The last time they’d been to the B&B, the weather had been much warmer, so seeing it covered in fluffy white snow was a completely different experience. No other guests were staying at the inn this week, so the parking lot was empty. Alexis must have used a plow on the snow when she heard from Gabriella, as it was cleared sufficiently for them to get both vans parked near the door.
Fisher and his men were out first and signaled for Evelyn and Liliya to come out. Gabriella got to the door just as it opened.
Béatrice’s smile widened as her eye jumped from face to face. “Gabriella! You brought friends!”
“There’s a story I’ll share with you shortly,” Gabriella replied.
Béatrice’s eyes widened as she looked higher at the smiling face of Zama.
“This is Princess Zama. And…” she turned to look back at the petite Vietnamese woman. “Moon?”
“Phan Thi Nguyêt, but Moon is fine,” the woman said as she nodded sweetly to Béatrice.
The ebony-skinned woman smiled with a distracted nod, then looked to Gabriella. “Part of the story?” she asked as she gestured for everyone to enter.
With a nod, Gabriella stepped in with the ladies following.
When Liliya and Evelyn joined them, Béatrice’s eyes widened, and Gabriella could see she was about to ask for the story. Alexis joined them, and her worried but stormy expression told Gabriella that something was wrong with Stephanie.
She glanced back at the door as she knew this reunion would be rocky.
When Ben stepped into the foyer, he closed the door behind him and turned to Alexis, whose face suddenly froze.
“Hello Alexis, Béatrice,” he said quietly.
“YOU!” Alexis finally gasped and rushed at Ben.
He put his arms out and blocked Evelyn and Liliya from intervening. Then Alexis was pounding his chest with her fists. Ben wrapped his arms around the woman and held her against him to stop the hits, but he didn’t say anything.
Alexis struggled, then suddenly burst into tears and sobbed against Ben’s chest.
Liliya slipped her boots off and followed Béatrice into a hall that led to the living room. The others quickly joined her, leaving Gabriella with Ben and Alexis.
Alexis finally got control over herself and mumbled against his chest. “She’s slowly fading away,” she finally managed to say clearly.
Gabriella saw rage or fear flare in Ben’s eyes, and he pushed Alexis into her arms as he surged down the hall toward Stephanie’s studio.
Alexis looked at Gabriella in fear, wanting to chase after him, but Gabriella held her cousin firm. She believed in Ben and his love.
-=-
Ben opened Stephanie’s door and stepped inside, closing it behind him with a thump. He wasn’t thinking of her need for privacy or any of the social niceties. His anger pushed those considerations aside as she’d done to him.
But when he saw her, he froze. She’d lost weight, and there was a frailness in her body language he hadn’t seen before. She was turning toward the door nervously.
“Who… who’s there?”
His voice stuck in his throat as it tightened in anger and outrage. The more she moved, the more aware he became of how much she’d lost.
He didn’t want that! He was angry, but he didn’t want her to slide into oblivion, slowly and painfully. In his memory, she was bursting with life and creativity, an almost elemental force of nature.
“Please… who is it?” she asked pitifully, reaching out timidly, and pain went through his chest.
This wasn’t what he wanted. His beautiful artist was giving up.
He still couldn’t speak, so he yanked his shirt up and over his head and moved closer until her hand landed on his chest.
She gasped and pulled her hand back in fear. Then her expression quickly changed, and her hand shot out again to land on his skin.
She traced a few scars, then burst into tears as her legs gave out.
Ben was ready for that and scooped her into his arms to pull her close. She pushed at him feebly.
“no… no… I don’t deserve to be in your arms….” she gasped through her sobs.
His voice suddenly came back, and with it came a growl. She froze and hiccupped, suddenly tense.
“I hate what you did to me,” he forced out. “But I don’t hate you. I need to know why you did it.” He gripped her blonde hair and pulled her head back to watch her expression so he could see the truth there.
Stephanie’s body was moving against him subconsciously, and her breathing was getting faster, but her self-loathing was battling for dominance.
“T-the night we were last together. It was… it was magic. I lost track of where you ended and I began. As we relaxed afterward, it was like my perception of you was sharper than it had ever been. Your passion… was humming through every cell in my body. I felt my muse explode with the need to capture that moment. It was so intensely intimate and intense. All other concerns, like sleeping and eating, paled against the need to preserve the memory of that passion.” Tears ran down her face as she stared up toward the ceiling, seeing what only she could.
“The next day, Alexis and Béatrice got me clay, but I told them I needed more. Richard made me a full-size armature and mounted it on a sheet of wood. I worked on the sculpture for over a week, almost non-stop. Alexis had to force me to take breaks to eat and sleep.” She sighed as she recalled the extreme effort. “When I was done, I collapsed and slept for what seemed like days.”
Ben ran his thumbs over Stephanie’s cheeks to dry her tears, but her words continued as if she was almost desperate to confess her sins to him.
“While I was in this state, Richard collected my sculpture and placed it on a remarkable rendition of a bed, complete with sheets. One of Henry’s friends is an art curator and was staying at their B&B. He saw what Richard was making into a bronze. He immediately contacted the Singhs and sent them a picture. They offered to buy it for a ridiculous amount of money… and Richard accepted.”
Ben shook his head in shock. “Richard sold your art while you were unconscious?”
Stephanie shrugged gently. “He was so overcome with excitement at how much they offered, he got carried away. He assumed I had your blessing since this was the second sculpture. Alexis assumed I’d given Richard permission to sell it and was dazzled by the price too. I was too mentally exhausted to grasp the significance of what was happening. Richard worked on the bronze morning and night for weeks and shipped it overseas the moment it was ready. Then he presented me with the bank deposit slip. By then, the piece had gotten away from me. I never even had a chance to inspect the final bronze and was eager to do so at the unveiling. I didn’t know you were there.”
Stephanie sagged as fresh tears began to fall, and she struggled feebly to free herself from his embrace, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“I’m so sorry, Ben! I never meant for it to be exposed to the public. I was trapped by my muse, and everything snowballed so quickly. You never deserved that, and I failed you so badly!”
Ben held her close to him and watched her face. Guilt and remorse flashed by there, and self-loathing, which disturbed Ben the most.
“I never gave you a chance to explain,” he said quietly as his grip on her hair changed to stroking his fingers through her locks. They were dry and brittle as she hadn’t been taking care of herself.
“You hated me. I felt it that night,” she whispered as if afraid to bring his anger back.
“I was horrified at the betrayal I assumed you had orchestrated. That put my mind in a dark place. I-I almost struck you. I can’t forgive myself for that,” Ben confessed with a tight throat.
“I would have welcomed it. Hurting you was the last thing I wanted when I made the piece, but I did. I tried to buy it back from the Singhs, but they wouldn’t sell it, even after finding out you didn’t approve of its creation.” She seemed to shrink in his arms once more. “I-I just want to die-”
Ben felt a stab of fear shoot through him, and he seized her face between his hands.
“NO! You’re mine! You’re my beautiful creative genius! You’re not allowed to give up! I won’t let you! I love you, and you are NOT getting away from me. You’re in my heart, and I need you! Don’t you EVER say that again!” he shouted.
Her mouth dropped open in shock. Then he was kissing her, and she moaned with need as her arms began to close around him tentatively as if she was afraid he would suddenly pop and disappear like a soap bubble or a figment of her desperate imagination.
But Ben’s need would not be denied. One hand remained gripping her hair, controlling their kiss, while his other slid down her back to grab her ass and pull her onto his lap. His mind was acutely aware of how much weight she’d lost and how frail she seemed compared to the last time they were together. It frightened him how close he’d come to losing her.
He pulled her back from their kiss. “Tell me who you belong to,” he growled.
She panted and gasped as she clung to him. “You?” It was a timid squeak.
“You’re mine! Tell me who you belong to!” he said louder.
“You! I’m yours!” This time it came out as a desperate cry.
“Never forget that! You will eat and sleep and create art because you are my brilliant artist, and I love you! I want you healthy and happy! But you will NOT sell any art you make of ME to ANYONE! Am I understood?”
“YES, OH YES! I’m sorry, Ben!”
“Enough! I don’t want to hear about past mistakes ever again. All we have is now,” Ben insisted.
“Yes, Ben!” Stephanie cried and clung to him.
He embraced her and felt her finally relax in his arms, which felt good. She still needed to regain the weight she’d lost. “We’ll ask Marie to fatten you up on Coq au Vin, and you will begin exercising to regain your strength. I want my Stephanie back.”
She made sweet little noises against his chest.
He finally began to examine the room he was in, and… he wasn’t thrilled by what he saw. Mostly it was him! The shelves and desks and window ledges were filled with clay representations of pieces of him. His head, arm, hands, feet, and even an area dedicated to his cock! That was particularly disturbing. Every available space contained something of him except for an obvious gap on the shelf devoted to his private bits.
“Um, I think your studio needs to be cleared out of all these bits of me,” he suggested.
“Yes, Ben. I don’t need them anymore.”