CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The beautiful blonde stretched on her belly on the white duvet—heels kicking in the air, lips red and pouty, as seductive as she was real. Even when she was posing, there was nothing forced about her client’s beauty.

Casey Sullivan had one of the best smiles Annalise had ever photographed. Fresh-faced and all-American, she possessed a gorgeous grin. The woman also knew how to give “come fuck me” eyes to the camera.

She was thinking of her husband, Casey had said, so it was easy to gaze at the lens that way—like she loved him and wanted him at the same damn time. Now they were in the last series of shots at the boudoir studio space. Casey wore an emerald-green satin push-up bra and matching lace panties. “Nate always likes me in this shade of green,” she said.

“I suspect your husband likes you in anything, everything, and nothing,” Annalise said as she finished shooting.

Casey laughed. “Yes, that does describe him perfectly.”

“Then he is going to be one very happy man when he sees these photos. He won’t know what to do with himself. His jaw will drop. Guaranteed,” Annalise said, as she showed her some of the pictures on the back of the camera.

Casey shrugged into a robe and peered at the images, and she squealed with delight as they flipped through the frames. “These are amazing,” she said, then ran her hand over the outline of her belly. “You can’t even really tell I had a baby six months ago.”

Annalise shook her head. “You look radiant, happy, and beautiful.”

Casey blushed and waved a hand in the air. “Stop, you flatter me.”

“No. I don’t have to. The camera loves you because you’re so happy and so in love.”

Casey met her eyes. “You can really tell from how I look at the camera?”

“Of course. It’s in your eyes. Everything is.”

Casey narrowed hers, and studied Annalise. “Hmm. What’s in yours, then?” she asked playfully.

A red flush crept across her cheeks.

Sex, hot sex, more sex. Dinners, days, sleepless nights. Idle chats, deep conversations, sweet nothings, and so much coming together. The last three days and nights in Manhattan had passed in a blissful blur. She’d cancelled her hotel room and stayed with Michael. During the days she’d finished her shoot for Veronica’s while Michael had worked with clients, and in the evenings they’d gone to dinner, or to a club, and sometimes they hadn’t left the room at all.

New York with Michael was a great escape from the past and the present.

The only trouble was she couldn’t rid that nagging guilt that gnawed at her for having such an immeasurably lovely time. As if she shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy herself—at least, not this deeply, this quickly, this intensely. Most of the time she turned the volume down on that voice, but still it spoke up, worming its way around her heart like an insidious creature.

“You’re happy, too.” The declaration came from Casey. Annalise’s heart skittered. The woman was so straightforward and so direct.

“Of course I’m happy,” she said, in her best cheery tone, keeping things businesslike. “I love what I do.”

“But something is holding you back?” Casey pressed on, undeterred.

Annalise knit her brow together. “Hmm?”

“From truly being happy,” Casey elaborated. “I can see a sadness in your eyes, too. Barely there, but it comes into focus now and then.”

Annalise swallowed and fiddled with her camera. The woman was too astute, too observant. She didn’t answer.

“If something holds you back from your happiness, you should try to move through it,” Casey said softly.

Annalise looked up, her client’s gentle words threading into her. “Spoken from experience?”

“Sort of. I had to get through my fear that my husband and I would lose our friendship if we became long-term lovers.”

“And you didn’t, clearly.”

“We didn’t but we had to walk through that fear. Live in it. Roll around in it for a while.”

“And you think I need to roll around in something?”

“I think whatever is making you sad, you should face it.”

On the cab ride back to the hotel, Annalise lingered on her client’s advice. Rubbing her thumb against the outline of the lens in her camera bag, she wondered if Casey was right. She had to face this thing, this voice, this knot in her stomach that stood in the way.

That night she dressed in jeans, heels, and a soft black sweater, and perched on the edge of the bed before they headed out for dinner. She waited for Michael to emerge from the shower, and when he did, her heart thundered. His hair was damp, and a white towel hung on his hips, revealing his flat, toned stomach and the trail of hair that led to her favorite place. God, she wanted him so badly, in ways that went beyond the physical.

“I feel guilty for enjoying this,” she blurted out, ripping off the Band-Aid.

He sat next to her on the bed, gesturing from him to her. “Us?”

She nodded and inhaled deeply. This was the hard part. The deep and dark truth. “Because it’s so good with you.”

His lips twitched and he looked down, then back up at her, schooling his expression. “The sex, you mean?”

She nodded. “That. Yes. It’s amazing. It’s better than anything I’ve ever had.”

He nodded, as if she’d said something as simple as “This salmon is delicious.” She hadn’t expected him to beat his chest at the compliment, or grin with masculine pride, but she was doubly glad for his tact. “That doesn’t mean you didn’t love him,” Michael said, as a droplet of water from his shower slid down his chest. “It just means we have good chemistry.”

She shook her head vigorously, strands of her hair slapping her cheek. “It’s not just chemistry, Michael. You know that. We have so much more than simple chemistry. We have history, and now we have the present too.”

“I know,” he whispered.

“That’s part of what scares me. The sex is amazing in and of itself, but it’s also incredible…” She slowed her words to run her fingers along the back of his neck and into the soft strands of his damp hair. “For other reasons.”

A small smile slipped across his lips. “I feel those reasons, too.”

“I don’t want to be sad about this,” she said, keeping her voice strong, as if announcing her intentions to move on would rid her of this hard stone inside her chest.

“There’s no shortcut. You just have to let yourself feel,” he said, leaning his head back against her hand and closing his eyes, almost as if he were demonstrating how to feel again.

How had he gotten to be so wise? Where was the carefree, easy guy she fell for decades ago? But of course, she knew the answer. He’d had to let go of who he was. He’d had to walk through all his own grief, too.

As her fingers toyed with his hair, she asked, “Is that what you did? For your father?”

“Yes. Most of all, once I stopped feeling so awful every day, I chose not to beat myself up for enjoying being alive. It gets to a point where you can’t miss a person every second. Or even every day. And you stop getting mad at yourself if you dare to laugh, or joke, or even just do something mundane, like have fun watching an episode of CSI.”

She latched onto that last one. “Are you saying we should watch TV?”

He laughed and opened his eyes, shaking his head. “Hell no. But I learned to just have a good time hanging out with family. Enjoy work. A good hard run. That’s the only way through everything. Keep on living—keep on feeling.”

“I want to be there. I want to feel.” But as soon as she spoke, she wondered if she was further along than she thought. Hadn’t she done all that? Let herself feel everything? She hadn’t shied away from grief. She’d faced it head on, experiencing every tear, every ounce of heartbreak, every moment of missing him. She’d gone all in when it came to remembering, and longing. Maybe it was time to do the same for moving on.

Go all in.

So when she went to dinner with him that night, she chose to relish every ounce of the happiness, to lose herself in the joy of being with this man she cared for so deeply. When they returned to his room for their last night together, she knew there was one more thing to do. One more way to give her whole heart to moving on.

“Take my picture,” she said. He scrunched up his brow as she handed him her camera. “I’m always the one behind the camera. I’m always the one with something in front of my eyes. I want to be the subject, and I want you to photograph me getting naked for you. That’s what I want to feel tonight. What it’s like to give myself to you.”

His eyes blazed darkly, shining with desire, and something else—something she’d wanted desperately when she was younger. Something that scared the hell out of her now. But maybe if she was on the other side of the camera, she could handle everything she saw in him, and let him see the parts of her no one else was privy to.