Page 28 of Greed

“They’re good. I had an offer on one of them, but I’m not sure if it’s my artwork or the Costa name attached to it, they wanted,” she answers before taking a sip of her wine.

“I’m sure it was the artwork. You’re very good at what you do,” I tell her.

“You’ve seen my work?”

“I may have broken into your studio. For someone who claims to hate me, you sure have painted many pictures of me.” I watch as she blushes. Delaney didn’t know I’d been in her studio, but I wanted to see what she’d been working on. I needed to know.

“You broke in? As opposed to asking?”

“Would you have invited me in?” I ask her with a grin on my face. I know the answer to that already.

“No. Probably not.”

“Exactly why I broke in. I wanted to see what you were working on.”

“You could have asked,” she says.

“No. You were upset over Cody, and I understood that. Doesn’t mean it was going to keep me away,” I admit to her.

“You weren’t lying about him, were you?” she asks softly.

“No, I wasn’t. He wanted to get in with your father and was using you to do that. I’m sorry,” I tell her.

“I didn’t want to see it. I thought it, though. I figured there had to be more to it than what I saw,” she says softly. I know this hurts her, but he was never the right one for her. He would never have gotten that far before I ended it.

“Some people are good at hiding things.”

“Are you?”

“No. I don’t need to be. I tell the truth, and that’s that. There’s nothing for me to hide; I’m an open book.”

“You’ve always been that way,” she tells me as she watches me.

“Have I?”

“Yes, you have. You never cared what anyone had to say about you. You would tell them exactly how you felt about them.”

“You remember that?”

“I remember a lot of things, Luka. Every memory of us isn’t bad,” she says, and my heart swells. I didn’t want her to remember all the bad stuff, all the killing. I want her to remember the good things.

“That’s good to know. I was worried for a minute.”

“You think I’d only remember the bad things?” I nod my head. “I remember more. So much more. I remember the first time you took me to the gala our parents were having. I remember the first time you wore a suit and tie,” she smiles at her memories.

“You also remember what I did to your favorite cat,” I tell her truthfully.

“I didn’t understand how you could do it back then, but I’m starting to figure it out now,” she tells me. Is she figuring it out now? That she’s mine and no one and nothing could come between us?

“I would say sorry, but I’m really not.”

“I didn’t think you were,” she says.

“What else, Delaney? What else do you want to know about me?”

“What you feel for me.” That’s a tough one. I feel so many things for her, but I don’t know how to put them into words. I don’t know how to tell her.

“Feelings and emotions are hard for me, Delaney. I wasn’t raised to show anything. I wasn’t taught what they meant. If I cried, I was beaten. If I laughed too much, I was told to stop. You … you make me feel many things I’m not used to. I hate when you’re not near me. It feels like I can’t breathe. My chest gets tight, and there’s an ache there.” I confess, holding my hand over my heart. It’s not a lie. I know what I feel when I’m not with her.

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