Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
“No,” he said, lifting his fingers slightly from the table. “I’m not trying to rush you.”
“Yes, you are,” I said. “You got what you wanted, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still broken. It doesn’t mean the past didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean I’m not traumatized by that asshole sticking his head into my bedroom, the bedroom I had to sleep in because you decided to open our marriage to everyone on the street.”
He dropped his eyes and stared at the table. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive. I just…” He took a pause before he looked at me again. “I just miss you. I miss my wife. I miss what we had.”
Bolton had always been home for me. A place of safety. He’d elevated my standing in life, put me in a beautiful house, gave me more money than I would ever need. And he was handsome and smart and charismatic…perfect in every category. When I’d tried to leave, I’d cut my skin on thorns on the way out, had my heart smashed by bricks, and then the monsters crawled into my house. And Bolton was the only one there to save me.
“I can be patient,” he said. “I can be as patient as you need me to be, because you’re worth the wait.”
Several new paintings entered our inventory, and it was up to me to decide where they would be hung. We had different galleries by genre and time period, and if a painting wasn’t purchased within sixty days, it was rotated farther toward the back of the gallery. If it continued not to be sold, it ended up in storage until we had a shortage. Or if it was just a strange but respectable painting, it ended up in the basement where it would never see the light of day.
Until someone like Theo showed up.
The owner of the gallery rarely came by. When he’d first hired me, he was around a lot, but once he realized I could handle all the responsibilities without a hiccup, he promoted me to the manager position. There was one other girl here, and she was around mainly on the weekends so I could have that time off.
When no clients were in the gallery, it was just me, alone under the lights, surrounded by history. By loves lost at sea. By victors who got to write their histories. By flowers that bloomed gloriously for a breath then slowly wilted away.
Leather armchairs were positioned on the rugs throughout the gallery so patrons could take a moment to see how they connected with the paintings before they committed to the purchase. Some salespeople pushed for a sale the second a customer stepped foot inside the gallery, but I chose to let people take their time and have the silence to think. It resulted in more sales, so my boss thought I was this master salesperson, when in actuality, I just gave people time to breathe. Whether they bought the painting or not made no difference to me because my husband was insanely wealthy. I didn’t have to worry about a mortgage or a car payment. I had no money worries at all—just other kinds of worries.
I sat in one of the armchairs and looked at the newest addition to the gallery, artwork left to the gallery when the owner passed. She said her kids didn’t appreciate art, so she’d rather give it to us than let them shove it into a garage or sell it for pennies. It was painted by a famous French painter from the eighteenth century who captured the beauty of Versailles, occupied by the royal family. The gardens were in bloom and the structures tall. A lone guard stood at the top of the stairs. It was a simple painting, but I found myself staring at it for minutes without blinking.
“What do you think?”
I’d know that voice anywhere, because it was still in my dreams. My eyes immediately flicked to his as my heart squeezed in both pain and terror.
Theo stood there, his shoulders covered in spots from the drops of rain that had fallen on him during the walk from his Range Rover. His hair was slightly damp too. His dark eyes looked at me like I was the painting.
I’d never expected to see him again, assumed he would turn into a ghost that would haunt my hallways and my silence, and when he couldn’t haunt me anymore, he would turn into a phantom and invade my nightmares.
He continued to stare at me.
I stared back.
He moved to the armchair beside me then looked at the painting. “Is it new?”
I continued to stare at him, unsure why he was in the gallery, needing a moment to find the words. “Why are you here?”
He continued to look at the painting. “Versailles, right?”