Page 101 of How to Get Even

‘Bella Carmichael, domestic goddess. It suits you,’ he observed, raising his glass to hers in a toast.

They’d spent the whole day together, laughing, teasing each other, arguing about paintings and carbonara versus spaghetti vongole; they’d talked about everything and anything that wasn’t about work or the future.

The future she didn’t want to imagine where he discovered that she was the one behind the article, that she was friends with his ex-lover. She knew what that future looked like in her worst nightmares. But Chase was running from something else, and she didn’t know what, but she wanted to fix it, to help him.

‘Chase—’

‘Don’t. Please don’t,’ he said, looking down at his glass.

She didn’t try to pretend not to know what he was asking. And she felt mean, because she was going to push him, because she knew how important this was.

‘Why aren’t you painting?’

* * *

Chase clenched his teeth together. He’d known she wouldn’t be able to let it go. She wasn’t that kind of person. She liked to fix things and he liked to leave them the hell alone. It was the Miller way.

And he knew that he could push it off, her question. She’d let him if he really didn’t want to talk about it. But for the first time, he realised that hedid. It had been pressing against his mind, the back of his tongue, ever since he’d been helping Sascha find her way through to her collection, and even before that. Ever since Bella had stormed into his life and demanded more from him.

‘It’s block. Creative block,’ he admitted. ‘I haven’t been able to pick up a paintbrush in over a year.’

He couldn’t meet her gaze, so he locked his sight onto his hand, swirling the pale Citrine wine around the glass.

‘I’m so sorry, Chase. That must be extremely painful.’

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. As if it didn’t feel like more than half of him, of who he was, had been AWOL for twelve months.

The silence between them wasn’t awkward, but it wasn’t peaceful either. Her presence was like a gentle press of a palm on his skin. Gentle, but insistent.

‘It started after I found them in bed to—’ He bit his lip, knowing what he’d been telling himself, what he’d told Tej, but unable to lie to Bella. She didn’t deserve that from him. ‘No. It started before that,’ he admitted. He’d been blaming Dan and Annalise for far too much for far too long. ‘It started about eighteen months ago. At first, I just tried to ignore it. Pretend it wasn’t happening.’ He rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach.

‘I became pretty unbearable to be around when the painting started to fizzle out,’ he admitted, hating the shame and the guilt and the memory of those months. The arguments with Annalise, the way he’d shrug things off with Dan. Because how could he tell his wife that he was worried about his painting when her career had disappeared at the expense of his? How could he tell his best friend that he was struggling when, as his agent, he was as much dependent on him for income as his wife? Christ, no wonder they’d sought solace in each other while he’d been behaving like an adult-sized child throwing a tantrum.

He nodded to himself. ‘Completely unbearable. I was angry, I shouted, I kicked things. Trashed my studio,’ he remembered with shame, rubbing his chin with the palm of his hand, hating how terrible just the memory of it made him feel.

‘Then, when I found Dan and Annalise together… I was devastated. I literally had no clue it had been going on,’ he admitted, shocked even now, still unable to quite believe it. ‘Everything began to slip through my fingers. And for a while, I tried to pretend that it wasn’t. I attended pre-existing exhibitions. I spent a few months travelling between them. I even met someone. She was pretty great, but even then I knew I wasn’t ready or able to give her the more that I knew she was looking for. But I ignored that too,’ he said, guilt and bitterness heavy on his tongue.

‘And then, when Annalise managed to ruin that, I just… She hated me so much. For not being able to give her the life she’d wanted to have with me. And after she scared Astrid off, and after the divorce came through, it just became easier to blamethemfor my lack of painting. And really, it wasn’t long before I nearly forgot that it had started before I’d found Dan and Annalise together. Because… because then it wouldn’t be my fault,’ he tried to explain.

‘Your fault? The marriage?’ Bella asked, turning off the stoves and coming round to where he’d backed himself up against the counter.

He shook his head. ‘My fault that I didn’t live up to what my mother wanted,’ he admitted, clenching his jaw to hide the way his lips trembled, blinking back the wet heat that pressed against his eyes. The way that the sliver of pain near split his heart in two.

Bella’s hands swept back the hair that had fallen across his eyes, to gently lift his gaze to hers. Eyes open, accepting, understanding.Christ, he didn’t deserve her. There were plenty of things he did deserve, but not Bella Carmichael.

‘I’m pretty sure that your mother would have just wanted you to be happy,’ Bella said, looking sadly up at him.

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘She would have wanted that. But she also wanted more for me.’ In his mind’s eye, he saw it, her hand marking an arc in the hospital room.You’re going to be famous.

‘I think that every parent wants the world for their child,’ Bella offered. ‘And I think your mother tried to plant for you the seeds for a future she would never see outside of her imagination. And I think that if she knew for even a second that would become a burden rather than a hopeful dream, she’d be devastated.’

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Because she was right. He’d been so focused on being the success his mother had always wanted him to be, that he hadn’t really thought about just being happy, about what that even looked like to him.

Instead, his creative block had latched onto anything as an excuse to make the guilt and anger at not being able to paint so much worse. It was a kind of sadomasochistic self-flagellation, thoughts that came so thick and fast that they choked him, leaving him utterly overwhelmed and incapable of anything.

Bella’s lips pressed against his, the heat of her body pushing away the darkness and the voices. A moment of calm in the chaos that he didn’t deserve but clutched to like a lifeline.

‘Thank you for sharing that with me,’ she said against his lips and as if being given a green light to end the conversation, he turned from receiving to giving and before he knew it they were in bed and the dinner was left on the stove for the next two hours.

---