Chapter 12
When I first stepped back into the gallery after saying yes to Niccolo, I didn’t expect the feeling that washed over me. It was like standing in the sunlight after living years in a locked, windowless room.
The place was still empty, just canvases leaning against the wall, brushes waiting in glass jars, soft beams of light filtering through the high windows.
But it felt alive. For the first time in so long, I felt alive too.
I picked up my old sketchbook from the shelf Niccolo had built just for me. My fingers shook as I flipped through page after page of faded pencil drawings memories of a girl who once dreamed of more than just surviving for someone else.
Back then, I would draw for hours, getting paint on my clothes, ink on my fingers. But after I “married” Scott, I gave it all up. He told me there was no time for my silly hobbies, not when Jasmine needed me so much.
He said it was selfish to waste my time on my art when I could be a good wife, a good caretaker, a good friend. So I tucked my dreams away in the dark, and I didn’t pick up a brush again.
Now, standing here, sunlight warming my shoulders, the blank canvas in front of me didn’t scare me. It felt like an open door. Like a chance to start again.
I dipped my brush into the first swirl of color. Pale blue, like the sky in my old bedroom window. The bristles trembled at first, my strokes shaky.
Then they grew bolder, steadier, dancing across the canvas until they began to look like something real. Something mine.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until a tear splashed on my wrist. I laughed softly to myself – what a mess I must’ve looked, Covered in paint, cheeks wet, heart beating like it was learning how to breathe again.
“Why are you crying?” Niccolo’s voice jolted me out of my thoughts. He leaned against the doorway, arms folded, but his eyes were gentle, searching.
wiped my cheek with the back of my hand, leaving a smear of blue paint behind. “It’s nothing,” I said, shaking my head, even though my voice cracked. “I’m just… I’m happy.”
Niccolo crossed the room in a few strides and wrapped his arms around me from behind. I felt his chin rest on my shoulder, his warmth soaking into my back like sunshine on cold
skin.
“Don’t lie to me,” he murmured. “Tell me.”
I set the brush down and turned in his arms, pressing my forehead to his chest. “I didn’t think I’d ever be here again. I forgot what it felt like, to paint for me. To live for me. He took it all from me, Niccolo. And you gave it back.”
He tilted my chin up with his finger, his thumb brushing away the last of my tears. “No, Nadine. You gave it back to yourself. I just reminded you that you deserve it.””
“Don’t lie to me,” he murmured. “Tell me.”
I set the brush down and turned in his arms, pressing my forehead to his chest. “I didn’t think I’d ever be here again. I forgot what it felt like, to paint for me. To live for me. He took it all from me, Niccolo. And you gave it back.”
He tilted my chin up with his finger, his thumb brushing away the last of my tears. “No, Nadine. You gave it back to yourself. I just reminded you that you deserve it.”
I buried my face in his shirt, and for a long moment, we just stood there, me breathing him in, him holding me together like glue in all the places I’d once been broken.
The next few days felt like I was living someone else’s life – someone better. The gallery slowly began to fill with my work, and Niccolo would watch me paint with that look in his eyes, like he was memorizing the way my mouth curved when I smiled.
He dragged me away from my canvases every now and then taking me out to the bakery down the street, buying me new brushes and paints, slipping rings of warm donuts into my hand when he thought I wasn’t looking.
And in between, we planned our wedding. Not a big one, I didn’t want that. Just us, our families, and a promise that this time, no one would use me as a pawn or a shield.
No fake papers, no hidden enemies. Just love, and the chance to breathe freely again.
One night, I was sitting on the floor of the gallery, my legs tucked beneath me, organizing a pile of invitations when my phone buzzed on the stool next to me.
picked it up, expecting Niccolo to be asking if I wanted dinner from the new sushi place he’d been raving about. Instead, it was Attorney Hensley’s number.
I hesitated, dread curling in my stomach like a bad taste.
Maybe Scott found me. Maybe he wanted to drag me back into his prison of half–truths and fake vows.
I took a deep breath and answered. “Hello?”
There was a short pause, then the lawyer’s brisk, polite voice. “Miss Smith, I wanted you to know… you might see this in the papers soon. Scott Jones has filed for divorce from Jasmine.”
I didn’t speak. For a moment, I wasn’t sure I could. My heart thudded, the words echoing in my mind. Divorce. From Jasmine.
Attorney Hensley cleared his throat. “He… learned the truth. About what she did to you.” My brush slipped from my hand and clattered onto the floor, leaving a streak of wet paint across my ankle. I barely noticed.
All I could think about was how full circle this felt, how everything he’d used to keep me caged was falling apart, piece by rotten piece. And how far I’d come from the woman who would’ve run back to him the moment he called.
I wasn’t her anymore.
Chapter 13
