I let the alcohol slide down my throat and closed my eyes to enjoy it. At least drinking was working out for me. By the time my second glass was empty, I was calm enough to admit that I didn't have a choice as to whether or not this worked with Nina. Even if she hated me, she had to stay. Karl and the others weren't going to spare her, no matter how much she begged and swore she knew nothing about her father's investigation.
I thought about returning to her room and apologizing, but that would have probably made it worse. No, I needed to think. I headed back to my room and relaxed on the bed. Nina's picture hung on the wall across from me, and as I stared at the blues and reds and those light brown smudges she'd said were my eyes watching her, I saw what I needed to do. I had to go back to the person the shrinks and Rogers had always said would never find true love. The woman who'd painted it wanted me to be that man, no matter how much everyone else didn't. I just had to make her want me like that again.
Easier said than done when the object of my affections was sitting on the other side of the house likely planning her escape.
I dozed off staring at Nina's picture as my mind drifted back to that night at Tony's when she said yes to spending the rest of our lives together. A knock on my door roused me from my nap, and I lifted my right arm to see the time. 9:28. Scrubbing the sleep from my eyes, I walked to the door, expecting Rogers to be standing there all dour-faced with something to report like Nina leaving again. I took a deep breath and braced myself for what he had to say as I opened the door.
"I just want you to know that I think keeping a woman prisoner is against the law in New York."
Nina stood there in the hallway dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and looking incredibly pissed off. But at least she was standing there and not driving away at a hundred miles an hour. That was definitely better than her leaving.
"You're not a prisoner." That was the second time I'd had to say that.
Her right hip shot out and her hand landed on her waist. "Then what do you call this?"
"Would you like to come in and talk?"
"What?" she asked with the same pissed off expression that now mixed with what looked like a flash of fear in her eyes.
"Would you like to come in? You slept in here for months, Nina. I promise. You liked it here."
"Do you plan to answer my question if I come in there?"
"Sure."
I opened the door and held my arm out to welcome her to the room where we'd spent hours falling in love. As always, I couldn't stop myself from hoping that she'd remember some shred of our past together.
"Would you like to sit down?" I asked as I dragged the chair away from the desk near the window.
She squinted her eyes at me and appeared to consider my offer of a seat. "I guess it couldn't hurt."
As she sat down in the chair in front of me, I had to fight the urge to slide my hands over her shoulders and lean down to kiss her like every fiber of my being wanted to. I stood for a few seconds wishing so much to touch her until the heaviness in my heart made it hard to breathe and I forced myself to move away. My feet felt like they were wading through wet cement as I came around to sit on the bed in front of her.
"So you were about to tell me how this isn't me being held prisoner," she said sharply as she folded her arms across her chest.
So much for memories of love.
I turned to point at her painting hanging on the wall. "That's yours. You painted that for me, and I loved it so much I had it hung there so I can see it every night before I fall asleep and every morning when I wake."
She looked at the painting and tears welled in her eyes. "I painted that for you?"
Nodding, I smiled. "You did. Do you want to know what you said the colors represented?"
Nina got up from her chair and walked over to stand in front of the painting. She stared at it for a long moment and looked back at me. "Those are your eyes. I've never seen eyes like yours—that color brown. There's no way I would've painted those two brown areas without wanting them to represent your eyes."
"That's right."
Turning back to face the painting, she asked, "What do the blues and reds symbolize?"
"You said they represented the emotions I made you feel."
She looked at me and a look of pain crossed her face. "Like hot and cold?"
"Sort of. I guess I can be difficult to be around sometimes."
Wiping a tear on her cheek, she shook her head and came back to sit in front of me. "I never paint for anyone I'm dating. The only man I've ever painted for was my father. If I painted this for you, I must have..."
She tried to choke back the tears, but she couldn't stop them and as they began to stream down her face, she ran out before I could do anything to make her feel better. I knew how she felt. The frustration. The loss. I didn't know if I should run after her since the doctors had repeatedly told me to give her time, but I couldn't let her sit over in that room alone crying about us when I was feeling as bad as she was at what we'd lost.
When I got to her room, she was sitting on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands, her body heaving from her sobs. Watching her like this broke my heart, and I couldn't stand there and do nothing. Whatever her doctors thought they knew, they didn't understand what it was like to watch the woman you love fall apart.
I sat down next to her and pulled her close to me. She didn't fight me and buried her head in my chest as she continued to cry. Trailing my fingers over her soft hair, I moved my hands to her back and held her to me, never wanting to let her go. She was my Nina.
"I hate this. You don't know what that painting means, Tristan," she sobbed into my shirt. "I never paint for others. I've always been too afraid to. This means I did feel everything Jordan says I did."
Pressing my lips to the top of her head, I kissed her softly and whispered, "Then that's a good thing, isn't it?"
Leaning back away from me, she shook her head. "No, it isn't! We were in love and now it's gone. I can't remember you or anything about this house or what we felt for each other. It's like it's a dark space where so much good is sitting there waiting for me and I can't find it."
"The doctors said it might take a little while."
"I don't want to wait a while! I had a life and now I have nothing. I sit over in this room and feel like I have nobody and nothing to hold on to."
I cupped her chin and smiled down into that beautiful sad face. "You have me. Hold on to me."
"I'm no fool, Tristan. I may not remember things, but I'm not an idiot. I know who you are. I looked it up. You're a bajillionaire. What would you want with someone like me?"