Page 11 of Twisted Love

It is.

It is a portrait of me!

And yet it’s not me. The crowned woman in the painting is seated on a gold throne. She is wearing a purple silk dress which exposes most of her breasts. Her posture is loose, her legs slightly open so some of the insides of her thighs are exposed, and her chin tilted in a flirtatious come-hither angle, but her eyes are hard and cold. She is decked in jewelry and gold coins drip carelessly from both her hands. She is undoubtedly a whore. A vulgar creature.

A gold digger.

My pulse pounds in my ears, and a hot flush of embarrassment spreads through me. I can’t look away. Nora senses my reaction. She stands awkwardly to the side, her eyes darting between me and the lurid portrait. I can feel her unease. She is waiting for me to say something, do something.

“What... what is this?” My voice trembles.

Nora clears her throat uncomfortably. “It’s... just a painting. Mr. Jackson had it commissioned. The artist is quite famous, I believe. The men moved it in earlier.”

I feel my stomach twist, but I keep my expression steady, carefully neutral.

“Well, it’s interesting,” I say lightly and step closer to the enormous portrait as if I were admiring the brushstrokes. Inside, my thoughts are spinning, a storm I can barely contain.

“Art is never beautiful anymore. All art has to shock these days,” Nora says quickly. The relief in her voice is palpable.

Who does something like this? My face stares back at me from the gold throne, cold and unrecognizable. The weight of the crown on my head in the painting seems to mock me, as though daring me to claim a role I never asked for. My jaw tightens, but I force a polite smile, nodding as if it’s nothing at all.

Nora folds her hands anxiously in front of her. “Mr. Jackson told us all we could keep our jobs,” she says, almost as if she’s trying to reassure herself, but I catch the faintest tremor in her voice, the unease she’s trying to hide. “He said nothing would change except for the ownership. It was. .. kind of him. I think he’s a kind man. Underneath it all.”

Kind. Her words settle awkwardly in the room. I glance at her from the corner of my eye. “That’s good to hear,” I reply with a small smile.

“Shall we continue with the tour, then?” she asks brightly, and I give her a small nod.

She leads me out of the music room, and I follow, my heart still pounding in my chest. The image of that cold and ugly version of myself stays lodged in my mind, impossible to shake.

We move through the rest of the house, Nora explaining its many features—the sitting room, the library, the garden view from the conservatory where breakfast will be served tomorrow morning. I make polite noises of acknowledgment, barely listening. Every corner of this house feels too large, too grand, like it belongs to someone else entirely.

Finally, she stops in front of a door near the end of the hallway on the first floor. “Mr. Jackson says this is your room,” she says, pushing the door open with a small flourish.

I step inside and immediately notice what it isn’t: the master bedroom. The space is lovely, with soft cream walls and a bed dressed in pale blue linens, but it’s not where I imagined I’d be staying as the supposed mistress of the house. The realization lands like a quiet blow. Another humiliation. I push down the sting of it.

“Very nice,” I say, my voice carefully even. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Nora replies with a smile. “Well, I’ll be downstairs. I’ll send up a tray with refreshments, but please ring if you require anything else.”

“Thank you, Nora.”

She seems to want to say more, but instead, she nods and excuses herself, leaving me alone.

I want to call him, to confront him, to demand answers, but I don’t even have his number. All I have are the old text messages on my phone, the ones I’ve read and reread so many times the words are seared into my memory.

I scroll through them now, my thumb lingering over the screen. Each message feels like a ghost, haunting me with fragments of who we used to be.

Then I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the room. It’s strange, feeling both relief and unease at the same time. Relief that I don’t have to immediately share a room with Earl, but unease at the strangeness of my situation. He couldn’t even bear to kiss me in the church. This marriage isn’t meant to be real. Not in the way marriages are supposed to be.

I remind myself why I’m here. My father is getting the treatment he needs. That’s what matters. Everything else is just noise. I can handle this. I have to.

Lying back against the pillows, I close my eyes, the painted image of myself on that throne flickering in the darkness behind my lids. And then I realize what this marriage is supposed to be.

It is supposed to be revenge.

CHAPTER7

EARL

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