Page 217 of Poison Vows

At least that’s what springs up in my mind as I stare at the girl who looks exactly like me… painted in the most creative, stunning way possible.

“What is this?” I croak.

“Don’t you know?”

Do I?

Emmett has always been an artist whose talents are never exposed.

Every work he creates has been kept secret and under wraps. Even though I’ve known him for almost my whole life, I’ve never seen any of his works.

I’ve seen him in the process of creating a painting all but twice… and both times were under very strained circumstances, hovering over the edge of destruction.

And now, after a forever and a half of dying with curiosity, desperate for a peak of his creativity, of what he paints, what he makes, what he expresses on canvas or with a chisel and pick, I’m now looking at over twenty-seven paintings of me.

“Jesus, Emmett what is this?” I whisper, turning around swiftly to face him.

“It’s me… for you.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “What?”

“This…” he stretches out his arms at the paintings, but his sharp green eyes stay fixed on me. “This is all of me for you, Angel.”

My God.

I hold his firm stare, feeling stunned and deeply touched.

He painted me.

This incredibly primal, intense, forceful man who exudes a kind of strength, scorching magnetism and focus has told me once that he’d never feel for me what I feel for him… this man… he painted me for years!

“Emmett…”

“I know this might look or even feel creepy but if immortalizing your beauty, bravery and authenticity is considered sadistic then I’ll gladly be locked away in a mental institution for it!”

I’m stunned into silence.

Emmett’s eyes are blazing with something too fierce and all-consuming that I dare not look away.

“All these years, I lived through you, baby.” he says softly, stepping even closer until we’re literally almost fused together, with my pregnant belly that’s now showing between us.

He stares into my eyes fiercely, sincerely and steadily.

“I never had the courage to show you my work because I didn’t want you to think I was a pervert, but this is my work. I paint you,” he tells me in a low, raspy voice intended for my earsonly. “When I was too sick to live a normal life, you allowed me to live through you. When I was too closed off, unable to process emotion, I’d paint you to understand what anger meant, what curiosity meant, what kindness is, compassion, joy… all this I understood through you, baby, because to me, youarelife.”

I think I die right there and there.

My knees weaken.

My breath quickens.

And my heart? Well, that thing is about to burst.

“Now you know,” he says hoarsely, caging me between him and the painting behind me. “It has always been you, Angel. There was no one else for me, but you. I love you when I shouldn’t have. I loved you when I didn’t even know it and I loved you when I couldn’t show it to the world.”

My God, never in my pains and aches did I think a moment so solemn and wonderful would be dedicated to me.

“You should also know how integral you are to me,” he goes on. “No one understands me the way you do. No one has loved me the way you have. No one has stolen my soul and made it better the way you have. I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you everything.”

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