Page 108 of Kept

But Maverick is watching me too, his face settling into a slight frown as he shrugs. “I thought it was time. Zella enjoys art, and we came to the street festival. I didn’t want to leave without saying hello.”

“You do?” Emerson says brightly. He offers me his arm. “Please. Let me escort you around.”

When I look at Maverick, he nods reassuringly. “Emerson knows everything there is to know about art,” he tells me. “I think you’ll enjoy each other’s company. We’ll be here.”

Intrigued, I take Emerson’s arm, and he leads me to the first of the paintings. A woman in shades of green, yellow and blue, her face shadowed, cradles her stomach as she sits looking out of a window.

Emerson waits quietly as I take it in. “It’s beautiful,” I murmur. “You painted all of these?”

“I did.” We move on to the second painting. In this one, the woman cradles her child to her chest. It’s intimate, so much so that my chest tightens looking at it. “This is your family.”

Emerson pauses next to me. “You’re very astute. How did you guess?”

“The emotion,” I murmur. “There’s so much… hope. Joy, maybe? I can feel it. You’re very talented.”

Emerson doesn’t speak for a minute. When he does, I almost miss the catch in his voice. “Thank you.”

We move around the room, and I absorb the journey of his daughter as she progresses to a toddler, then to a little girl. Every stage of her life is carefully preserved in art, and the sheer love embedded in each painting makes my eyes glisten as we reach the final image.

This one… is different.

Hesitating, I turn to Emerson. He’s staring at the painting, but he’s not looking at it. He looks far away.

“What happened?” I whisper. He swallows.

“There was a fire,” he murmurs. Carefully, he reaches forward and traces his fingers softly over the face of the woman. She’s on her knees, her arms wrapped tightly around her child, her back bowed. “My wife did not survive.”

My own chest burns in sympathy, thumping, painful heartbeats. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

He turns to me, a sad smile on his lips. “It was a long time ago,” he assures me. But now that I know, I can see it in the way he carries himself. Emerson carries his pain with him, etched into his heart, into every smile.

I wet my lips. “And… your daughter?”

“Both of them,” he says quietly. “My Aria too.”

Stepping back, I take in the room with new eyes. A journey, one brutally cut short. There are no more paintings after this one, no more memories to record painstakingly on canvas.

“It’s funny,” Emerson says quietly, and I turn to him in question, swallowing back my tears. “You have very similar eyes. Aria… she had such vibrant green eyes, too.”

He pulls a crumpled photograph from his pocket, smoothing it out before handing it to me. I take it carefully, looking down at the pale-haired little girl with the green eyes and toothy smile. Emerson is holding her, his face beaming and his arm wrapped around his wife.

My hands clench on the photograph.

A hand lands on my arm as I wobble. “Zella?” Emerson asks in concern. “Are you all right?”

Taking a deep breath, I nod, handing the photograph back. “She was beautiful.”

I try to smile, but it feels stiff on my face. When I turn, looking for my men, Enzo appears in an instant. “Prey? What’s the matter?”

They’re talking around me, and my head hurts. I hear Emerson’s apologies, and I want to tell him not to apologize, but the words are stuck in my throat, my thoughts on a panicked loop inside my head that I can’t quite catch.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I need… I need to go.”

Enzo lifts me, and then we’re moving away from the gallery with rapid steps. Maverick stays behind a moment, his legs eating up the distance between us as he catches up with Enzo’s rapid steps.

Maverick looks down at me with concern, blocking my view of the gallery as it disappears behind us. “I’m okay,” I force out. “You can put me down.”

“No.” Enzo keeps walking, and I tap his shoulder.

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