Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Keira stopped short when her attention caught on a brightly lit window. Three easels were set up in the display, all with varying stages of art completed in three different styles. Whoever had painted them was gifted, but that wasn’t what turned her feet into cement blocks preventing her from moving further. No, that was the bits of shop she could see in the gaps between the easels. Art supplies. High-end and varied art supplies.
“Would you like to go in?” Dmitri asked it so very carefully, as if he wasn’t sure which side of the coin she’d land on and wanted to prepare for either.
She did… and she didn’t. Keira swallowed hard. “I want my studio. I want to create again. But it’s been so long. I haven’t painted since my brother died.” A small part of her had decided it was a fitting penance, though what she was paying for was anyone’s guess. She hadn’t set Devlin on that path that night. She hadn’t suspected the Hallorans would stoop to such lengths. Even if she had, at eighteen, no one would have listened to her warnings anyway.
No, the sin Keira couldn’t quite let go of was that she was alive when her beloved brother was dead.
“If you aren’t ready, there’s nothing wrong with saying so.” Dmitri moved closer, stepping behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist, letting her lean back against him. His voice was pitched low and only for her ears. “But if you want to go in—to start living again—would he truly begrudge you that?”
No. There was no question of that answer. If it had been any other of their siblings who’d died in his place, Devlin would have kicked her ass long before now. She gulped in a breath. “It shouldn’t be this big of a deal to walk through that door.”
“Grief does strange things to a person, moya koroleva. There’s no shame in it.”
He was so damn understanding. It was easier to lean on him when she didn’t have to look into his face, when there were only their slightly distorted reflections in the glass of the shop. She’d thought she was ready to start painting again, had even taken steps in that direction, but this felt like standing in the sun after years pent up in a cave. “I…” It took her two tries to get the next words out. “I want to go in.”
“I am here. You are not facing this alone. If you need to leave, we will leave.”
Dima, I think I love you.
The feeling took residence in her chest, nestled right next to her panic and pain and the weakness she wanted so desperately to let go of. Dark, secret parts of her that she didn’t share with anyone… until now.
She couldn’t say the words. Dmitri had never promised her love. He’d even gone so far as to promise her that there wouldn’t be anything resembling love. This wasn’t a fairy tale, and she was in danger of forgetting it—again. Breaking down and telling him she loved him would only prove how weak she really was. How unfit.
She couldn’t do it.
She wouldn’t.
But she reclaimed his hand and held on to him like a lifeline as they walked through the door and into the art shop. A tattooed guy with dark curly hair and two rings in his bottom lip waved at them. “Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.”
Keira couldn’t form words, but Dmitri answered for both of them. “Thank you.” He angled his body between her and the guy, his gray eyes taking in every nuance of her expression and body language. “Where to first?”
Since speaking was out of the question due to the knot forming in her throat, she turned and shuffled down the aisle with the canvases. They were standard, but she gravitated toward the stack of larger ones. If she was going to slide back into painting, there was only one size she could start with, and this fit. She had to let go of Dmitri’s hand, and she cleared her throat. “Please hold this.”
Next, she moved to the brushes, studying them carefully before picking three in a variety of sizes. The paints were harder. Keira closed her eyes against the array of colors and counted to ten as she focused on breathing. Color was the very essence of life, and she’d shunned it so completely for the last three years. Her art had always cut to the heart of things for Keira. If she was upset, she painted. If she was excited about something, she painted. If she had to mull through a decision, she’d paint her way out. She’d intentionally cut off that part of herself to shield from the pain of grief, and standing in this shop, it was like she’d suddenly regained feeling after years of being numb. Pins and needles and pain, all rushing through her body until she was light-headed with the sensation.