Page 105 of A Taste like Sin

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I close my eyes, remembering the first time I saw his artwork at his gallery. That room where all

those paintings of other women watched me. Now, their dead, blank stares take on a taunting aura,

their gazes smug.You fell for it,they tell me. Stupid, foolish bitch.

“Have you been lying to me all this time?” I whisper brokenly. “About my father? …Simon?”

“Juliana.” His voice is deeper than before. Like he already knows damn well what I’m thinking. That

he won’t deny it. That he can’t. “Talk to me,” he commands. “What did you learn that is making you

ask this?”

What did I learn? “The truth. Thatyouwere Simon.”

It sounds insane out loud. Four years. Four years of torment. Of misery. Of lies, and pain, and

memories…

But the more I relive every tortured moment, the more it makes sense. Only a man with such an

intimate grip on my life could utterly control it.

And only an artist would relish in my misery.

“The real man has been dead for four years, according to my father. But you… You studied me,” I say

brokenly. “You studiedhim, and for four years, you’ve played his game.”

“It’s not what you think.” He takes a step toward me, but I flinch back.

“Isn’t it?” I force a callous laugh, but pretending doesn’t help me now. Nothing. Turns. Off. The. Pain.

If anything, it grows, swelling into an agonizing lump in the pit of my stomach. Without giving a damn

for decency, I double over. A gag racks my throat and vomit spills onto the floor. Noisily. Messily. I

let him hear what the truth does to me. It destroys me. I’m brought to my knees by the force of it,

robbed of even the voice to scream.

“I won’t deny it,” he says like it matters, still paces away. “But I won’t hide the rest from you, either.

You deserve to know the full truth.”

More?

“I didn’t leave the gifts for you to find—but,” he adds before hope can even take root in my chest, “I

know who did, at least vaguely though not a true identity. In some ways, I facilitated their actions, if

only out of curiosity. I knew they upset you. I didn’t know why—but upsetting you was enough.”

“Because you had leverage,” I whisper, seeing things how someone like him would: through a lens of

hate and revenge. “Over my father. Over me.”

That’s how his world works, a muted landscape of give and take. Of death and decay. He doesn’t

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