KATE
I wait on the porch and look up the road. “Where is he?” I glance at my watch. Richard didn’t bring me a letter yesterday . . . and he’s late today.
I didn’t realize how much Elliot’s letters brighten my day . . . or how much they mean.
I twist my hands in my lap as I wait. “Come on,” I whisper. “Where are you?”
What if he’s met someone else?
Regret fills me that I haven’t responded to him at all. I should have said something, if even only a thank you. What must he think with no correspondence back?
A car comes around the corner and I hold my breath-it’s a different car.
Red.
It’s not Richard. My shoulders slump with deflation.
The car pulls up to a halt outside my place and I frown as I watch. Who is it?
Elliot gets out of the backseat and my breath catches.
What?
He looks up and his eyes find mine . . . Oh.
Seeing him in the flesh opens old wounds and an unexpected rush of emotion sweeps through me. My eyes well with tears.
Glued to the floor, I stand and watch him as he leans in and takes out an overnight bag and pays the driver, and I want to run to him . . . and kiss him and tell him everything.
But my feet are set in concrete, frozen with fear. The hurt he caused me, magnified all over again. I thought my disappointment and anger were over-maybe not.
He stands on the curb with his bag in his hand, staring up at me, and as the car drives off, he gives me a soft smile.
And with my heart in my throat, I smile.
Oh . . . I’ve missed him so.
He slowly walks up the steps and I walk down them and we meet in the middle.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi.”
“I came to bring you home.” His eyes hold mine as he swallows a lump in his throat.
He’s nervous.
My eyes well with tears, because suddenly everything is crystal clear: he is my home.
Elliot Casanova Miles is the great love of my life, and I don’t know how it worked out that way, but I honestly don’t think I can go on without him. I wouldn’t want to.
“Took your time.”
A slow, sexy smile crosses his face, and he wraps me in his arms and holds me tight.
And he squeezes me and I melt into him as our lips touch.
“Don’t ever fucking leave me again,” he whispers.
“Don’t make me.”
He kisses me, his tongue slowly sliding between my lips as he holds my face in his hands and, oh . . . the way he kisses. I had nearly forgotten.
Elliot Miles kisses from his soul.
Every chink in his armor, every weakness he keeps inside, all the passion in the world. I can feel it all. And fuck, do I love it.
We kiss again and he pulls me toward him, hugs me tight in his arms as the horror we’ve been through becomes too much.
The emotion between us . . . too much.
Sacred.
“We need to talk,” he says as he takes my hand and leads me up the steps.
“I know.”
His eyes flick back to me as if questioning my statement.
Huh, what was that look?
I frown as uneasiness runs through me: he’s here to tell me something.
There’s more.
Did he sleep with his artist?
My heart begins to race as I brace myself. Somehow, I don’t think our reunion is going to stay happy.
We walk into the living area and he turns toward me. “Sit down, baby, I need to tell you something.”
I drop to the couch without question.
Thump, thump, thump sounds my pulse in my ears.
He goes to his overnight bag and takes out a large, yellow envelope and passes it to me. “Images of Harriet Boucher.”
“Who?” I frown.
“The artist I was looking for, these are the images that were sent to me from the private investigator.”
“Why would I want to see who she is, haven’t you hurt me enough with her?” I spit.
“Open it,” he demands.
“I don’t-”
“Open it,” he barks.
I open the envelope and pull out the large A4-sized photographs, and I frown.
It’s Elanor.
I flick through them-image after image of Elanor. Black and white, color, different locations.
I shake my head, confused. “I don’t understand.”
He passes me a white envelope. “These are the paintings I have bought at auction.”
I screw up my face; what the fuck is he going on about? “Elliot, I don’t-”
“Open it,” he barks.
Jeez, psycho . . . I open the envelope and my eyes widen. I flick through the images, confusion takes me over. I know these paintings . . . I did these paintings.
My eyes rise to meet his.
“All those years, all that time . . . it was you,” he whispers.
Goosebumps scatter up my spine.
He drops to his knees on the floor in front of me, takes my hands in his. “It was you who was calling me through those paintings.”
My eyes well with tears as my world spins on its axis.
“It’s always been you,” he whispers. “I knew in my heart that I was called to them for a reason. It’s you, Kate, you are the reason.”
I drop my head, overwhelmed. “I don’t . . . how . . . I mean . . .” I look up at him. “How did this happen?” I whisper. “I don’t understand.”
“Brad and I have pieced this together.”
“Brad?” I frown. “Brad knows about this?”
He nods and leans up and kisses me tenderly as if to soften the blow, but I can’t feel it. I’m numb.
“Elanor cleared out your parents’ house to hide a crime.”
My eyes hold his.
“She had been selling your old paintings from the attic at auctions using a pseudonym. And she knew that once you and Brad cleared out your parents’ house, her crime would be discovered.”
Horror dawns.
“What she didn’t count on, was that one particular art collector, me, would become obsessed with the paintings and hire a private investigator to find her.”
My chest rises and falls as I scramble for air.
“And she would have gotten away with it, too. If she hadn’t got greedy and wanted the fame that my name delivered.”
Elanor is the artist he met in France?
“She agreed to meet with the full intention of seducing me, but what she didn’t count on was that I was already in love with someone else, and I wanted nothing to do with her plan.”
I put my head into my hands. “Elliot,” I whisper.
He hugs me and pulls my head to his. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
A thought comes to me and I pull back to look at him. “How much did you pay for those paintings?”
He puffs air into his cheeks. “Around twenty million dollars.”
I put my hands over my mouth as my eyes widen in horror. “You idiot. Daniel is completely right, you do have more money than sense. They’re abysmal, Elliot.”