Adriana stared at Michael, dumbfounded by his courage and her own shame. He had bared his soul while she skated across her past and avoided her present. She owed him the truth.
“Michael, there’s something I—”
He grabbed his clothes and began getting dressed. “I have to meet Jackson at the gallery in a couple hours. We should go.”
He sounded angry. And why not? He was an intuitive person. He would have sensed her many omissions.
When he smacked the leaves from his shorts, she jumped like a frightened child.
What was wrong with her? Michael wasn’t like Jian Carlo or her grandmother who would lash out at her whenever they pleased. He was kind and thoughtful and brave. Thank goodness he had already headed up the trail so she could follow in silence and hide. She was good at hiding. She had had years of practice, not just in her marriage but with Avó Serafina.
Adriana shivered as the memories flooded in—scared and isolated, ripped from her family, trapped with a father she didn’t understand and a grandmother she feared.
As she and Michael walked, drove, and parked, the silence became so unbearable that Adriana jumped from the car the moment it stopped in front of her house.
“Hold up.” Michael scrambled out of the car to catch her. “Please wait. I have something for you.”
She nodded, too flustered to argue. The sooner he gave her whatever it was, the sooner she could run away and abandon this doomed romance.
He hurried to the trunk and withdrew a canvas the length of his arm, wrapped in translucent paper. When he reached her, he turned it around so she could see the front.
“I took it off the market the morning after I met you. I didn’t know why at the time. I just knew I couldn’t part with it.” He held it out to her. “I want you to have it.”
Adriana stared at the painting and fell in love with the piece all over again. Slashes of vibrant orange and peacock-blue, magenta bolts of lightning, green as brilliant as emeralds whirling around streaks of bittersweet chocolate beneath a molten amber moon.
“You seemed to like this one best,” Michael said. “As if you could feel the movement. As if you understood what I had been feeling when I created it. That’s not something that ever mattered to me before.”
Adriana blinked back tears. “I don’t know what to say.”
Michael laughed. “Say you’ll take it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. In fact, I think I may have painted it for you. God that sounds lame. What I mean is—I think it’s meant for you. It’s called Abandon.”
“Of course it is,” she whispered.
“What was that?”
“I said, of course. I’ll treasure it always.” She accepted the painting and turned away before he could see her cry.
“Wait. What about tomorrow? I’ll take you to lunch. Pick you up here?”
She punched in the code for the gate, desperate to get away. “Não. That’s not possible.”
“Okay then. We’ll meet at the gallery. Eleven sound good?”
Tears rolled down her face. Why was he torturing her like this? He had to know she was a fraud. He had to know it was over.
“Sure.”
As soon as the gates began to swing, she dashed onto her driveway.
Tomorrow she would be brave. Tomorrow, she would tell him the truth.