I swallowed a breath, worried about the deal I’d struck with this blue-eyed devil. Collaborating with another artist was complicated enough, I knew I should keep the sex separate. “Do you already have a project in mind?”
He shot me half of a smile and tilted his head to the side. It was . . . strange. “Tell me how you’ll fix my sculpture.”
I was two-thirds of the way through my explanation before an odd sensation prickled through me. Alec was too busy nodding to notice I’d trailed off. He seemed to understand my thought process.
“You’ll flip both petals around,” he said, “and paint them as the fronts. That would work. It’ll hide the imperfections of the seam.”
“Yes,” I said.
He stared at the sculpture. “It would be exactly as you intended it.”
My heart raced, hyperaware at the clinical tone in his voice. “Yes. It’d be perfect.”
Time slowed as he stalked toward the sculpture and hooked a hand around the stem. Before he was about to do it, I sensed it. I felt it in the marrow of my bones. Alec’s gaze trapped mine.
“No,” I pleaded.
He ignored me. His bicep flexed as he yanked the stem forward, pulling the sculpture down. I stood dumbfounded as the yellow orchid pitched through the air and whooshed toward the hardwood. Like a fool, I tried to stop it, but I wasn’t close or fast enough.
The yellow petals were the first to impact the ground and exploded into a thousand pieces with a loud skittering of ceramic sliding across polished wood. The force thundered up the stem and it broke in three places, followed by a significant portion of the base. My spine cracked along with it and I sank to my knees.
The moss I had painstakingly recreated was reduced to broken lumps of painted stone and it exposed the chicken wire mesh beneath it. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes wouldn’t blink. A guttural wail of anguish reverberated from my chest.
Alec glanced at the destruction between us with indifferent eyes. He didn’t care that he’d just fucked me and destroyed me on the floor of his studio. I stared up at him, one hand clutched to the hole in my chest where he’d ripped out my heart.
“You said . . .” I forced it out between painful breaths, “you weren’t going to . . . destroy it.”
His shoulders lifted as he took in a deep breath, and his feet crunched on the carnage as he strolled to me. “And I haven’t. You and I are going to make it better.”
I shook my head in utter disbelief. “Are you insane?” I put my palms on the floor, gathering a handful of broken pieces and they clinked in my trembling hands. There was no way to fix what he’d done.
“Sometimes damaged things come out stronger in the end. This sculpture lacked restraint. What we’ll build together will be so much better.”
My vision faded to black for a moment with rage. “I’m not working with—”
“Oh, yes, you are.” His palm cupped my cheek but I jerked away. “I own you, Jessica Carnes. You already agreed to the work. Go back on that, and I’ll tell the cops,” he swung his arm out, gesturing to the disaster, “that this was all you. Whose word do you think they’ll believe?”
They’d believe his, absolutely.
I was a murderer. Destroying a piece of art would sound like a simple job for someone like me, and Maritza would side with Alec. I was trapped. Caged by this enigma of a man who had brought me pleasure and pain like no one else. I felt physically ill. Had he intended to destroy my art all along? Had he slept with me just to toy with my emotions? Damage me so I could come out stronger on the other end?
I glared up at him, feeling beaten. “You’re a monster.”
“Oh, Jessica.” His grin was cruel and my blood turned to slush. “That’s too small a word to use for me.”
-6-
FOUR MONTHS LATER
I swiped a towelette of makeup remover over my eyes, scrubbing away the mascara, and then peered into the mirror to make sure it was all gone. Satisfied, I placed my hands on the sink counter and let out a deep breath.
The show tonight had been a perfect success. I expected people would talk for the next two months about the sculpture Alec and I had created together. I was back. Jessica Carnes would once again have top billing and the estimated worth of my pieces had doubled.
I should have been happy. I should have been experiencing something like joy. Instead I felt hollow and my mother’s voice flitted in my mind. “It’s never enough. There’s no pleasing you, Jessica.”
I was trapped.
A hostage.