Who's Crying Now, Ex-Husband?

Chapter 399

Especially that portrait in front of her.

Mila could see it instantly—the woman who painted it must have been on the edge of madness. The canvas was saturated with intense, almost hysterical emotion; every brushstroke screamed with frenzied hatred. The woman in the painting must have desperately wanted to drive a steak knife into the man's throat, but she couldn't do it. All that rage and bitterness could only spill out onto the canvas.

Now, at last, Mila understood.

This was why, in seven years with the Montgomery family, she'd never once seen Felicity paint a portrait. Maybe it was disgust. Maybe it was fear. Whatever it was, the woman never again put a human figure to canvas.

This was the first time Mila had seen someone painted by Felicity's hand: vivid, strange, taken to the absolute extreme-a work of undeniable genius.

She'd always known Felicity had a gift for painting people.

Mila felt herself drawn in by the painting's raw emotion. Without thinking, she reached out to touch it—when suddenly, a sharp weight pressed down on her shoulder. She cried out in pain, feeling something warm and wet. The wound must have reopened.

And she felt as if she might come apart, too.

...

Cossio had woken up.

Hearing her cry, he quickly apologized. "Sorry, I forgot about your shoulder. Does it hurt?"

His innocent tone only made Mila angrier. If she weren't so afraid, she'd have snarled right back-Why don't you try shooting yourself and see how it feels, you two-faced bastard! She wished, not for the first time, that he'd just drop dead.

But of course, that was impossible.

She knew, with icy clarity, that the man before her was as beautiful and deadly as a poisonous flower.

Touch him, and you die.

Her shoulder bleeding heavily again, Mila was half-carried into the room next door -a bedroom adjacent to the studio.

was there,

she entered, the wolf caught the scent of blood and immediately tensed, growling and ready to pounce, until Cossio barked a command in Italian. The animal

down on

gaze fixed on the blood soaking through her

nothing left

redressed, the heady scent of roses filling the room, exhaustion finally overtook her. She lay back on the sofa and drifted

When she woke,

up with a start. How

realize her heavy dress had been replaced with a light nightgown. By the faint moonlight, she glanced around, and her eyes caught on a painting she recognized hanging on the bedroom

an oil painting of

but this one was painted in brighter colors, strangely out

in

...

Realizing where she was,

the

her surroundings. The wolf was asleep on the floor beside the enormous, canopied

Just then,

faint scratching broke the silence-the sound of a pencil moving across paper. Soft, almost

sound. She saw a narrow shaft of yellow light spilling through a half-open

Someone was in there.

from a silver tray on the table. She draped

The pencil stopped.

the easel turned to look at her, his voice calm and gentle. "Why not sleep

Mila shook her head.

"Then keep

she was used to these strange, inexplicable things Cossio would say to her. It seemed his mind was always slightly adrift-whether drunk or sober, he lived in a

the truth, that dream would

Of course,

that happened, she'd