains of his body are pressed against me, my heartbeat slowly coming back to a normal pace.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Silence fills the void between us for a couple of moments.
“Me either,” Louis confesses. He pulls me tighter against him. We stay like that for a little while until Louis tells me his legs have gone dead, which makes me smile. I jump up out of his lap and he shakes his legs out.
“Sorry about that.” He waves me away.
“Did you want something to drink? Eat?” Louis makes his way over to the fridge again, opening it and the light fills the darkness. “I’ve got cheese, chocolate, maybe some ice cream in the freezer, fruit…”
“Actually, I could go a toasted cheese sandwich.”
“Consider it done.” He tells me to take a seat and I do. I watch as he moves his way around the kitchen, the muscles across his back tensing and moving as he prepares my sandwich. I take in the sight, he looks magnificent, the women would be swooning if they saw him cooking in next to nothing. An idea springs in my head.
“Hold on.” I tell him and rush back to my bedroom and bring down my phone. He’s still working by the cooker. He looks up at me and frowns when he sees my phone. “I just want to get a photo.” His frown deepens. “The women on your Instagram are going to wet themselves when they see this.” He just shakes his head and ignores my craziness. I snap a couple of photos and I’ll upload them in the morning.
“Are you pimping me out?” Louis asks, placing the sandwich in front of me.
“Yeah, totally.” I smile, waiting for my sandwich to cool down. “Look at you, the women go crazy for it.” Louis’ blue eyes hold mine.
“You like what you see?” His question surprises me.
“Do you need your ego stroked again?” I sass back, then quickly take a bite of my sandwich, the burning hot cheese hits my mouth and scolds it. His eyes never leave me and his stare is utterly intense. I feel totally awkward.
“No. I was just curious, that is all.” Is he flirting with me? “I think that you are a very beautiful woman.” My cheeks turn an instant shade of red, and I can’t look at him. “Hey.” He steps closer, his hand comes out and lifts up my chin. “Do you not like compliments?”
“I’m not used to getting them,” I confess. His hand drops away and he steps back to his sandwich, he takes a bite.
“Did your partner never tell you how beautiful you are? I shake my head. “How your smile lights up the darkest days.” No. Toby never did that. “That your laugh is the best sound in the world.” Yeah no. He hated my laugh. “Did he have a big dick?” I choke on my sandwich at Louis’ question.
“Um no.” Louis frowns and his blue eyes stare at me.
“Then why the hell were you with him?” I shrug, I’ve been asking myself these same things.
“I don’t know. I think we kind of just started dating, got into a routine and continued until…” We all know what happened next.
“Was there any passion?” I shake my head, thinking back I don’t remember a time when I looked at Toby and wanted to rip his clothes off.
�
��I think you are lucky he cheated, you deserved more.” I look up at him and he gives me a smile, it lights up his face. Damn him, he is gorgeous.
“I’m starting to see that now.” I give him a small smile. Silence falls between us as we eat our sandwiches. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“You can ask, whether or not I answer is another thing.”
“How did you meet Elisabeth?” I’m guessing my question was not what he was expecting from the stillness that falls over him.
“I think I am going to need a drink to tell this story.” We place our plates in the sink and he takes me through to his bar area. “Tequila okay?”
“Wait.” I stop him, my hand touching his. “If this starts you on another bender then I don’t want to know, okay?” I just got this good version of Louis and I kind of want to keep him.
“I promise. No bender from me.” He gives me a reassuring smile.
“Okay, then I’ll take a tequila.”
22
Louis
I hand her the tequila shot and take a seat at the opposite end of the sofa from her. I grab the throw rug and give it to her, she snuggles into it. We both throw back the shot and I pour another. If she wants to talk about Elisabeth and it takes her mind off of what she’s been through then I’ll take one for the team.
“I met Elisabeth six or seven years ago. She was the mistress of my mentor.” Emily’s eyes widen. “I know. Karma, right?” She frowns at my lame joke. “Anyway, we started off being friends. She was my mentor’s partner one of five he had at that time.”
“Five?” I smile at her shock.
“Yes. He has his wife Ellie and five mistresses, who he changes whenever their time has run out.”
“Men!” She rolls her eyes at me.
“He’s an artist. We are lovers.” A small smirk forms across her face as she takes a sip of her tequila. “Anyway, we started spending more and more time together as we were closer in age than she was to him.”
“Of course.” She rolls her eyes.
“Stop being judgmental.” I waggle my finger at her, she zips her lip and pretends to throw away the key. “So we would spend all our time together like we were in our own little bubble, I know Victor noticed.”
“Victor Kazalausks?” she questions.
“Yes. He was my mentor.”
“Wow, I love his work.” Of course she does.
“I thought I was your favourite?” I tease her. She kicks me lightly but I grab her foot in my hands and hold it, she tenses for a moment, but then I let my fingers sink into her foot, finding the right pressure points.
“Oh wow.” Her head falls back and she closes her eyes. “That feels so good.” Her voice sounds relaxed. I want to tell her I can make her feel better but that’s for another time.
“Yes, Victor Kazalausks was my mentor, and Elisabeth was one of his many mistresses over the years.” She nods, enjoying my foot massage. “One weekend Victor was gone and he took everyone except Elisabeth with him, gave her some bullshit excuse and left.”
“He was pushing you together.”
“Yeah. The old man saw what was happening between us and I guess he wanted to see if something was really there. Nothing happened for a while until we got drunk at dinner, the obvious sexual tension between us snapped and we fell into bed with each other.” My heart aches a little bit remembering those times. I pour myself another glass of tequila, Emily is still sipping hers.
“What happened?”
“Once we had slept together my art took off. It was like I was finally seeing life in technicolor. The world seemed so bright and I was excited and inspired.” She nods. “When Victor came home we continued on, Elisabeth and I sneaking away whenever we could. But my art couldn’t hide the fact that Elisabeth was my muse. Maybe three months of us hiding behind Victor’s back is when he pulled me aside. He told me he could see that I was inspired, that my muse had come to me and that I was painting some of my best works. He then told me that sometimes we don’t pick our muses, but once we find them we shouldn’t let them go.”
“He gave you his blessing.”
“Yeah, he did. Weeks later Elisabeth and I moved out, got our own place and then my paintings really took off. I made my first big sale after that, we bought a house, we made a life. My star grew brighter and I thought I had everything I could ever want in my life.” I laugh sadly. “She threw how we met in my face when I caught her with Yves.” Emily gives me a sad smile. “She told me it wasn’t sex; she was just his muse. Didn’t help that I caught him using her like a human paintbrush, fucking her all over his canvases.” Emily’s eyes widen.
“That’s what his paintings are?” I nod at her; I can see the information sinking in. “Don’t you get paint everywhere, like you know…” God she is cute, this makes me laugh. Something I haven’t done about this situation before.
“Wasn’t my first thought when I caught them fucking.” I pour us both another tequila as she’s finally finished her shot.
“Do you still love her?”
“No.” Both of us are quiet for a moment, my answer falling more easily than I thought.
“Wow. Wasn’t expecting that answer.”
“Neither was I.” I grab the shot and throw it back. Both of us silent in contemplation.
“How did you meet Yves then?” I pour myself another shot.
“I found him selling his paintings in Montmartre, I could see the diamond in the rough.” Emily gives me a smile as she knocks back her shot. I pour her another. “Yves has had a hard life. His family were refugees from Algeria, he grew up in camps, moving around a lot until finally settling in Paris. When I saw him practically begging on the streets, selling these incredible paintings for next to nothing, I wanted to help. Elisabeth and I had set up our mentor programme by this time, we offered him a scholarship, free room, board and mentorship for his art. He’s never had a loving and stable home life before.” Emily moves forward, taken in by the story.
“Come here.” I motion to her. She gives me a strange look. “Just, please,” I say to her. She moves and settles between my legs, her back to my front, I pull the blanket around us as the cool night air breezes over us. I wrap my arms around her, absorbing her warmth, she snuggles into me, resting her head on my shoulder. “That’s better.” She gives me a lazy murmur.
“Now, where was I. Right. Yves. As the years passed by with him living with us, becoming one big happy artistic family, I didn’t think I could be happier. I thought of him as my brother.” She turns in my lap and looks at me.
“Sorry side note. Is Daniel your brother? You both have different surnames but he calls you his brother.” I smile.
“Yeah, he is. My half-brother. But that’s another story, might save that one for another night.” She nods and settles back down against me. “My workload increased over the years and I was away a lot more than I normally had been. Each time I came back I heard whispers, some of my staff had concerns about Elisabeth.”
“Like Gabriel.” I still. How did she know? “He told me.” She shrugs. I knew they were close but I didn’t realise they were that close.
“Yeah, like Gabriel. And of course I didn’t listen to them, not after Elisabeth got into my ear, told me they were jealous of my success, even convinced me that Gabriel was gay and that he was in love with me and that’s why he was making up these rumours about her.”
“Oh my God, Louis, that’s…”
“I know. And I fell for it.”
“She was your wife, of course you would have. How would you have known what she really was like?” Emily and I look at each other; I like that she gets it.
“Elisabeth was always a flirt. But I thought she was just being the life of the party, I never realised until recently what her flirting consisted of.” I was such a fool. “I started to notice how close Elisabeth and Yves had gotten with my trips away, but he was like family so I never suspected. But I noticed things like how he has slowly become competitive with me, wi
th each painting sold, especially the more expensive ones, the more his confidence soared. He would joke that he was going to take my place one day, that everyone would be talking about him, just in the same way they talk about me.”
“That’s some single white female stuff there.”
“Yeah. I think you’re right. Especially after tonight.” A shiver runs down Emily’s skin at the mention of Yves’ attack tonight.
“You think he hates you that much he would…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. I turn her face to me.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Emily.” She gives me a sad smile. “I mean it. Daniel and I are organising extra security for you, even a bodyguard for events.” She turns and looks up at me, those green eyes widen.
“That’s a little overkill, don’t you think?” I shake my head.
