It was an incomplete work but what he was trying to achieve was clear. A disturbed sky as stormy and gray as the wall surrounding it was slashed into focus by a tumbling heap of burning gold, red, amber, and black. Four horses, still tethered to a chariot, were falling and twisting toward earth in a firmament being torn apart from all sides. Winged creatures were trying to hold the beasts back, but failing in the fiery blaze of destruction, and there was the beginning of a body falling from inside the chariot—a pale foot was as far as the artist had gotten.
“This is your work?” Kizzy asked in wonder as she turned to face the dark storm of his expression. “This is what you do in here?”
He nodded silently and then looked pointedly out the nearest window, a muscle working rhythmically in his jaw. “There you have it. My dark, shameful secret…”
“What?” Kizzy fixed him with an unyielding look of fascination. “I don’t see anything shameful about this.”
“It’s a weakness. The forbidden fruit I’ve never been able to leave alone, however much it cost me.” His face twisted. “At least that was the case until you came on the scene. I’ve not managed a single brush stroke since I met you.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No,” he said more gently. “It’s a good thing.”
“It is? But I don’t understand, you obviously have such talent—”
“Then I will explain it to you. Step by shameful step, every single detail, if that’s what you genuinely want. Do you want to know everything, Kizzy?”
She nodded, despite being aware that she might be opening a forbidden box of secrets. It was as if a great shadowy beast was approaching both of them from some outer ring of darkness, ready to pounce and tear them to pieces, but she refused to run from it, not so long as Andreas needed her. Transfixed by what she had seen in his face, she took a deep breath and waited to hear his explanation.
“Any artistic inclinations that I showed as a child were forbidden by my father. There were no pencils or paints in our house, just a couple of ink pens locked away in his study. If he caught me so much as etching a line or two in the sand he would tell me I was pathetic—a mommy’s boy who needed to toughen up. Then of course he would beat the living daylights out of me.” He swallowed hard. “I pressed some flowers between the pages of a schoolbook once. He found out and had our cat put down as punishment.”
Kizzy gulped back a lump in her throat. “Andreas, I—”
“You wanted this, now hear me out.” He placed a hand on the edge of the canvas, staring blindly down at his own work. “I know I should put all this behind me, that I’m stronger than my father now, yet I can’t seem to shake off those feelings of shame. Every time I pick up a paintbrush, it feels like I’m doing something dirty and furtive—I still have to hide myself away, ensure that no one ever discovers what I do up here.”
“But you know in your heart that’s not the case, don’t you?” Kizzy reached out to touch his hand, and he moved it away. The thought hurt her deeply but she persevered, hoping to salvage something from their relationship. She could only guess how he was feeling. “There is nothing wrong or bad about creating such beautiful work.”
He gestured toward the dark, swirling colors of the painting. “This has become a twisted form of punishment for me, for what happened to my sister, an attempt to remind myself how weak and selfish I am—how unworthy of any genuine respect.” He placed his fingertips over Kizzy’s mouth as she began to protest. “No, hush. Do you know I even let my father hound me into an arranged marriage that no one but he and his second cousin wanted?”
Kizzy’s sharp intake of breath made his fingers drop from her lips.
He looked away.
“My father told me that he was terminally ill, and that if I married Sophia he could die happy, that he would forgive me all my supposed transgressions. He even got my mother to back up his story with tears as added leverage. So I did it. I married Sophia.”
“What happened?”
The musty air hung with thick silence. “My father made a miraculous recovery after the wedding and Sophia went straight to Ibiza on my credit card to be with her current girlfriend. Our marriage was never even consummated. All the same, she couldn’t resist humiliating me with her druggy, swinging antics spread all over Europe’s gossip magazines.”
Suddenly, he seized Kizzy’s chin, twisting her face away from his own and pointing it toward the painting. “Do you recognize these images, Kizzy? You really should.”
Kizzy blinked back the shock she felt at the intense pressure of his fingertips and pulled herself free. She had recognized the scene almost immediately.
“It’s Phaëthon’s Fall.”
“Very good.” He inclined his head, studying the painting with hard eyes. “That degree has come in useful after all. Yes, mischievous, bigheaded Phaëthon disobeyed his father, took the sun chariot out for a spin but couldn’t control it, and almost destroyed the world. Until Zeus killed him with a thunderbolt.”
“You should finish it,” Kizzy ventured carefully. “It’s incredible—”
“I can’t,” he replied abruptly and pointed to the unfinished corner with the foot. “Because I can’t decide if this person here, the one where the demigod should be, should look like me or Callista.”
Slowly the pieces began to fall clumsily into place. Kizzy looked back at him warily. This canvas was a cathartic ritual for Andreas, a punishment as he’d said, all tied up somehow with his father, the too-fast Lamborghini, and his sister’s death.
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened to Callista. It was a tragic accident.”
His voice deepened alarmingly. “You know nothing about it.”
“Dorinda told me. Your sister crashed your car trying to rush Diablo to the vet. It’s as simple as that. It was a tragedy but not your fault. You have got to stop blaming yourself for it and move on.”
“You discussed me with Dorinda?” He shot her a look of disgust. “What makes you think she knows everything that happened that day?”
Kizzy opened her mouth to try and calm the inner forces that were making him look so angry, but it was clear he was not going to allow her to speak.
“I’ll spell it out to you once and for all. I couldn’t be bothered to take the bloody cat to the vet myself—I was too busy. I was always too busy trying to better myself, to make more money, to be the best. Callista went on and on about the cat until I got so annoyed I threw her the keys and told her to get on with it. She was just like you, Kizzy. Stubborn and rebellious to the end. She took the keys and, well, you know the rest.”