Page 16 of A Taste like Sin

overnight. “Maybe I should go to the house?” I start to stand.

“I can have Julio take you there now,” Damien suggests without moving. “Merely say the word.”

“Or it could be a trick,” I find myself blurting, lowering beside him again. “Lure me to the house.

Ambush me with the police present. Declare me mentally unfit. Have me committed—”

“Well, you did physically assault an innocent, prying journalist,” Damien dryly interjects. “In the

midst of cursing you to hell and back, the man did admit that you have a decent right hook.”

I laugh, alarmed by how real it sounds. A real laugh in this shit-storm of a morning.

“Can I ask you for something else?”

He doesn’t even bother to answer me this time. A stern grunt is all the encouragement I need to

confess.

“I…I want to forget everything about today.” My father. Mateo. The press. “You can pick the

distraction.” Even as the words leave my mouth, I know how dangerous they sound. “Just take me

somewhere far away where I don’t have to think. Please.”

“A brave request.” He stands and murmurs into his headset, “Julio, bring the car aroundpor favor.”

To me, he offers his hand and helps me to my feet. “That I can do.”

OF ALL PLACES HE COULD TAKE ME, HE FITTINGLY PICKS ONE OF THE LAST I’D ASSUME.

His waterfront studio. The place where he sketched me for the first time on his wooden table. Naked.

Today, a blank canvas dominates an easel placed strategically in the center of that same room. Beside

it is a flat marble slab with a mattress covered in a black sheet balanced on top.

A brave request,he said. Now, I’m starting to realize why.

“Strip,” Damien commands, shedding his own coat, which he tosses onto a leather chair near the

entrance. “You can leave the dress on the floor. I assure you it’s clean. Then, we can begin.”

“You plan to paint me?” My gaze settles on the marble slab and then the easel set up beside it.

“You sound skeptical,” Damien points out, pouncing on my unease. “Not quite what you had in mind?”

He doesn’t seem disappointed. If anything… amused, like a master puppeteer waiting for his pretty

little doll to notice her strings.

“Lying still for a long period of time utterly motionless isn’t exactly conducive to helping me forget.”

Even still, my hands graze the front of my coat. Slowly, I undo the first button.

“Motionless?” Damien echoes, tapping his chin with an extended finger. “Who said I would use the

drug this time? In fact, I will offer you a choice.”