The summer is passing slowly, but surely. There's a noticeable chill present in the nighttime, and I've started wearing a cardigan over my dresses when we have dinner on the veranda. I know my time at Mason's place is slowly coming to an end, but neither of us has brought it up yet.

I don't want to admit I'll have to go back to my real life in the fall. Go to one of the colleges I got accepted to and resume life as it used to be. Is that even possible after everything that has happened? I guess I'm about to find out.

I've started sleeping in Mason's room, curled up against his chest with my head resting in the crook of his arm. I like the sense of familiarity between us now, it makes me feel good.

We're getting ready for bed that night and I head to his bedroom earlier, while Mason finishes up some work in the office. I take a long-forgotten paperback from my suitcase and thumb through the pages until I found the chapter where I left off.

I don't remember the moment I doze off, but I wake up with a throbbing headache hours later, the paperback discarded on my chest. Mason's sleeping next to me, his strong body cradling mine. He's put a blanket over me and I smile to myself as my fingers glide over his handsome features.

Then I realize why my head is pounding - there's a loud noise coming from downstairs. Someone's shouting.

Mason stirs awake a moment later, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He looks concerned as he sits up in the bed, extending an arm to be and rubbing my wrist to comfort me.

"What's going on?" I ask, my voice shaky. "Is someone here?"

"I'll go check it out," he promises me, and I make to get out of the bed at the same time he does, but his firm grip on my arm stops me. "No, you stay here, sweetheart."

I pout at his words but he ignores me, putting on the jeans he'd worn earlier and heading out of the room. I hear his footsteps going down the stairs, and for a moment, everything is quiet. I lie in the bed with my heart pounding and an impending sense of doom. I have a bad feeling about this. Something isn't right.

Just then, I hear a loud crash and more voices being raised. It's enough to get me out of bed.

I slip on a silk robe Mason got me last week, my bare feet shuffling along the floor as I rush out of the room. I don't even bother looking in the mirror, too worried about Mason's safety to worry about my appearance.

I walk downstairs where the noises are coming from. I come to an abrupt stop at the top of the stairs overlooking the front room. There are three figures there, talking in urgent notes, loud and angry voices taking up the whole room.

Mason, Filippe and...

"Dad?"

The word comes out small, like I feel right now. The three man all look towards me standing at the top of the stairs. It is my dad. What the hell is he doing here?

He looks at me, his eyes furious. He takes in my disheveled appearance, and I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear as he stares me down, trying to get some kind of answer from me.

"What the hell?" he asks.

His voice isn't loud, but his tone is pissed. Enough to scare me into blushing.

"Did she come from your fucking room?" My dad glares at Mason, who runs a hand through his hair.

"Calm down, James," Filippe begs my father. "We can sort all of this out, don't worry."

"Sort it out?" My dad laughs bitterly. "I send her to him," he points at Mason, "to show her the country, not the size of his dick!"

I've never heard my father curse in my life, and it sends scared shivers down my spine, like little razor-sharp needles forcing their way into my skin.

"James, please," Mason finally says, his voice firm. "We can talk about anything."

"Yeah?" Dad looks at him, pure fury in his eyes. "Are we going to talk about the fact you turned my fucking daughter into a sex toy for your pleasure?"

My hand trembles on the stairway rail.

"Are we going to talk about you painting her," dad bellows. "Fucking naked in front of your sick damn supporters?"

"James," Mason begs him, sneaking a glance at me. "I don't know who told you about all this."

My dad laughs bitterly, saying, "Word gets around, Mason. You wouldn't even believe."

"He didn't force me to do anything," I get out in the smallest of voices.

My dad laughs, like it's the most idiotic thing he's heard in his life.

"Didn't force her," he mocks Mason. "She's fucking eighteen, you son of a bitch. She's been manipulated. You fucked up her head, you jackass. You fucking ruined her!"

"Daddy, stop!" I yell, but my words fall on deaf ears as my father lunges after Mason.

I shriek as the two men tumble to the ground, trying to make my way to the spot on the floor where they're brawling. But Filippe intercepts me, holding me back while the only two men that mean anything to me fight it out.

My father is fueled by rage, but Mason is taller, stronger. He's got the upper hand, even though I can tell he's just trying to calm dad down.

"Where are they?" dad snarls as they get up, Mason holding him at an arm's length. "Where are the fucking paintings, you son of a bitch?"

None of us says a word as my dad rips himself out of Mason's grip and runs up the stairs. He doesn't even stop when he passes me, and I feel myself crying, hot tears of humiliation falling down my cheeks.

We all race after my dad as he tears through the house. He doesn't stop until he comes to a door I don't even remember.

"In here?" he snarls at Mason. "Did you put her with all of your other whores, you sick bastard?"

I give Mason a confused look. He looks at me worriedly, before raising his arms at my father.

"Calm down, James," he begs for the last time. "Let's sit down and talk about this."

"I did not take a fucking ten-hour flight to talk," dad yells at him.

He tries the door, it's locked. Then, he lunges at it with all his might, screaming as he breaks down the door. We all stare into the Pandora's box he's just opened.

The room is big, more of a hall, really. There are four easels in the middle of it, my nakedness exposed on every one of them. I blush deeply, but then I see the rest of the room.

It's really a gallery, the walls adorned with paintings. Dozens upon dozens of them.

I walk past Filippe, past Mason, past my dad. Someone flips the light switch and I come face to face with them.

The women.

The muses.

Innocence.

Yearing.

Submission.

Domination.

Four portraits for every one of them. All of them on the walls of this room. It must be over ten women. Maybe over a dozen. And in the middle of the room, my own portraits, like a fucking mockery to everything I thought I'd experienced with Mason.

I can't even turn to face him as the hot tears start to fall. I hear them talking, shouting. I feel someone reach for me but I rip myself out of their touch and sit down on the floor in a corner. I can't keep myself up anymore.

I watch my dad head for the paintings of me, punching a hole in every one of them. Ruining them.

Someone kneels down in front of me, and makes me look into his eyes. Mason.

"How could you?" I ask him. "How could you use me?"

"I didn't," he says. "You were the last one. The most important one. My work of art. My magnum opus. My muse, cara mia..."

"Shut up!" I wipe my tears off angrily, my whole body throbbing with the lies and deceit he's fed me over the past month. "I hate you, Mason Scott. You're a jackass. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you."

“Tell her you love her, then,” my dad interrupts from behind us, and Mason clenches his fists like he’s in physical pain. “Tell her you love her, you bastard.”

Mason looks at me and his mouth opens, but there are no words. He just stares at me, begging me to understand, hoping I’ll see something I don’t believe in anymore.

“Please,” I say softly, even though I don’t want him to see how vulnerable I am. “Please, Mason.”

“I…” he swallows. “I’m sorry, cara mia.”

I push past him and start running. I can barely see through the tears clouding my vision. I don't stop until my bare feet hit the ground. I don't stop until I reach the secret garden.

Once I'm there, I tear through it. I want to hurt him by damaging something that means a lot to him. Even though the garden is overgrown, there is still a certain kind of beauty to it. And I tear through it like a banshee.

I pull out roots, break down branches. I dig up the soil, kick the flowers, I do my fucking best to destroy the beauty of the place.

I don't stop until someone drags me away. My feet drag on the ground as I get taken away, feeling like a lifeless doll. I realize it's my father talking to me as he sits me down into a taxi. I'm still only wearing the silk robe over my PJs, the fabric now stained with blood. I look down at my hands and find them cut up. Probably from the rose bushes in the garden, I think absentmindedly.

Someone slams a fist on the window and the taxi driver starts chattering in Italian.

"Don't fucking take her."

The voice is muffled. I look up at Mason, his eyes pleading with me, with my father.

Don't. Go.

I want to say something back, but my mouth has dried up.

Surely all this wasn't fake. Surely he felt something for me, even though he painted so many other women in the same manner. But what we had... It was real. Maybe just for me. Maybe not for Mason.

Fresh tears spill from my eyes as I look at him through the window. He's desperate, he's reaching for the door, but we're locked inside. A part of me wants to tell my father to let me out, another part wants me to stay put and leave it all behind. The pain, the heartache. The love, the intensity of the man I spent my summer with.

"Drive," my dad orders the taxi driver. "Marco Polo airport. Now."

The driver hesitates and Mason slams a fist on the window again.

"NOW!" my dad demands, and the driver steps on the gas.

I stare outside of the window feeling numb as the car drives off. Mason's figure gets smaller and smaller and smaller. And then it disappears, and I don't feel anything anymore.

"It's okay, honey," my dad tells me, his voice shaky and pent-up. "You're okay now. I'm taking you home now. Don't worry, you never have to see him again."

I always thought I would break with a scream, go down in flames, come apart loudly. But as I fall apart in that car, I don't make a single sound.