Page 115 of None Of Your Business

The underwater figures aren’t literally me and my mother—nobody looking at them would know our history. But I know. I know which section I painted the night she told me what it was like after I was born. I know which shade of blue went down after Dad said the thing he didn’t realize would crack open twenty years of hurt. I poured things into that canvas I couldn’t explain to my own family, and then I sold it because I had an exhibition to fill.

I was proud of the show, but a small, selfish part of me hated knowing that painting was leaving. That a stranger would walk past it every day without ever knowing what it cost to make.

They wouldn’t know the woman who painted it spent years wondering if she imagined her own pain. They wouldn’t know the space between those figures contained every conversation my mother and I never had.

Hudson knows.

My throat tightens. “You absolute bastard,” I whisper to the empty room.

Upstairs, the shower pipes hum through the ceiling.

He didn’t buy it out of pity. He didn’t see me spiraling beside it at the gallery and decide to rescue the tragic artist. He bought it before either of us knew last night would end with me naked in his bed.

Heat begins creeping through my veins.

Because who does that? Who spends months tracking every detail I try to hide, quietly buys the one piece I couldn’t bear to lose, looks at the most complicated parts of me, and never once asks me to make them easier to handle?

Hudson fucking Vaughn.

I push myself to my feet.

If I wait for him to come downstairs, he’ll do what he always does. He’ll look calm and controlled, say something infuriatingly reasonable, and I’ll deflect with a joke while my chest collapses.

I head for the stairs, abandoning whatever remained of my rational decision-making by the fifth step.

Steam is curling out of the cracked bathroom door when I reach the bedroom. His clothes from last night are scattered across the floor; my green dress is draped over a chair.

The shower beats steadily against the glass.

Normal people would knock. Normal people would also wear pants when confronting a man about a secret art purchase, so logic left the building long ago.

I grab the hem of his T-shirt, pull it over my head, and drop it.

I slide the glass door open.

Hudson turns, water streaming over his broad shoulders and down his chest. His eyes land on me, his expression shifting instantly from startled to sharp awareness.

“Rowan?”

I step inside the enclosure, the warm spray hitting my skin as the door clicks shut behind me.

I plant both palms flat against his chest, cutting him off before he can say anything.

If I don’t touch him, I’m going to burst through my own skin.

His chest is warm, slick with water, the muscle going rigid beneath my hands. I slide my palms upward over his collarbones, down his arms, and back across his chest.

He stands completely still, watching me through the mist.

“Good morning,” he says carefully.

I rise onto my toes and kiss him hard.

A split-second beat of surprise passes before his hands find my waist. I press closer, kissing him deeper before he can pull back to ask questions.

Water streams over my hair and down my shoulders, but every inch of me is already on fire.

I break the kiss, dragging my mouth down the side of his neck, over the slick muscle of his shoulder, and lower down his chest.