Page 54 of More Than I Can Bear

“You need to set your profile to private.”

I wasn’t asking. I was telling her, which wasn’t the right way to go about this, but I couldn’t stop my need to protect her, not while this crap was coming in. The bear wanted to lay waste to the whole fucking city, was willing to slay innocents, if that’s what it took to eradicate this threat.

“No—”

“Just until shit blows over,” I insisted. “Please, Freya.”

It was the ‘please’ that seemed to get to her and some of the tension left her body.

“But all exposure is good exposure, right?” she said, forcing herself to smile. I didn’t want her to do that, not any more. Instead, I wanted her only to have real smiles only from actual pleasure or delight. I’d spend my life trying to make that happen if she just let… I sighed.

“Then you need a social media manager to moderate the comments.” I looked at Jack. “Do you know someone? I’m happy to pay for it.”

“You don’t need—” Freya protested.

“Yes, you do.” River leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. “Your scent turns every time you get a shitty comment come through.”

“My what?” Freya said.

“Your scent.” I leaned forward as well, letting myself take a deep breath in. “We can smell you—”

“So I stink to you?” Freya surreptitiously sniffed at her armpits.

“Not stink,” River corrected. “Sweet, like flowers.” He frowned. “Then burnt flowers when you’re upset or angry. We don’t like it when you’re upset or angry. The bear gets close to the surface.”

“So there’s some kind of reverse Hulk thing going on?” Freya was grasping at levity and I think that was her natural state, not wanting to get bogged down in this shit. She turned her hands into claws and enacted a grumpy expression. “You won’t like me if she gets angry.”

“Is that what I look like to you?” I asked, my lips twisting into the tiniest smile.

“No, you look…” She was about to reply earnestly, tell me exactly how I appeared, but then she realised Jack was still in the room.

“I’ll find that list of virtual assistants I have in my office,” Jack said, shooting us a wry smile. “And Kaine’s right. You just have to weather this storm. But it’ll be over soon enough. Someone else will do something scandalous, and then that’s all they’ll care about. You just need to be patient.” She nodded to me. “Kaine’s offering you a place to stay and enough art supplies to keep you amused for days. Keep your head down and work on that gallery show you always talk about.”

“Gallery show?” I asked when Jack had left the room.

“It’s nothing.” No, it wasn’t. Freya’s cheeks had turned a very pretty shade of pink. “A pie in the sky dream.”

“Tell me that dream.” I was being too forward, too intense, but I couldn’t seem to stop. “Please, Freya.” My hand slid across the table and she watched it get closer, but didn’t move hers out of the way. I experienced that same tingle when our fingers touched, right before I took her hand in mine. “Tell me what you want and I promise I’ll move heaven and earth to make it happen.”

“Just like that, huh?”

Freya’s focus shifted from River to me and when her eyes locked with mine, I held her gaze, because she didn’t know what I could do. I had connections in the art world, dealers I leased artworks from or bought to fill the high end homes we sold. I knew people who could open doors for her, if she just said yes. She looked away for a moment, but as my heart clenched, her fingers tightened their grip on mine.

“I had a lecturer say that art without some kind of exhibition is like masturbation.” She snorted. “Not sure why masturbation is such a terrible thing but…” I stifled a groan and noted River shifting restlessly in his seat. I was sure we were both imagining the same thing for a split second: Freya, naked, her hand sliding lower… “But I want to have an exhibition one day,” she continued. “I’ve put in some applications before, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.”

“And if it did?” I asked. “If you had a gallery to display your work? What would you do?”

Freya smiled and it was so fucking beautiful I felt a tension I hadn’t realised I was holding lift.

“Well, I have an apartment full of art supplies.” She shrugged. “I guess I’d sit down and make as many pieces as I could for it.”

Yes, that, the bear and I decided, but I reined him back with the knowledge that any attempt to railroad Freya would just result in more pain on her end.

“I know some people in a few of the major art galleries in town,” I said. “I can organise some meetings, touch base with my contacts and see what comes from it, if you can lay low for a while.” I looked past her to River. “You can keep Freya safe in the apartment, make sure she has everything she needs.”

“You onboard with that?” he asked her.

“You don’t need—” she started to say.

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