Blind Obsession (25 page)

Chapter  Sixteen ~ Fear

Fear ~

Today, I discovered that Phillipe was hiding something from me. It was funny how you could be close to someone and not sense something so very obvious.

Over the last couple of months, I had posed, and Phillipe had painted. When we first had started out, he had told me that he wanted to touch the world and share beauty and emotion with it. Now, he seemed to be keeping the paintings close, keeping me close, and I wanted to know what was holding him back.

I couldn’t help but wonder if it was fear of the critics or fear of the unknown. Either way, I was determined to make him see what I knew the rest of the world would see. I’d found him down in the arbor this afternoon, and I’d finally gotten to the bottom of things.

“How long have you been out here?” I asked as my cane hit the bench.

“An hour or so,” he replied.

I could tell he’d stopped whatever it was he was doing.

“Are you finishing up
Acquiesce
?”

I could hear the crunch of the gravel as he moved, and then his large hand took mine, entwining our fingers.

“Yes, I just finished it now. I was trying to get the background just right.”

Nodding, I smiled, knowing what a perfectionist he really was, before I decided to just ask him what was on my mind. “When are you going to take the pieces to that little gallery we talked about?”

His fingers squeezed mine, as he released my hand. I felt him turn and walk away from me.

“Phillipe?” I queried quietly. Something was definitely bothering him, and I wanted to know what it was. “Talk to me. Why don’t you want to go to town? That’s all you’ve talked about since we first started.”

As the silence stretched between us, I moved to the bench, sitting down. “Will you tell me what’s going on, please? Why won’t you call the gallery owner?”

“I don’t think I want to anymore,” he mumbled.

My mouth dropped open in shock. “What do you mean you don’t want to? That’s all you’ve ever wanted.” I paused, trying to work out what might have changed his mind. “Is it me? Do you want a different model? I won’t be offended.”

Before I knew it, I felt him sit beside me, taking my hands.

“Are you crazy, Chantel? No,” he answered, bringing my knuckles up to his lips.

“Then what?” I questioned, taking my hand and running it up through his hair. “Tell me.”

He turned his face so his lips touched the center of my palm. “I’m scared,” he confessed.

 My heart clenched as I tried to understand this complex man I was hopelessly in love with. “Of what?”

“The world.”

Laughing a little, I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense. Only months ago, you wanted to conquer it.”

There was silence for a moment, and I could hear his breathing. One steady breath in, and one long breath out. “Months ago, I had nothing to lose.”

I blinked as I continued to thread my fingers through his hair, luxuriating in the thickness of it. “And now you do?”

“Yes,” he told me as she leaned forward, laying his lips on mine. “Now, I have you.”

“Yes, you do. I’m not going anywhere.” I gripped his hair, tugging on it. I felt him relax as he let me pull his head up. “Is that what you’re worried about? That I’m going to go somewhere?”

I felt a brush of air as his fingers came forward to touch my cheek.

“Where would I go, you crazy man?” I asked him before I promised. “I will only be as far as your heart lets me go.”

With his hands cupping my cheeks, he moved in and whispered against my mouth, “They won’t understand.”

“Who won’t?”

“The world, your parents—they won’t understand what I see when I look at you, how I feel when you play, or the way that I love all of the simple things that makes you whole.” He continued to confess almost desperately, “Some might even say it’s wrong.”

Turning my body to face where I knew he was seated, I told him, “I don’t care about everyone else. I care about you, and I care about me. Do you feel like this is wrong?”

“No,” he replied, letting out a deep breath.

Reaching up, I stroked the shell of his ear. “Then, that’s all that matters. Share this with the world. They need to see it. They need to see me as you do.”

Phillipe Tibideau had one fear, and I planned to help him conquer it by never leaving.

***

As I sit here on a soft chair that Phillipe moved into the corner of the music room, I look at him over the journal I’m now reading. It has been a little over two hours since we’ve been down here.

After the soul-destroying way he took me earlier, I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything other than the man who is sitting directly across from me as he sketches my portrait.

At first, I rejected the idea because I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be studied so closely, especially after having him inside my body so intimately.

Who knows what he would see on my face?

His voice intrudes into my thoughts. “What did you just read? You look...pensive.”

Lowering my eyes to the page again, I read the last line to him. “Share this with the world. They need to see it. They need to see me as you do.”

I raise my eyes back to his to see that he has stopped sketching. His thoughtful gaze comes up to meet mine. Frowning, I decide to just ask him what I want to know.

“Do you think they did?”

He answers my question with one of his own. “Do I think they did what?”

“You’re doing it again,” I point out, lowering the journal.

“What can I say? I don’t like journalists, but this you already know.” He blows out a breath and raises a hand to run it through his hair.

“Do you really think that I’m going to write something terrible about you?” I question, genuinely curious.

Shaking his head, he moves the sketchpad as he crosses his ankle over his knee.

“I don’t know, Gemma. For all I know, you might go home and write a story about how I seduced and clouded your mind.”

“Would it kill you to
trust
me?” I snap, closing the journal in complete annoyance.

“No,” he states calmly. Those green eyes are now frigid as they connect with mine. “But it might kill you.”

***

Phillipe watches as Gemma digests his words.

Her shoulders straighten. “You can’t scare me away.”

Raising a brow, he nods. “Okay.”

“You can’t,” she repeats.

“
Okay
,” he stresses slowly.

He starts sketching again. He knows she’s watching him, studying his responses. Nothing makes him more uncomfortable than someone watching his every move. It’s ironic since he used to wish that one person in particular could watch him—
just once.

“So? Do you think the world ever saw her the way that you did?” Gemma tenaciously asks.

Gritting his teeth, he peers at her through the hair that has fallen forward over his eyes. “No, I don’t think that they did,” he finally answers, “but I think you do.”

He can tell she isn’t expecting that answer because her head tilts to the side.

“What do you mean?”

Continuing to sketch, he looks at her blonde hair that is now messy from his hands. The long, soft strands are still ruffled from where he held her still as he pushed his cock between her hungry lips. He can’t help the stiffening between his thighs.

“I mean you
see
her, Gemma. Every time you look at her, you see her as I did. They didn’t, and they still don’t.”

She nods, signaling she understands, as she sits up in the chair, leaning forward to rest her hands on her knees.

He knows that she is about to ask a question he doesn’t want to answer.

“
Why
do you think they don’t get it? Why didn’t they see what you do? Or, for that matter, what I do?”

He wondered if she was prepared for the answer he would or, in a sense, wouldn’t give.

“Because they were too busy looking at
me
and how I looked at her,” he states. He knows he’s talking to her in riddles, but he also understands this is the best way to explain it.

“I don’t understand,” she tells him, frowning.

“Haven’t you noticed the things that your colleagues have written about me, Gemma?” he asks, his voice full of venom. “They were all so busy writing about
my
obsession and
my
perversion of the poor, little blind woman that no one bothered to get to know her. No one bothered to look closer.”

She blinks, trying to comprehend, and then she swallows, taking a moment before she responds. “I’m looking closer,” she finally whispers.

Phillipe stands and walks over to where she is seated. Looking down at her, he asks, “And what do you see?”

Licking her lips Gemma stands, wanting to keep them on even footing, and keeping her eyes on him the whole time. “I see a man who is broken from an experience he couldn’t control. I see
you
in a way that
they
didn’t.”

Phillipe shakes his head. “God, you’re so naive. I’m not just broken. I’m twisted inside my own fucking nightmare that never goes away. I’m fucked on the inside. You’re only
seeing
what I want to show you.” Agitated, he firmly grasps the sides of her face. “There’s a part of you, Gemma, that’s so fucking sweet, and I want to steal that part of you, even though I know I shouldn’t.”

Moving his hands, he cups the back of her neck, tugging her in close to him. She raises her hands, placing them on his chest. Leaning down, he presses his lips to hers.

He grimly elaborates, “They said I took something beautiful and destroyed it. Slowly, image after image depicted a tale of seductive debauchery. People ate that shit up. They loved it. Until, of course, they got their biggest story:
An alluring mixture of dark eroticism that is now enhanced by its devastatingly haunting sadness. The angels must be weeping.”
He pauses, letting out a deep breath
. “She
was the fucking angel. That’s what no one understood
.”

***

Parting my lips against his, I feel his breath slide inside of me, and I can sense the tension rolling off of him in waves.

“Why then? Why didn’t you tell everyone they were wrong? Why did you make it seem like she wasn’t allowed to talk anyone?
Why
keep her hidden?”

His eyes narrow as he drops his hand from my neck. He takes a step away, distancing himself. “She didn’t
want
to be in the public eye. That was
her
choice. I respected it, but no one understood that. They all just assumed that I brainwashed her, leading her astray and making her strip down, so I could have my wicked way with her.” His whole body seems to be vibrating with tension. “What do you think, Gemma? Was she brainwashed? Should the story of her innocence be retold?”

Shaking my head, I move a step closer to him. “No,” I tell him simply. “I think she was in just as deep as you were. The way she wrote about you showed the level of her own desperation. She was enamored with you.”

“And what about you?” he demands quietly.

He moves, so we are now toe to toe. He looks down at my upturned face.

I raise my hand, placing it on his strong, solid chest. “I’m entangled with both of you. If the way you wanted her was perverse in anyway, then I am guilty, too. I’m guilty of wanting you both with a hunger that I’ve never had before. Maybe
you
are the common denominator, but now, I’m just as much a part of this equation as she was. Phillipe, no one is brainwashing me.”

His mouth pulls into a tight grimace. “Well, maybe you’re the fool, Gemma, because the public—the people outside of here that you dedicate your life to informing—is just waiting for me to fuck up.”

Reaching out, he grabs my shoulders and squeezes them tightly. He pulls me in to crush his mouth down onto mine. I gasp at the brutal and violent fury behind our kiss as I feel the familiar stirrings of hot desire sliding between my thighs. Just as quickly as it began, he pulls back, pushing me away from him.

“You have no fucking idea what they did and what they still do to me or to her. Isn’t it enough that my heart has already been ripped out of my fucking chest? Why does the world think it’s okay to walk all over a memory that has already been destroyed?”

I try desperately to think of a response, any response, but before I can find any suitable words, he turns and leaves the room. I’m left standing in
her
music room. It’s just me with an echo of her.

***

Phillipe finally took the paintings to the gallery today. They were thrilled to sign him, and they wanted to display his series immediately—well, the first three anyway. He told me that he wants me to sit for three more. He said that the gallery was going to feature him and that journalists would be coming to write pieces on him for the local newspaper and for a national magazine.

This was it. I knew it as soon as he told me. This was the moment when his life would change.

I just left him in the studio to come down here to type. I asked him to set my typewriter outside in the arbor. It was so peaceful here at night. There was no noise, except for the sounds of the wind as it whistled through the branches. I needed to think about some things.

He asked me if I would go with him to his opening night at the gallery. I was reluctant. I knew it was silly of me because I should be proud of what he and I had done, but there was something so intimate about those paintings.

Each one of them meant so much more than just a naked pose. They were a part of him and a part of me, and I didn’t know if I wanted to stand there and listen to them being analyzed.