The next morning, Amelia found herself awake before dawn. Daniel still slept beside her, his chest rising and falling with a fragile kind of peace she hadn't seen in him before. She watched him in the dim light, memorizing the lines of his face—not as an artist, but as a woman in love with a man who had been breaking and healing at once.
But the stillness didn't last.
Her phone buzzed on the bedside table.
Julian.
One message.
> He's lying to you. Come to the gallery. Alone.
She stared at the screen, pulse beginning to thrum in her ears. She didn't move right away. Her eyes drifted back to Daniel. What if Julian was just playing the last card in his deck? What if it was true?
The past had a way of bleeding into the present, no matter how tightly you tried to seal it off.
She slipped out from under the covers without waking him. The floor was cold beneath her bare feet, but the storm inside her made it worse.
---
Julian's gallery was bathed in pale gold light when she arrived. Empty. Silent. Almost sacred.
He stood by the wall of her paintings—the Daniel series—arms crossed, face unreadable.
"I wasn't sure you'd come," he said.
"I shouldn't have," she replied, voice clipped. "You said he's lying."
Julian nodded. "Yes. And I can prove it."
He moved to the back room, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out a thick envelope. He handed it to her.
She opened it with reluctant fingers. Inside were photos. Receipts. A contract with a familiar modeling agency. Daniel's signature. Dates that didn't make sense—because they overlapped with the days he told her he was gone to "clear his head."
She looked up at Julian, eyes narrowing. "This doesn't prove anything. So he took a job. That's not a crime."
Julian stepped closer, too close. "It proves he lied. You were painting him while he was being sold to someone else's vision. A fantasy for another artist. Naked. Used."
Amelia's hand tightened around the envelope.
Julian's voice lowered. "He's letting you believe he belongs to you. But he never did. He sells himself to whoever will pay. Emotionally. Physically. Don't you see? That's who he is."
She slapped him.
The sound cracked in the silence.
"I see exactly what you're doing," she said, her voice shaking. "You can't stand that I chose someone who wouldn't let you manipulate him."
Julian didn't flinch. "I'm trying to protect you."
"No," she whispered. "You're trying to own me."
She dropped the envelope to the floor, turned, and walked out. Her body trembled with rage, confusion, heartbreak. But beneath all of it… was a deeper fear.
Not that Julian was lying.
But that he wasn't.
---
Back at the studio, Daniel was awake, pacing, dressed, like he already knew.
When she entered, he looked at her with hollow eyes. "You went to see him."
She nodded slowly. "He showed me something. A contract. From the days you disappeared."
Daniel's jaw clenched. "It was before you and I… before I knew what we were becoming."
"But you didn't tell me," she said, voice cracking. "You let me believe your absence was about me. About us."
He took a step forward, but she held up a hand.
"I don't care about the modeling. I care that you let me fall apart thinking it was my fault."
Daniel's voice shook. "Because I didn't know how to ask for space without hurting you. And I didn't want to lose you."
Tears welled in her eyes.
"You lost me anyway."
He froze.
And in the silence that followed, something between them tore—not with violence, but with the soft, unbearable sound of something precious being undone.