Revealing Us (Inside Out #3)(52)

Seventeen


I’m remarkably calm when I snap out of my stunned reaction to Chris’s declaration. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting on the tub, but my body is stif and cold.

When I inally stand up, I strip of my clothes and turn the shower on to scorching before I step inside. I need to think, and once my mind is working again, my perspective on what he’s said changes.

Chris loves me. I believe that. He told me I’m what got him through losing Dylan, even when I wasn’t with him. So, while my irst thought was that his reference to not being able to do “this” meant us, me and him, I don’t think that now.

I think he means the pain, the worry, the fear. I believe that it’s the moments when he’s felt “I can’t do this” that he’s ended up tied up and screaming for someone to whip him until he feels nothing else.

My poor damaged man. So brilliant and wonderful, and he can’t see it. He wants to leave Paris to protect me from more than outside danger—he’s still afraid I can’t handle who he is.

This hurts far more than his reactions today. I’m not leaving. We are not leaving.

The hot water is cooling, and I get out and dress in my favorite soft black sweats and a pink tank. Once my hair is dry, I resist the urge to look for Chris. He left here feeling out of control, and I need to give him time to get it back. Pushing him won’t get me the results I want.

Grabbing my laptop, I head to the leather chair by the window in our bedroom. I open the blinds of the massive arched window, so like the others in the house. Rain patters against the panes and I curl one of my bare feet beneath me. Needing a connection to at least one of the two people I wish were with me now, I begin my search for Ella by googling the name “Garner Neuville.”

Two hours later, the everlasting rain a soft hum on my rattled nerve endings and I’m lost in thought. What does one of the richest men in Paris want with Ella, who has no family and no money? I’ve tabbed through pages and pages about the thirty-two-year-old billionaire who inherited a fortune and turned it into a bigger fortune, and have to igure out an answer. I have no idea why Chris thinks this man is trouble, but I don’t doubt he knows what he’s talking about.

It makes no sense that Neuville would be looking for Ella, so this has to be connected to her iancé. I never liked David, never trusted him.

I set my computer on the loor and stare at the bedroom door, willing Chris to appear. It doesn’t work. I can’t just sit here. I have to attack the problems, not let them attack me.

I push to my feet. I’m going to ind Ella, and talking with this Neuville person is a good start. But I’m not doing it without Chris. He’s had enough time alone, and so have I.

Now it’s our time.

The door to his studio is open when I arrive at the top of the stairs, and I hope it’s an invitation. The hard, dark song rever-berating of the walls isn’t as encouraging: “The Bottom,” by Staind. The words grind through me, inescapable, intense. Emotional.

You sufocate, you cannot wait for this to just be over. The song is the voice to Chris’s feelings. The window to how deeply he hurts. And I hurt for him all over again. If I can’t stop his pain, I’m at least going to be with him, through it.

I step inside and see Chris on a stool directly in front of the archway window, leaning toward the canvas resting on an easel.

His hand, bandaged but apparently functional, moves easily with the brush he holds, and he’s changed out of his wet jeans. He’s now dressed in a dark blue pair, but he bypassed a shirt and shoes, and his hair is soft and spiky, like it’s been freshly washed.

He showered in another bathroom, avoiding me while I’ve been wishing he’d appear.

The song lyrics remind me that every masterpiece he’s ever created has been done to music to match his mood, and this song has a clear message. He’s sufocating. He wants this to end. He doesn’t mean us, I remind myself. He needs me, like I need him.



Suddenly, I have to know how this song relates to what he’s spent two hours creating on the canvas. I push away from the door and start walking. Chris doesn’t turn and I don’t think he knows I’m here. He’s intensely into his work, deeply involved in what he’s creating. I stop as soon as I’m close enough to see the canvas, but not close enough to disturb his concentration.

And my heart skips a beat. He’s painting me. Draped in his leather jacket, my rain-drenched hair plastered around my face. I’m pale and my eyes relect such anguish that I can barely breathe. He’s captured the moment I confessed I was living my biggest fear, of him shutting me out—and he’s done it with such brilliance that I’m reliving it, my heart bleeding from the pain.

He’d said nothing after my confession, shown no reaction, but he’d felt one. He feels one now.

Chris might not have been physically with me these past two hours, but he hadn’t shut me out. My heart swells, and I burn to go to touch him. But it’s not the right way to reach him right now—it’s not the right thing to do.

I walk past him, toward the window, winging it, hoping I’ll read Chris and understand what he needs right now.

I know the instant he comes back to this world and me. My skin tingles and heats with the weight of his eyes following me.

I step directly in front of the window, several feet from where he’s been working. Turning around, I’m surprised to see him standing on this side of the canvas now. His hands are by his sides, his jaw tense, his eyes as haunted as mine are on his canvas.