“Now we have each other, don’t we?”
“DoI have you, Nick?”
“Yes, Faith, you do.”
She reaches up and strokes my cheek this time. “Ah Nick. I have to paint you again. You know that, right?” Her lashes lower and her hand falls from my face. I catch it, but she doesn’t open her eyes. I count seconds. One. Five. Ten. She sighs and seems to fall asleep. I sit there, staring at her, searching every line of her face, and I swear she grows more beautiful by the second. Her full cheeks. Her fuller lips. The confession that says she wants to trust me, even if she doesn’t quite yet.
“I don’t want to leave,” she murmurs, her eyes fluttering and closing again.
“Then don’t,” I say, pleased that the first confession came when she was sober, and this one comes when she’s just drunk enough to make emotional confessions.
She doesn’t respond. She’s dozing off again, and I stand and scoop her up. She curls into me again, her body soft in my arms. “Kasey—”
“Can handle the winery,” I say, already in the house and crossing to the stairs. “If he can’t, he needs to be replaced.” I start the upward climb. She’s silent until we’re almost to the top, and then she seems to remember the conversation.
“But the collectors,” she says. “I need—”
“You don’t,” I say, entering the bedroom. “Debate me after you take a nap, preferably after Wednesday, when I can return with you.”
“You’re very convincing when you’re holding me like this. Even with your clothes on.”
I laugh. “I’ll have to remember that.”
“That’s not the alcohol talking,” she murmurs. “I mean it.”
“Even better,” I assure her, setting her on the bed, which remains unmade. She plops onto the pillow. “My head is spinning,” she says, as I take her boots off. “I really hate being out of control.”
I lean over her and press my hands to either side of her. “No. You don’t. You hate always having to be in control.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because I know how to read people, you especially. And now you don’t have to be in control all of the time. You have me. And you don’t know it yet, or you don’t trust me yet, but I’ll take care of you.”
“No one takes care of me but me,” she says. “That’s just how it is.”
“Was,” I amend. “That’s how it was. Like I said. Now you have me.”
“Ah, Nick,” she whispers. “I don’t.”
“You don’t what?”
“Have you. At least, not all of you.” She traces my brow with her finger. “It’s in your eyes right now. It’s always in your eyes. The secrets I try to understand when I paint you…Things you don’t want to tell me.” Her lashes lower. “Maybe you will one day.” She inhales again and her breathing slows, evens, while my heart is racing. She knows I’m telling her a lie. She senses it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I stand up and shove fingers through my hair before walking to the door, and just as I would exit, she whispers, “Nick.”
I face her, and she’s looking at me as she says, “When you’re ready,” before shutting her eyes again. “I can wait.”
And therein lies the problem. I’m never going to be able to tell her. I’m never going to be ready to lose her. Because I need this woman. I need her like I need my next breath.
CHAPTER SIX
Nick
After leaving Faith in my bed, I end up on the balcony, where I sit down, pour the last glass of whiskey in the bottle and down it. What the hell is this woman doing to me? No woman has ever consumed me the way Faith has, and does. No woman has ever made me not just want her, but need her, like I need Faith. As I, in turn, need her trust that I do not deserve. Forced lies are killing me and most likely will kill us, a likelihood that only gets worse with each day I continue to let them become a divide between us. She senses it. She knows it. She knows me in ways people who have known me for years do not. I need to fix this. I’m damn good at fixing things. This can’t be the exception. I will make things right with Faith. I will make everything right in her world, including me.
Which is exactly why I left Faith sleeping this morning and got to work doing just that, including a long conversation with Beck. Pulling my phone from my pocket, my finger hovers over the auto-dial with his number, but I remind myself that I didn’t even send the man a copy of my father’s note until early this morning. He’s a damn good PI, but even he needs time to work. I punch Abel’s number instead, who, as of a few hours ago, became more than my friend and personal attorney. He’s now one of Faith’s attorneys as well. She just doesn’t know it yet. “Bring yourself and those documents I had you do up for me over here,” I order, when he answers.
“Have that bottle ready for me,” he replies.
He means the Glenlivet Winchester Collection: Vintage 1964 bottle valued at 25k that was gifted to me first by a client, and now by me to Abel for taking care of Faith. “It’s ready and waiting,” I say without hesitation, more than happy to give up a bottle of booze to ensure Faith knows she can trust me. Which is the role Abel is going to play in this web I’m weaving for her enemies.