Exquisite by Elizabeth Hayley

Author:Elizabeth Hayley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2017-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Siobhan could only manage shallow breaths as her heart expanded and took up all the available room in her chest. She tried to read his body language, but with his tailored suit and his back to her, she couldn’t get any sense of how he felt.

He had sounded genuinely unsure. But, against her better judgment, she let a shred of hope seep into her. Because if he didn’t know what the future held for him, maybe there was a chance that Siobhan could still be part of it.

He rubbed a hand over his beard as he continued to stare at her paintings. “Seeing all this, laid out like this…it’s hard to believe we’ve known each other for less than a year. This is a lot to have gone through.”

Siobhan nodded even though he couldn’t see her. The truth was, despite the fact that she’d created the paintings for Derick, a part of her had thought he would never actually get to see them. “I think the depth of our feelings for each other came on so quickly that we condensed years of relationship-building into months.”

Letting out a short laugh, Derick turned his head slightly and flicked his eyes in her direction before facing the wall again. “We’ve definitely put each other through the wringer.”

Not being able to stand the distance any longer, Siobhan moved next to him. “Yeah, we have. But it was funny. When I was conceptualizing all of this, I felt like the bad moments would be where I’d feel the most emotion. That reliving them would be the most painful.” She turned and looked at him. “But they weren’t.” She gestured down toward the first few paintings. “The good memories were the hardest to paint because I knew I might never experience any more of them.”

“Listen, Siobhan, I get—”

But she lifted a hand to stop him. What she was saying wasn’t an excuse or a plea. It was merely a simple truth she’d uncovered as she’d painted their story. And she needed to share it with him before any other words were said. “When we fight, we fight hard.” She shrugged. “We’re passionate people, Derick. We’re opinionated, stubborn, and, at times, downright infuriating.”

He let out a soft chuckle at her description.

She grabbed the fabric covering his bicep and tugged until he turned to face her fully. “But we’re also dedicated. To our careers, to carving out the best life possible for ourselves, and—whether we like it or not—to each other.”

Derick’s eyes drifted away from hers but he didn’t dispute what she’d said.

Siobhan pointed at the blank canvas. “If you can look at that—if you can think about your future—and see someone else there, then I’ll walk away right now and never bother you again. But I need you to know that I can’t imagine anyone else in that picture with me. And I really don’t want that”—she gestured to the painting of the disconnected limbs lost in the fray of color—“to be how we end.”

She stepped in front of him, partially obstructing his view of the art on the wall.

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