Page 109 of The Villain

I chuckled and glanced around, saying, “If he hears you say that…”

“A good debate is good for the soul.”

“I don’t think Ty would agree with that either.”

“Maybe he needs a little disagreement in his life.”

After finishing with Rob, I returned inside the cabin, my eyes hooked to the floor, until the door was shut and I heard her voice.

“Dare.” The expectation in her voice told me everything. She wanted to leave. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go back to normal.But did she want to do it with me?“Come home with me.”

I stilled. “Athena…”

She moved in front of me.“You don’t have to,” she murmured, sliding her tongue over her bottom lip as she flicked her eyes around the room. “Not if this is where you want to be.”

Hell no.

I reached for her cheek, turning her head up. “It’s not,” I confessed, lowering my lips toward hers. “I think it’s been a safe house for me, too.”

All these years, I’ve felt sheltered here. Protected. Cocooned from the harsh reminders of the world and what I’d done. But the cabin had been nothing more than a limbo. A protected purgatory I deemed myself destined to spend the rest of my days in. But from the day I’d brought her here, it was as though her presence had shined a light in my darkness, and I could finally see.

I could see the empty space and bare walls. I could see the lack of a life as though it were carved into the foundation.

“Then come home with me.”

I let loose an exhale when my forehead touched hers.

“Okay.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Athena

“You’re incredible.”

I turned, smiling as Darius approached, his gaze flicking to all of my paintings decorating the walls of the gallery.

Landscapes from here to Sacramento. Bright, bold colors claiming every inch of the canvasses, beckoning the viewers into a vivid escape.

“We’re about to find out,” I murmured, tipping my head back as his arms came around me.

“I already know, Angel.” Dare cupped my cheek and lowered his mouth to mine, sweeping me into a kiss that instantly calmed my nerves.

Over the course of two weeks, fear of more danger had slowly and steadily been replaced by anxiety over my show. Wanting everything to be perfect. Worrying that it wouldn’t be. And Dare had been by my side in every way.

For me, starting over didn’t happen in a day. It didn’thappen the instant I moved to a different town and into Mom’s house. My new life had been built day by day since I’d moved home. Box by box. Painting by painting. Connection by connection. All leading to this.

It wasn’t until we’d left Sherwood that it hit me what my gallery show had started to represent. My rebirth.

After months of becoming reacquainted with myself after Brandon, returning to my first love of art, and then finding Darius again, it was like digging up all the pieces of my heart and soul that had been methodically buried by an insecure, weak man who wanted to make me feel like nothing.

But standing here, surrounded by the paintings I’d spent countless hours creating and supported by the man who’d do anything for me, I was the person I’d always wanted to be. And I was Dare’s everything.

“Though I’m still nervous about the portrait,” he murmured, ending the kiss and tilting his head to the portrait I was standing in front of. The only portrait in the gallery.Ryan’s.

There was no color, only pencil and charcoal. A man brought to life in shades of gray—like many soldiers who experienced war. Some parts of them shining bright, other parts too dark to ignore.

I’d started the portrait from a photo Dare had shown me the night we’d left Sherwood for the second time, and I surprised him with the finished drawing two days ago. He’d cried; we both had. And then he protested when I told him I wanted it hanging in the center of the gallery.

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