My Sweetest Agony, page 20
“Stop.” Cam’s command comes low, deep, filled with the absolute potency to end my spiraling with that simple word. His hard eyes bore into mine, holding me captive, preventing me from looking away. “Nothing that happened between you and Drew was a lie. None of it. When I walked into the yard that night, I already knew all about you. I had already seen all his pictures from your first several dates. He had sent me your goddamn social media links so I could check you out because he was already falling in love with you. He told me that he knew you were the girl he was going to marry after he met you the first time, remember?”
I nod.
Cam had told me that the last time I melted down about the secrets Drew was keeping, and I believed him then.
But that was before.
Now, I know the truth about the start of our relationship, and it makes everything after it seem so tainted.
“He was obsessed with you from day fucking one, Ivy, and all he ever wanted was to be with you. So, none of it was a lie. None of it.”
“But—”
His eyes sharpen even more, leaving no room to argue with him further. “No buts, Ivy. I was the selfish fucking prick. Anything Drew did after that point wasn’t about my betrayal or some game; it was about how he always felt about you. And I need you to understand and believe that.”
The way he emphasizes the word need. The forcefulness of his stare and voice. The wall of emotions that appears to be bottled up behind his gaze and ready to unleash, all send goosebumps skittering over my skin.
My chest tightens, my lungs threatening to stop as I try to swallow through the sob that wants to slip out and embarrass me in front of all the customers in the diner.
Several people already cast furtive glances at us, and I’m sure I look a mess after what we did last night—and this morning.
And I am a mess.
Far more than what I must appear like on the outside.
Tears blur my vision, then slide hot down my cheeks. “He lied to me about so many things…”
Cam presses his lips together tightly. “Only because I forced him to.”
I shake my head. “You never forced him to do anything. He could have told me that night. He could have told me any time. He could have explained it to me when I asked him what happened between the two of you, why you had your falling out. He could have said, ‘Because he fucking kissed you and fingered you in our mom’s backyard.’”
Cam flinches slightly, but now that I’ve started, I’m not sure I can bite back the anger from bursting out.
“He could have told me. He had four years to tell me. You could have told me.”
At least he has the decency to look contrite, running a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. But he doesn’t offer any explanation for their silence on the topic.
The mystery of Camden Usher was so enticing, something to unravel and explore, but now I’m just frustrated with his inability to come clean, even when we’re already airing out his dirty laundry.
I fist my hands on the table. “Didn’t he ever want to?”
That kind of secret would have crushed me.
I couldn’t have kept something like that from the man I loved.
“Of course he did, Ivy.” Cam slowly shifts, scrubbing his hands over his face. “He wanted to come clean with you from the beginning.”
But he didn’t.
Drew left me in the dark about something so important—not only to me but to us. To his family. That night changed everything for everyone he loved, and its ripple effect continues today. Nancy still doesn’t understand what happened between her sons or why Cam won’t come home to her, and it all stems from that one moment in time.
And in my heart, the fact that Drew kept it from me is just as bad as what Cam did.
“Then why didn’t he?”
I try to keep the anger out of my voice, but apparently, I fail because Cam winces.
He fingers his mug again, drumming his nails along the side of the chipped ceramic. “He didn’t tell you because I made him believe that he would lose you if he did.”
“What?”
Cam stares at his coffee, which must be cold by now, unable to look at me, his jaw clenched. “I told you I was a prick, Ivy. I was so wrapped up in what happened between us that I didn’t think about the consequences for you, for him. And when he sent me that text, I told you I didn’t apologize, but…” He releases a troubled sigh, finally looking up at me with regret in his gaze. “I replied and told him that the connection we had was so instantaneous and real that he would never have with you what I did in those twenty minutes we sat there together.”
I gape at him, unable to reconcile something so vicious with the man who has been so giving and kind to me.
“I was a different person back then, Ivy, and I’m not proud of what I did or what I said to him.” He rubs his palm across his stubbled cheek. “He probably believed it. Probably thought that he didn’t stand a chance against me because he always thought I had such an easier time than he did with women. That’s why he didn’t come clean with you. It’s why he cut me off. Not only because I did the unforgivable but because he would never risk losing you by telling you the truth.”
Fuck.
I squeeze my eyes closed and run my hands through my hair, dropping my forehead to the table.
Several minutes pass by with just the noises of the diner—clinking silverware and plates, laughter, voices, orders being called out—floating through the air.
Cam gives me time. He gives me space. He lets me process everything in my own way, even when I don’t doubt he has more to say.
When I finally lift my head again, he’s watching me cautiously. “Do you think he ever would have told me?”
He offers a shrug. “I don’t know.”
“After he died, I knew he had been lying to me about stuff.” I shake my head. “But this?” I release a little laugh that doesn’t hold any humor. “Never crossed my mind.”
“I don’t want you to keep questioning your life with him.” His voice cracks, and he swallows down the emotion. “I told you the other day he never would have cheated on you, and I mean it. The whole love-at-first-sight thing doesn’t happen very often, but it did for him.”
Cam looks at me with so much unbridled passion in his gaze that my breath hitches.
And me.
He doesn’t say those words, and if he did, I’m not sure what I would do with them right now, but they’re still there in the way the blue seems to ripple and heat the longer he stares at me.
“He never would have done anything to lose you, Ivy, even if that meant lying to you. You may not agree with it, you may be pissed at him for it, but he had a reason. And it was because he loved you from day fucking one.”
The vehemence in his statement helps shatter some of the anger I’ve let build up over what Drew kept from me. Because somehow, somewhere deep down, I do believe what Cam says.
I saw it in the way Drew looked at me, felt the way he touched me, experienced the way he made love to me, and just loved me every day.
I saw it.
I felt it.
But I also felt what I did with Cam that night—that electricity, that spark, that undeniable draw that allowed me to throw inhibition to the wind and let him do such decadent things to me right out in the open.
And that thing I felt is what convinced me that Drew was the right man for me.
Would that have even happened if Cam hadn’t been there?
If he hadn’t come along?
If he hadn’t touched me like that?
I suck in a long, slow breath and release it, trying to force myself off that path of thought, because if I go down it, I’m not sure how I would get back.
“Please, don’t ruin your memories of your life with Drew because of something stupid I did. Just don’t.”
“I’m trying really hard not to, Cam, but—”
“I know.” He nods, sympathy wetting his gaze. “And I’m sorry for that. For ruining what you had with the truth. I never would have told you but…” He swallows hard, looking down at his coffee rather than at me. “But you deserved to know, especially after the other night.”
When we said goodbye to Drew…
And reawakened something that maybe should have stayed dead…
But even as I think that, my body buzzes with memories of the way he held me when we returned from the shore and let me cry, how he touched me and sent me flying because it was what I needed in that moment, even if it was wrong, the way he fell apart with me after and let down his guard.
“Why didn’t you tell me then?”
He works his tense jaw, the conversation clearly getting under Cam’s skin. “Because you were already breaking after going to the shore. There was just no way I could do that to you. But I wasn’t about to let what happened that night ever happen again…until you showed up last night and you discovered the truth, until you knew what you were doing. For both of us.”
“What was I doing?”
The corners of his lips curl into a sad smile. “Opening the floodgate…”
Opening the floodgate…
It’s definitely a very good description of what happened both that night and in the last twelve hours.
Because Cam is a force of nature.
Dangerous. Brutal. Destructive. But also staggeringly beautiful in a dark way that threatens to consume me.
And I don’t know how to stop him from doing just that.
Or even if I want to stop it from happening.
“Promise me you’ll stop letting yourself get wrapped up in your head, Ivy.”
The plea in his voice, the strain of so deeply caring and not wanting to see me suffer, proves that he isn’t the horrible person he believes himself to be. His goal right now isn’t staking a claim on me, nor rubbing in the fact that he “had” me first. He’s worried about my memories of Drew and how he will stay with me for eternity. His focus is on ensuring I never forget that love.
Something I am desperately trying to do…
I’ve spent months wallowing in my grief over losing Drew, so allowing any other emotion seems like such a relief. And holding on to the anger at few for lying to me for so long rather than that pain is so much easier.
Cam told one lie. A really fucking big one. But Drew told years’ worth.
And that’s something I’m going to have to get past if I ever want to be able to concentrate on all that we did have that was real.
“I’ll try…”
“Good.” Cam glances out at the street through the massive window to our left. “It’s your day off, right?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“I want to take you somewhere today.” His cheeks pinken with an almost embarrassed blush that I have never seen from him. “I want to show you something.”
“Okay…”
He pulls my hand into his, the warmth seeping into my skin, grounding me while it simultaneously sets my heart racing. “I want you to know me, really know me, and that’s hard for me to do with anyone. But you deserve it, Ivy.” His grip tightens. “You deserve so much more than I can give you…”
The pain lacing his words twists like a knife in my chest, and I squeeze his hand, pulling it closer to me. “Don’t talk like that.”
Cam’s lips tilt into a crooked half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “But it’s true.”
It may be.
And Cam may be fucked up in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend.
But I don’t think there’s any way that I can look at Cam and not see his many dimensions.
Like his paintings, there isn’t just black and white.
There are a thousand shades of gray in his art and in Camden Usher.
26
IVY
The vast hall surrounds us.
Towering ceiling.
Highly polished floors traversed by thousands over the years to see the art lining the walls.
Masterpieces going back hundreds of years.
Some so stunning, they make me stop in my tracks—which I suppose is the intent the artist had in the first place.
A group of kids here on a school field trip dashes past, giggling as the teacher chases them and whispers at them to slow down and be quiet, and Cam tightens his grip on my hand, tugging me forward and leading me confidently around the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Just like he was with his brushes in hand, Cam seems to know exactly where he wants to go, weaving through the maze of hallways and galleries as if he’s memorized them.
I scan the works on the walls as we pass, trying not to get too distracted by them when Cam clearly has something specific he wants to show me. But that’s hard, given my newfound respect for the art world that suddenly developed in the last twenty-four hours. “I haven’t been here in probably twenty years.”
Cam grins, giving my hand a light squeeze. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
Raising a brow, I allow him to move me through another gallery, past several groups on tours who stand intently listening as the guide talks about various pieces of priceless art. “Why is that?”
He shrugs. “It’s kind of one of those ‘you go once, you see it, and you’re done with it’ kind of thing for most people.”
Sadness laces his words, and he doesn’t have to explain why that thought is so depressing for him.
This man’s life revolves around expressing himself through his art.
Paint and canvas—or a bare wall in a city somewhere around the world—are his entire focus.
To think people don’t appreciate it—despite the notoriety he’s gained with his works—has to hit squarely in the gut.
“But not you?”
Cam shakes his head, the corner of his lips twitching slightly. “I still vividly remember the first time I came here. I was six and on a first-grade class field trip.” He stops walking and pulls me to the side, out of the way of the flow of patrons, and points across from us to a Monet. “I saw that, and my heart just stopped.”
“Really?”
But looking at it, I can see why.
The loose brushwork, fleeting moments of light and color, all combine to create a stunning landscape that somehow screams to be looked at, even with the muted palette and soft touch.
He gives me a moment to examine every detail of the painting, and the longer I stare at it, the more my eyes start to burn with unshed tears.
When was the last time I stopped and looked at something just because it was beautiful?
Day in, day out, I’m surrounded by life—flowers, plants, endless greenery—and I spend my entire career putting together bouquets and arrangements to celebrate the love people have for each other, but at some point, I stopped seeing it.
And I know exactly when that happened.
It was the moment I got that call from Nancy.
The second I knew Drew was gone, so was my ability to appreciate anything beautiful anymore.
Cam wraps his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder, his lips feathering over my ear. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do—create things that were that beautiful. I didn’t know what a soul was at that point, but I understood what looking at it did to me”—he presses his hand over my heart, which picks up its beat under the warm press of his palm—“here.”
A single tear falls from my eye, and he leans in and kisses it away so gently that I practically collapse back into his hold.
I don’t know how long we stand, looking at this single painting.
Minutes…
An hour…
People stream past us.
More school groups.
Couples with their hands clutched or arms linked.
And still, I can’t look away.
The longer I examine it, the more I see those little details and expert precision that make it so breathtakingly spellbinding.
Cam finally squeezes me, breaking the spell, and I glance back at him.
“Is that what you wanted to show me?”
He shakes his head and drags his lips over mine so softly it makes my knees quiver. “No. Come on.”
When I climbed onto the back of his bike, he was very cryptic about why he was bringing me here, and even now, he seems tense, like whatever his reason, he isn’t quite sure he wants to expose it to me.
Given everything he’s revealed since I showed up at his studio last night, thinking about what that could be has left my stomach churning even more than it did earlier at the diner.
Cam takes my hand in his again and leads me around a few more corners until we pause in front of a massive canvas that drags my eyes up and up and then across its vast size. “This is what I wanted you to see.”
It takes me a few seconds to truly take in what’s hanging in front of us, the macabre scene tightening my gut the longer I stare at it. “What is this?”
A naked man sprawled out…
Chained to a rock…
With a hawk yanking what appears to be intestines from a cut in his side…
Cam stands behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Prometheus.”
“The titan?”
He nods, pressing his cheek to mine. “This is Prometheus Bound by Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Snyders. It depicts the torture Zeus inflicted on him after he gifted man with fire and the arts.”
I slip from his hold to move closer, examining every facet of the breathtakingly disturbing piece.
Despite the violent imagery, there’s something so beautiful about it that I can’t tear my eyes away.
Cam shifts to my side, staring up at it. “It’s my favorite painting.”
“Here?”
He shakes his head. “Anywhere. I’ve been to the Louvre more times than I can count, and to just about every other fine art museum in the world over the last fifteen years, but I still come back here, to this one, to this painting, for the feeling I have right now.”
I glance over at him, the way his eyes rake over the image with so much fascination, reverence, and appreciation. “Which is what?”
It’s what I’ve been wondering all day, ever since I woke in his bed and his arms…
At breakfast, he pushed me to face the questions that were plaguing me, spent an hour trying to get me to accept that the life I thought I knew with Drew was real.
I nod.
Cam had told me that the last time I melted down about the secrets Drew was keeping, and I believed him then.
But that was before.
Now, I know the truth about the start of our relationship, and it makes everything after it seem so tainted.
“He was obsessed with you from day fucking one, Ivy, and all he ever wanted was to be with you. So, none of it was a lie. None of it.”
“But—”
His eyes sharpen even more, leaving no room to argue with him further. “No buts, Ivy. I was the selfish fucking prick. Anything Drew did after that point wasn’t about my betrayal or some game; it was about how he always felt about you. And I need you to understand and believe that.”
The way he emphasizes the word need. The forcefulness of his stare and voice. The wall of emotions that appears to be bottled up behind his gaze and ready to unleash, all send goosebumps skittering over my skin.
My chest tightens, my lungs threatening to stop as I try to swallow through the sob that wants to slip out and embarrass me in front of all the customers in the diner.
Several people already cast furtive glances at us, and I’m sure I look a mess after what we did last night—and this morning.
And I am a mess.
Far more than what I must appear like on the outside.
Tears blur my vision, then slide hot down my cheeks. “He lied to me about so many things…”
Cam presses his lips together tightly. “Only because I forced him to.”
I shake my head. “You never forced him to do anything. He could have told me that night. He could have told me any time. He could have explained it to me when I asked him what happened between the two of you, why you had your falling out. He could have said, ‘Because he fucking kissed you and fingered you in our mom’s backyard.’”
Cam flinches slightly, but now that I’ve started, I’m not sure I can bite back the anger from bursting out.
“He could have told me. He had four years to tell me. You could have told me.”
At least he has the decency to look contrite, running a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. But he doesn’t offer any explanation for their silence on the topic.
The mystery of Camden Usher was so enticing, something to unravel and explore, but now I’m just frustrated with his inability to come clean, even when we’re already airing out his dirty laundry.
I fist my hands on the table. “Didn’t he ever want to?”
That kind of secret would have crushed me.
I couldn’t have kept something like that from the man I loved.
“Of course he did, Ivy.” Cam slowly shifts, scrubbing his hands over his face. “He wanted to come clean with you from the beginning.”
But he didn’t.
Drew left me in the dark about something so important—not only to me but to us. To his family. That night changed everything for everyone he loved, and its ripple effect continues today. Nancy still doesn’t understand what happened between her sons or why Cam won’t come home to her, and it all stems from that one moment in time.
And in my heart, the fact that Drew kept it from me is just as bad as what Cam did.
“Then why didn’t he?”
I try to keep the anger out of my voice, but apparently, I fail because Cam winces.
He fingers his mug again, drumming his nails along the side of the chipped ceramic. “He didn’t tell you because I made him believe that he would lose you if he did.”
“What?”
Cam stares at his coffee, which must be cold by now, unable to look at me, his jaw clenched. “I told you I was a prick, Ivy. I was so wrapped up in what happened between us that I didn’t think about the consequences for you, for him. And when he sent me that text, I told you I didn’t apologize, but…” He releases a troubled sigh, finally looking up at me with regret in his gaze. “I replied and told him that the connection we had was so instantaneous and real that he would never have with you what I did in those twenty minutes we sat there together.”
I gape at him, unable to reconcile something so vicious with the man who has been so giving and kind to me.
“I was a different person back then, Ivy, and I’m not proud of what I did or what I said to him.” He rubs his palm across his stubbled cheek. “He probably believed it. Probably thought that he didn’t stand a chance against me because he always thought I had such an easier time than he did with women. That’s why he didn’t come clean with you. It’s why he cut me off. Not only because I did the unforgivable but because he would never risk losing you by telling you the truth.”
Fuck.
I squeeze my eyes closed and run my hands through my hair, dropping my forehead to the table.
Several minutes pass by with just the noises of the diner—clinking silverware and plates, laughter, voices, orders being called out—floating through the air.
Cam gives me time. He gives me space. He lets me process everything in my own way, even when I don’t doubt he has more to say.
When I finally lift my head again, he’s watching me cautiously. “Do you think he ever would have told me?”
He offers a shrug. “I don’t know.”
“After he died, I knew he had been lying to me about stuff.” I shake my head. “But this?” I release a little laugh that doesn’t hold any humor. “Never crossed my mind.”
“I don’t want you to keep questioning your life with him.” His voice cracks, and he swallows down the emotion. “I told you the other day he never would have cheated on you, and I mean it. The whole love-at-first-sight thing doesn’t happen very often, but it did for him.”
Cam looks at me with so much unbridled passion in his gaze that my breath hitches.
And me.
He doesn’t say those words, and if he did, I’m not sure what I would do with them right now, but they’re still there in the way the blue seems to ripple and heat the longer he stares at me.
“He never would have done anything to lose you, Ivy, even if that meant lying to you. You may not agree with it, you may be pissed at him for it, but he had a reason. And it was because he loved you from day fucking one.”
The vehemence in his statement helps shatter some of the anger I’ve let build up over what Drew kept from me. Because somehow, somewhere deep down, I do believe what Cam says.
I saw it in the way Drew looked at me, felt the way he touched me, experienced the way he made love to me, and just loved me every day.
I saw it.
I felt it.
But I also felt what I did with Cam that night—that electricity, that spark, that undeniable draw that allowed me to throw inhibition to the wind and let him do such decadent things to me right out in the open.
And that thing I felt is what convinced me that Drew was the right man for me.
Would that have even happened if Cam hadn’t been there?
If he hadn’t come along?
If he hadn’t touched me like that?
I suck in a long, slow breath and release it, trying to force myself off that path of thought, because if I go down it, I’m not sure how I would get back.
“Please, don’t ruin your memories of your life with Drew because of something stupid I did. Just don’t.”
“I’m trying really hard not to, Cam, but—”
“I know.” He nods, sympathy wetting his gaze. “And I’m sorry for that. For ruining what you had with the truth. I never would have told you but…” He swallows hard, looking down at his coffee rather than at me. “But you deserved to know, especially after the other night.”
When we said goodbye to Drew…
And reawakened something that maybe should have stayed dead…
But even as I think that, my body buzzes with memories of the way he held me when we returned from the shore and let me cry, how he touched me and sent me flying because it was what I needed in that moment, even if it was wrong, the way he fell apart with me after and let down his guard.
“Why didn’t you tell me then?”
He works his tense jaw, the conversation clearly getting under Cam’s skin. “Because you were already breaking after going to the shore. There was just no way I could do that to you. But I wasn’t about to let what happened that night ever happen again…until you showed up last night and you discovered the truth, until you knew what you were doing. For both of us.”
“What was I doing?”
The corners of his lips curl into a sad smile. “Opening the floodgate…”
Opening the floodgate…
It’s definitely a very good description of what happened both that night and in the last twelve hours.
Because Cam is a force of nature.
Dangerous. Brutal. Destructive. But also staggeringly beautiful in a dark way that threatens to consume me.
And I don’t know how to stop him from doing just that.
Or even if I want to stop it from happening.
“Promise me you’ll stop letting yourself get wrapped up in your head, Ivy.”
The plea in his voice, the strain of so deeply caring and not wanting to see me suffer, proves that he isn’t the horrible person he believes himself to be. His goal right now isn’t staking a claim on me, nor rubbing in the fact that he “had” me first. He’s worried about my memories of Drew and how he will stay with me for eternity. His focus is on ensuring I never forget that love.
Something I am desperately trying to do…
I’ve spent months wallowing in my grief over losing Drew, so allowing any other emotion seems like such a relief. And holding on to the anger at few for lying to me for so long rather than that pain is so much easier.
Cam told one lie. A really fucking big one. But Drew told years’ worth.
And that’s something I’m going to have to get past if I ever want to be able to concentrate on all that we did have that was real.
“I’ll try…”
“Good.” Cam glances out at the street through the massive window to our left. “It’s your day off, right?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“I want to take you somewhere today.” His cheeks pinken with an almost embarrassed blush that I have never seen from him. “I want to show you something.”
“Okay…”
He pulls my hand into his, the warmth seeping into my skin, grounding me while it simultaneously sets my heart racing. “I want you to know me, really know me, and that’s hard for me to do with anyone. But you deserve it, Ivy.” His grip tightens. “You deserve so much more than I can give you…”
The pain lacing his words twists like a knife in my chest, and I squeeze his hand, pulling it closer to me. “Don’t talk like that.”
Cam’s lips tilt into a crooked half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “But it’s true.”
It may be.
And Cam may be fucked up in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend.
But I don’t think there’s any way that I can look at Cam and not see his many dimensions.
Like his paintings, there isn’t just black and white.
There are a thousand shades of gray in his art and in Camden Usher.
26
IVY
The vast hall surrounds us.
Towering ceiling.
Highly polished floors traversed by thousands over the years to see the art lining the walls.
Masterpieces going back hundreds of years.
Some so stunning, they make me stop in my tracks—which I suppose is the intent the artist had in the first place.
A group of kids here on a school field trip dashes past, giggling as the teacher chases them and whispers at them to slow down and be quiet, and Cam tightens his grip on my hand, tugging me forward and leading me confidently around the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Just like he was with his brushes in hand, Cam seems to know exactly where he wants to go, weaving through the maze of hallways and galleries as if he’s memorized them.
I scan the works on the walls as we pass, trying not to get too distracted by them when Cam clearly has something specific he wants to show me. But that’s hard, given my newfound respect for the art world that suddenly developed in the last twenty-four hours. “I haven’t been here in probably twenty years.”
Cam grins, giving my hand a light squeeze. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
Raising a brow, I allow him to move me through another gallery, past several groups on tours who stand intently listening as the guide talks about various pieces of priceless art. “Why is that?”
He shrugs. “It’s kind of one of those ‘you go once, you see it, and you’re done with it’ kind of thing for most people.”
Sadness laces his words, and he doesn’t have to explain why that thought is so depressing for him.
This man’s life revolves around expressing himself through his art.
Paint and canvas—or a bare wall in a city somewhere around the world—are his entire focus.
To think people don’t appreciate it—despite the notoriety he’s gained with his works—has to hit squarely in the gut.
“But not you?”
Cam shakes his head, the corner of his lips twitching slightly. “I still vividly remember the first time I came here. I was six and on a first-grade class field trip.” He stops walking and pulls me to the side, out of the way of the flow of patrons, and points across from us to a Monet. “I saw that, and my heart just stopped.”
“Really?”
But looking at it, I can see why.
The loose brushwork, fleeting moments of light and color, all combine to create a stunning landscape that somehow screams to be looked at, even with the muted palette and soft touch.
He gives me a moment to examine every detail of the painting, and the longer I stare at it, the more my eyes start to burn with unshed tears.
When was the last time I stopped and looked at something just because it was beautiful?
Day in, day out, I’m surrounded by life—flowers, plants, endless greenery—and I spend my entire career putting together bouquets and arrangements to celebrate the love people have for each other, but at some point, I stopped seeing it.
And I know exactly when that happened.
It was the moment I got that call from Nancy.
The second I knew Drew was gone, so was my ability to appreciate anything beautiful anymore.
Cam wraps his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder, his lips feathering over my ear. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do—create things that were that beautiful. I didn’t know what a soul was at that point, but I understood what looking at it did to me”—he presses his hand over my heart, which picks up its beat under the warm press of his palm—“here.”
A single tear falls from my eye, and he leans in and kisses it away so gently that I practically collapse back into his hold.
I don’t know how long we stand, looking at this single painting.
Minutes…
An hour…
People stream past us.
More school groups.
Couples with their hands clutched or arms linked.
And still, I can’t look away.
The longer I examine it, the more I see those little details and expert precision that make it so breathtakingly spellbinding.
Cam finally squeezes me, breaking the spell, and I glance back at him.
“Is that what you wanted to show me?”
He shakes his head and drags his lips over mine so softly it makes my knees quiver. “No. Come on.”
When I climbed onto the back of his bike, he was very cryptic about why he was bringing me here, and even now, he seems tense, like whatever his reason, he isn’t quite sure he wants to expose it to me.
Given everything he’s revealed since I showed up at his studio last night, thinking about what that could be has left my stomach churning even more than it did earlier at the diner.
Cam takes my hand in his again and leads me around a few more corners until we pause in front of a massive canvas that drags my eyes up and up and then across its vast size. “This is what I wanted you to see.”
It takes me a few seconds to truly take in what’s hanging in front of us, the macabre scene tightening my gut the longer I stare at it. “What is this?”
A naked man sprawled out…
Chained to a rock…
With a hawk yanking what appears to be intestines from a cut in his side…
Cam stands behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Prometheus.”
“The titan?”
He nods, pressing his cheek to mine. “This is Prometheus Bound by Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Snyders. It depicts the torture Zeus inflicted on him after he gifted man with fire and the arts.”
I slip from his hold to move closer, examining every facet of the breathtakingly disturbing piece.
Despite the violent imagery, there’s something so beautiful about it that I can’t tear my eyes away.
Cam shifts to my side, staring up at it. “It’s my favorite painting.”
“Here?”
He shakes his head. “Anywhere. I’ve been to the Louvre more times than I can count, and to just about every other fine art museum in the world over the last fifteen years, but I still come back here, to this one, to this painting, for the feeling I have right now.”
I glance over at him, the way his eyes rake over the image with so much fascination, reverence, and appreciation. “Which is what?”
It’s what I’ve been wondering all day, ever since I woke in his bed and his arms…
At breakfast, he pushed me to face the questions that were plaguing me, spent an hour trying to get me to accept that the life I thought I knew with Drew was real.
