Chapter 10
1177 Words
“You’re an artist?” he murmured in astonishment, his eyes finally lifting to meet hers.
Emily’s gaze faltered under the weight of his attention, and she felt the heat creep into her cheeks.
“I wouldn’t really call myself an artist…I just paint once in a while and they're not good anyway,” she said quickly, nodding toward the large leather portfolio he had lifted from the rack near her work table.
Around him, the room was arranged into distinct stations: the central easel angled toward the light from the skylight, a wide oak workbench cluttered with jars of brushes and palette knives, a drying rack by the wall for finished canvases, and a side table stacked with sketchbooks and loose sheets of watercolor paper.
“Look, It’s just a hobby… something to keep me occupied.” Her voice faded as he began flipping through the portfolio with a frown of concentration.
He lingered over some pages longer than others, tilting his head slightly as though trying to understand the way her lines curved or why certain colors bled into each other.
She stood awkwardly in front of him, fiddling with the cuff of her smock, bracing for the dismissive comment she was sure was coming.
Instead, he stopped on a large oil painting of a woman standing on a windswept cliff, skirt whipping around her legs, the sea rendered in thick, violent strokes of ultramarine and viridian.
“This one…” He tapped the image. “So far, it's not like the others and it looks like the best one, honestly. How did you do this…scraping thing?”
“It’s a palette knife technique,” she explained cautiously. “The texture makes the art feel… real.”
He turned another page, revealing a watercolor portrait. “And this?”
“That’s nothing,” she said softly. “I was still figuring out skin tones.”
His brow furrowed. “Why are these tucked away up here anyway?”
“They’re not good enough,” she said flatly. “I’ve never had formal training on this. I only read books, watched tutorials on Coursera and experimented when I had the time. I mess things up more often than not so It’s not like I could compete with people who’ve spent years in art schools.”
He glanced back at the portfolio, jaw tightening. “This is so pathetic… You sound so pathetic right now. Did daddykins not accept your talent or something? Is that why you didn't go to art school or try to get your art out there regardless?”
Her spine stiffened. “I believe what I see in my own work.”
“I think you should have someone…Renault, maybe, or Evans. Let them have a good look at these. I'm pretty sure they’d see the potential immediately.”
“I’m not interested in wasting their time, thank you,” she snapped, the sudden edge in her voice making his gaze move to her face. “They’re busy with real artists.”
He studied her for a long moment, then closed the portfolio with deliberate care and set it down on her desk. “Alright then, princess. Suit yourself.”
She watched him drift around the studio, picking things up and setting them down. He raised a jar of sable brushes, a ceramic palette flecked with dried cadmium red, a half-finished canvas on the drying rack and he was about to touch something else but she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Don’t touch that!” she barked when he reached for a brush still wet with cobalt. “That’s a loaded stroke, if you smear it, the whole piece is ruined.”
His hand stilled then he set the brush down gently and turned back to her.
“Emily, why didn’t you tell me you're an artist?” he asked quietly.
She laughed without humor. “Since when did you care about who I am and what I do?”
“You should’ve told me, I'm your husband.” he countered.
“Would you really have cared if I had told you about this?” she shot back. He ignored the question and cleared his throat awkwardly.
“How many pieces have you sold or auctioned? Surely, you must've sold one of those paintings.”
“None. Everything you see here stays here. The only paintings not in this room are the ones I gave to Quinn. And even then, she had to badger me into it.”
He frowned. “I see. So you keep them hidden because you think they’re not good enough.”
“I know that they aren’t.”
“You’ve been living with me for two years and I had no idea,” he said, almost to himself.
“That’s because you never cared about anything related to me,” she said, her tone low but sharp. “If you were interested in me a tiny bit, Nicolas, you would've found out about this a long time ago because it's not like I even lock the door to this place.”
She sighed and continued. “I’m sure the only reason you’re here now is because I asked for a divorce but you don't want to let that happen for whatever reason you have. Well sorry to break it to you but pretending to be interested in me now is such a lame move.”
“What the hell are you saying,” he said calmly. “I don’t have an ulterior motive or anything. Why are you making it seem like I know nothing about you anyway? I was interested in you…a bit.”
She scoffed. “I was interested in you a whole lot by the way, I probably know you more than you know yourself.”
“I doubt that.” He leaned back against her worktable, hands in the pockets of his tailored trousers, one ankle resting over the other.
“Fine. What’s my favorite colour?”
He hesitated. “Pink?”
She shook her head slowly. “My favorite colour is Green.”
“What kind of girl likes green? Well, that doesn't matter,” he muttered.
“Of course you say that. It doesn't matter to you at all so why are we still married?. You don’t know my favorite colour, my birthday…you don't know anything. And it’s not because I’ve been hiding them, It’s because you were never interested.”
He opened his mouth, but she held up her hand.
“I know, Nicolas. I know I wasn’t the girl you wanted to spend the rest of your life with but I had hope. It's been years and you’ve painfully made it clear that you'll never love or respect me.”
He didn’t respond because he couldn’t think of the right words to say. So he just watched her with an unreadable expression on his face.
“And the fact that you obviously don’t know what to say right now?” she added quietly. “That’s part of the problem.”
- Writer
