Now, it was like coming out of a fog, the haze of creation receding as she examined what she’d wrought.
And it was . . . good.
Really good, and she didn’t say that lightly. She knew better than to let herself get carried away. Ego was an ugly thing on an artist. But this was more than good. It was right. Exactly what she’d been going for when she’d set out to capture this man.
Holding the pad at arm’s length, she regarded it more critically. She’d gotten the shape of his nose, had left some of the details of his features vague while still suggesting the parts that needed to be seen. She’d captured the pride and the self-assuredness, but between those lines, the rest of him bled through.
Vulnerability. Anger. Hurt.
There was something coiled to the man she had drawn, and the lines she’d penciled in to anchor his form to the sheets only accentuated it. He looked like he was waiting. She didn’t know what for—or if he knew, even. But there was anticipation in the cant of his hips and the rigid set to his limbs. His pose spoke of relaxed ease, but it belied a readiness to walk right off the page and out of frame.
She tightened her jaw. She’d gotten that much right at least.
Shifting her gaze back to Rylan, she let the low ache that had been building in her chest all week come to the forefront. She had two full days left in Paris after today. She was the one who was going to leave. And he was going to let her.
“You okay?” His voice surprised her, interrupting the quiet that had descended on them.
“Yeah.” She nodded, pulling her thoughts back to the here and now. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Definitely.” She tapped the corner of the page with her nail. “You good for a few more minutes?”
“Sure.”
Putting the low curl of dread aside, she examined her work one more time. Made a couple of careful marks, darkening shadows and sharpening the appearance of a particular jut of muscle. She swept her gaze over it again, comparing it with the reality of the man in front of her. The drawing was as finished as it was going to be.
But she wasn’t done yet.
Hoping he wouldn’t mind, she turned the page, taking care not to smudge the work she’d just completed. She shifted in her chair to get a slightly different angle as she studied his face.
It wasn’t only dread filling her belly now. It wasn’t quite affection, either, though there was some of that there, too. It was deeper and warmer, and it hurt inside her chest.
Looking at him hurt.
So she channeled it.
With quick strokes, she tried to get down on paper how he made her feel, all twisted up and uncertain—like she was the one on display, exposed, even though he was the one stripped bare for her to see. Roughly intimating the shapes of his features, she focused on his eyes and his mouth, taking them apart into lines and shapes, distilling them into something she could understand.
But the end result didn’t help. It was a portrait of the same mystifying, beautiful, inscrutable man, and she wanted to crush the paper in her hands.
A fresh page and another try, and another and another, but none of them put her any closer. Frustration made her blood hot. It wasn’t the same angry, self-despairing aggravation that had nearly overtaken her up on Montmartre. It was knowing the solution to a puzzle lay just out of reach, and watching an hourglass about to run out of sand. She only had so much time.
To find herself, sure. But also to get some kind of grasp on what was happening to her, here, with him.
She turned the page once more. On the bed, he was getting restless, either because he’d gone too long without a break, or maybe because he could sense her distress. She had to calm the heck down. Now. Before it was too late and she’d lost her chance.
She took a deep breath and set down her charcoal, trading it out for a hard-leaded pencil. This time, she approached the page with all the quiet she could summon to her mind and her nerves and her hands.
Soft brushes of the graphite across the tooth of the paper. A hint of an outline. And then more line work. More and more, tracing around and across the planes of his face. The eyes she adored and the mouth she had kissed, and the man she . . .
A deep pang made her breath catch.
She didn’t know Rylan. She didn’t know him at all. But she knew his wit and his secrets and the careful way he’d touched her body. Brought her pleasure. Showed her around museums for God’s sake. Opened himself up to her like this . . .
She sketched in the curve of his lips, and the last piece of the puzzle slipped into place.
She loved him.
It was written so clearly across the page—couldn’t have been more clear if she’d spelled it out. Love shone from the curve of his cheek and the fall of his hair and the tender softness of his earlobe. So many tiny details, and he was going to see.
God, he was going to want to look at this and he was going to know everything.
Beyond her tunnel vision, he stirred, the rustling of sheets a low murmur of a sound, lost beneath the roaring in her ears and of her heart. Warmth on her shoulder, then blunt fingers making a dark contrast against the snowy white of her page as they tipped the book down.
It broke the spell.
She dropped the book, looking up. With the sheet draped around his waist, Rylan stood in front of her, concern twisting his frown. “Kate? You went all”—he waved his hand at her—“pale. You sure you’re okay?”
She wanted to laugh.
No. She was the furthest possible thing from okay.
She’d burned her savings on an idiotic trip to Paris. Had gotten her purse stolen and had spent her days ignoring the work she’d come here to do because a man was paying attention to her. Was taking care of her and charming her and teaching her all sorts of things she’d never known her body could do.
So like the sad, naïve idiot she was, like her mother’s daughter, she’d fallen for him. And she knew it. Without a shred of doubt, she knew.
He was going to break her heart.
She sucked in a breath like she was drowning. If the outcome was the foregone conclusion, what the hell was she doing here? She should grab her things and run back to her nice, safe hostel with its awful roommates and communal baths.
Or she could dig her feet in. There wasn’t anything to lose.
If she wanted anything from him, she should go for it. Now. While she still had the chance.
chapter EIGHTEEN
If it hadn’t been so scary, it would have been hilarious. Because, seriously, Rylan had driven plenty of ladies out of their minds with his cock.
But he’d never done it quite so literally before.
He stood there, wrapped up in a sheet, trying to pull Kate out of whatever sinkhole she’d fallen into. She stared at him, emotions breaking like waves across her face. Humor and anguish and resignation. One by one, they all ceded until there was only resolve.
“Kate?”
“Do you want to see?” She flipped to the first page of her sketchbook and held it out like an offering. She was still looking at him so strangely, and he wanted to shake her. To make her snap out of whatever had taken hold of her.
But in the end, he just nodded. “Of course.” Extending his hand to accept it felt like stepping out onto a ledge somehow. He curled his fingers around the binding and paused, a whole new kind of apprehension taking hold. This entire thing had started when he’d asked her how she saw him. He was about to find out. But did he really want to know?
With a flash of false bravado, he cleared his throat. “You didn’t make me ugly or anything, did you?”
“You tell me.”
Her tone stopped him cold, because there was dread there.
Christ, what the hell had she drawn?
Unable to put it off any longer, he took the book and sat down on the edge of the bed.