Page 62 of The Prize

Wilder’s gaze moved over the canvas. “That’s next.”

I wanted to say she was beautiful, enthralling even, and that she was everything that was pure and mystical as one would expect from such a talented artist.

Tobias broke the spell. “It was her smile, wasn’t it?” He watched me watching her. “I would ask you what you think but your face tells me everything.”

Her knowing eyes, her beautiful face created with thesfumatotechnique providing a flawless finish. All that was left was the varnish and she would be perfection.

“I can’t...breathe...” I hurried away from the lie that wanted to swallow me.

Dazed, I continued up the central staircase toward my bedroom and stripped off my clothes and left them trailing behind as I walked naked into the bathroom.

Within the hot shower I tried to wash off these feelings of guilt that tasted like the ash of my past and the bitterness of all that was wrong with me. Wash off this misery and find a way back to my life. This agony was of my own doing, my motivation skewered because I’d reassured myself I was doing it all to savehim.

And to save my paintings.

I couldn’t see straight, think straight, and this disorientation swept me up into its vortex. A sob burst from me and I pressed my hand to my mouth to prevent another, terrified that if I let go I’d never pull back from breaking down. I’d been holding on for so long, stayed strong for both of us, though as my thoughts cleared I saw the end of me.

Irrevocably lost.

Tears melded with water and I swiped at them, tilting my face toward the stream to hold them back—

Tobias stood inside the doorway and he was holding a towel. “I brought you this.” He offered it to me.

My eyes flittered over to the fresh towels already in here.

He threw it onto the countertop. “Seeing you like this... I’m so sorry, Zara.”

This was what shock felt like—the inability to talk, or think, or know what to do next. All I knew was that art was in my blood. I’d been destined to continue the Romanov legacy, and it hurt that this was the only way.

Tobias stepped forward. “Can I join you?”

I watched him pull open the shower door and step in with me even though he was still fully dressed. “You hate me?”

“I’m scared of the feelings I have for you because I don’t trust them.”

“Trust mine.”

I knew what he’d done was his way of finding his own pathway, setting a trap so ingenious he could bring down an empire. This wasn’t just about art or revenge or taking our lives back, this was also about us changing the fate of thousands and preventing more atrocities, but first we had to walk through hell because that was the only way to get to the other side.

He tipped up my chin. “Is the painting that bad?”

I let out another sob. “She’s beautiful, Tobias. That’s the problem. I didn’t really believe you’d pull it off.”

“If this means I’m losing you I will destroy her.” He looked earnest. “Tell me what to do.”

“Hold me.”

He came toward me and wrapped his arms around me. I fell against his soaking wet shirt and heaved sobs against him.

“I’ve got you.” He kissed my forehead and pulled me firmly against him, rocking me in his arms as cascading water drenched us.

“I knew I should have gone with a Disney sketch,” he said.

My nervous laughter failed with another sob. “She’s spectacular.”

“This falls on me. All of it.” He crushed his lips to mine and kissed me fiercely, and I opened my mouth for him, letting him in, no less tortured by what he’d done, my chest aching with the impossibility of being part of this. I’d believed he’d fail and once he’d created her we’d both see this truth in her illusion...

But she was everything.