Mr. Beautiful (Up in the Air #4)(47)

But of course, there were the things we could not take, could not stand, habits we both possessed that were hard to break.

What she could not take:  If I kept anything from her, even something minuscule, just to spare her feelings.

And when I became so enraged that I grew cold towards her, and refused to touch her, it upset her nearly as much as it turned her on.

What I could not take:  Her silent withdrawals.  Her need for space.

And of course the worst of it, for both of us, was my jealousy.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

MY HATRED

I hated him.  Hated.  He wanted what I had, what I needed.

I could see it on him, smell it coming out of his pores, that want.

He couldn't hide it from me.  He was taken with her.  Smitten.  Enamored.

Who but me could better recognize the signs of that?

Joseph.  Fucking Joseph, the amiable security guy.  Such a carefree smile, such soft eyes for my wife.

He'd been around too long by the time I realized it, and now I couldn't fire him for no reason without looking like a jealous maniac to Bianca.

Because she liked him.  I knew she did.  She was attached to him.  He was her favorite bodyguard.  She enjoyed his company, thought he was funny and 'a nice guy.'

He and Blake were always the ones she chose to take when she needed security to accompany her somewhere.  Always.

But I hated him, and that hate went back a ways.

Two years, to be exact.  I remembered the very moment.  I could watch it in slow motion in my memories:

That night I'd carried her, scantily clad, from Stephan's house back to mine.

"Is she okay, sir?" he'd asked, something soft in his voice telling me even back then, when he'd barely met her.

And I knew he'd seen her like that, her beautiful, lush body barely covered, though he'd averted his eyes when I'd looked directly at him.

He'd fallen for my wounded angel from the first.

Why the f**k didn't I fire him right then and there?

If only I had, it would have spared me all of this impotent rage, this daily struggle to have to tolerate his presence.

Hate.

Raw, oozing hate when I caught him looking at her.

Acute, teeth-clenching hate when I knew he was home with her and I had to leave, or when he was out with her, when I couldn't go.

Bianca, who was normally too perceptive for comfort, seemed utterly oblivious to it.

And then, outrage of all outrages, I caught her painting him.

It was at the Vegas property.  I'd come home to find her not in the house, searched and asked until I was directed to the large back patio, a spot where she often went to work.

I froze when I saw them, not quite believing my eyes.

It had been building up for a while, my hate, building up in every tender look he sent her way, every laugh I heard him draw out of her.

Years' worth of the build.  Of wondering if I was crazy, debating whether it was my imagination, looking for signs, for evidence of it every time I saw him.

All of that hate came right to the surface, nearly spilling out of me as I observed what I was seeing then.

At least I wasn't crazy.  There was some relief in that, though not much.

Here he was, not seeing me, and looking right at her, his heart in his eyes, so much longing there that I had to restrain myself from physically attacking him where he stood.

She, for her part, wasn't looking at him.  Her head was down, her full concentration on the canvas.

My chest was moving with my heavy breaths.  I loosened my tie, trying to drag more air into my lungs, feeling like I had heavily exerted myself, because in a way I had.

It was quite an effort, this restraint I was holding onto by the thinnest margin.

He just kept doing it, his eyes devouring her downcast head, moving lovingly over each strand of her loose hair, hair that he wasn't allowed to so much as touch.

But those looks were worse than a touch.

She worked standing up, as she usually did, palette in one hand, brush in the other, absolutely absorbed in what she was doing.

She was at her most beautiful like this, with those dreams in her soulful eyes, and I knew I looked just as lovesick as Joseph did every time I glanced at her.

She was barefoot, wearing a thin little white tank top with paint splattered on it and loose beige shorts.  Nothing too indecent, but it showed off her legs, and hugged her curves.  Her soft round tits looked positively f**kable under that thin material.

I approached behind her, and so he saw me first.  Instantly and damningly, his expression became closed off, blank, neutral even, as he tried to hide it from me.

But I couldn't un-see what I'd just seen from him.

I fought not to curl my lip at him and moved my attention to her.

I studied her work in progress over her shoulder for a while before she noticed me.

It was a portrait of him from the shoulders up.  He was smiling in it, a glint in his eye, but not the one I'd witnessed, which was something, at least.

The painting was good, of course, but very far along, almost finished.

This hadn't been their first session.

I caught his eye, jaw clenched, nostrils flared, just staring him down for a long time, not bothering to hide what was in my eyes, like he was.

Finally, she noticed me.  She jumped a little, turning, the hand holding her paintbrush flying to her chest.