Page 59 of Painted in Love

That was what love meant to him. Total immersion in each other. Total transparency.

But Saskia had excluded him from the most important aspects of her life.

It meant she wasn’t in love with him. Maybe it meant she could never love him.

The thought crippled him, and he stumbled, catching himself on a light post before he could fall. Then he went on running. Barely able to breathe, he rounded the corner on which his warehouse sat.

There she stood. Alone, lit only by a flickering streetlight.

Dressed in all black, she was like a wraith in the night. A ghost. A phantom. Wearing a baseball cap pulled low. He couldn’t truly see her face, but he knew it was her by the lines of her body.

But he didn’t know her. He never had.

He watched her for a moment as she paced back and forth. A pulse of love beat through his chest, rising up his throat to strangle him. But he shoved it back down. She’d lied to him. Over and over.

How could he ever trust her? She could lie again, and he would never know.

This morning, everything had seemed within his grasp. True love. Though he’d always shied away from the intense love his parents had, he’d wanted it. With Saskia.

But there was no coming back from this.

Then she saw him.

Saskia paced the corner. He’d have to return eventually. It was late now, and she felt like San Holo, dressed all in black, baseball cap masking her features as if she were sneaking into an alley to paint.

The comparison chilled her. She wanted to come off as open to Clay, but instead she just looked disguised.

She hadn’t called Adrian or dealt with Hugo. She needed to talk to Clay first before anyone else. He was more important than all the secrecy. More important than any other person.

She’d totally screwed up. Her body felt like a mass of tensed muscles, the sensation so painful she wanted to cry. She’d only just admitted that she wanted some kind of relationship with him, and for a little while, she’d hoped the truth would set her free.

But now that seemed completely out of reach. If she’d told him the truth yesterday, it might have been repairable. But learning it from a stranger on social media? No, he wouldn’t forgive that.

After all the glorious nights they’d spent together, after working on his plans for classes and lectures to help his artists through the emotional baggage that came with being a creative? After keeping her history secret from him—about her parents, about Hugo, even when he’d told her about Gareth and how that affected him? No, he wouldn’t forgive any of that.

Then she saw him.

Running down the hill, hell-bent on getting to the warehouse, maybe even to seclude himself in his loft, he stopped, he came to an abrupt stop so violent it must have hurt his knees.

He just looked at her.

Everything she might have dreamed of having with him ended there.

The seconds ticked by.

Clay’s entire body ached from the demanding run. He wasn’t ready to confront her. But she was here. She’d seen him. He couldn’t get away. They had to talk sometime.

He walked to her side, trying not to stalk her like a raging bull, trying to keep his emotions bottled up.

His insides were knotted, his heart and lungs in a bind that made it hard to breathe, hard to pump the blood through his veins. Yet he stood before her, and in the nicest way possible, without a single betraying inflection in his voice, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re San Holo?”

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

He wanted to punch his fist into the wall. Because she had no justification for not being honest with him. Because she didn’t even have an explanation.

Even as he tried to remain calm, harshness crept into his voice. “You’ve been dishing it out, but you can’t take it? Why are you anonymous if the reality of art is that once you’ve put it out there, it’s no longer yours? Why are you telling Dylan he needs to take the criticism when you don’t take yours?”

Pain reverberated through his fist and body as if he had actually hit the wall.

---