He waited after those words left my lips. The words were painful to say to him but he had to hear it from me. The truth is sometimes hard to bear, and I imagined this would be so for Ethan, but I wanted him to get the uncensored version. I owed him that much.
“Why not, Brynne? Why can’t you stop modeling? Why won’t you do it for me?”
Those bastard tears showed up again. “Because . . .” I blubbered, “because the pictures I take n-now are so—s-so b-beautiful. They are . . . just something beautiful of me!”
Ethan held on to me while I cried. He seemed to get that this was breakthrough territory for me. I wish Dr. Roswell was around to witness it.
“They are. You’re right, Brynne. Your pictures are stunningly beautiful.” He kissed me softly, his tongue moving slowly against mine. “But you’ve always been beautiful,” he murmured against my lips.
Ahhh, but he was wrong. Ethan had never seen it so he did not know what I absolutely knew to be the truth. “No. You don’t understand me.” I wiped at my tears. “It’s okay, but you don’t understand why I need to have those beautiful pictures of myself.” I sighed heavily against his chest, my fingers starting to twirl around a pectoral muscle.
“Explain it to me so I can understand, then.”
I don’t know how I got the words out, but I managed it somehow. Through the tears, which grew stronger, and because of his quiet strength and patience as he held me and stroked my hair, I finally told another person my horrific truth. “Because the video of me was so very . . . ugly. The images were ugly. I was ugly in it! And if I have something beautiful to replace the ugliness with, I can let go of my experience a little more each time I create something new.”
Ethan rolled me underneath him and propped himself above me, holding my face up to his. “There is nothing about you that is ugly,” he told me.
“Yes. On that video I was.”
He got quiet, his eyes flickering back and forth as he studied me. “Is that why, baby? Is that the reason you tried to . . . kill yours—”
“Yes!” I sobbed into Ethan’s strong chest and let him hold on to me. He knew my truth now. My hang-up. My dysfunctional quirk. The motivation that drove me on a daily basis and that I assumed would stay with me forever. I prayed he could accept me in spite of it.
He held me for a long time without speaking. He was pondering what I’d shared. I’d learned it was his method; that Ethan was incredibly honest and blunt with his opinions and needs, and a deep thinker.
“It’s not the photography process that I hate. I get that you are all professionals doing a job. The photographer is just using you as the object of his art. A breathtaking image that is you.” He stroked his palm down over my hip. “I know that guy today wasn’t after you. He was seeing your body as art.”
“Simon is also incredibly gay as opposed to just regular gay, in case you didn’t notice.”
He gave a short quiet laugh. “I noticed, baby. If the clothes didn’t give a clue—his girly scream confirmed it.”
“Poor Simon. I invited him to the wedding, you know. He wanted to wear a new Italian suit in leaf green that he saw in a shop in Milan.” I tried for the tiniest bit of teasing.
“Awesome.” He sighed. “I’ll ring him tomorrow and apologize.”
“Thank you.”
But Ethan wasn’t done airing his feelings. He had more he wanted to say. “What I hate is people seeing your body in the photographs. Men see you. Men like me see you naked and they want to fuck you. Brynne, that is the part I hate, because I don’t want anyone to look at you like that and think those thoughts about you. I want you all for myself. It’s selfish, but that’s how it is for me.”
“Oh . . .”
“So now you know my feelings on the matter,” he said quietly, his voice carrying his honest truth straight to my heart.
“I hear you, Ethan, and I hope you heard me when I told you how I felt, and why I do the modeling.”
He reached for me with his lips, caressing soft and slow, telling me with touch, if not with words, that he understood. After some time well spent thoroughly kissing me, he finally pulled back and brushed my cheek with his thumb. He’d been doing that to me since the beginning of us. He’d done it the first time he ever kissed me. I loved the gesture.
I wondered what Ethan was thinking about now. Studying me carefully with those deep blue eyes of his, he settled on his side propped on an elbow so he could look down over me. I imagined he wasn’t done talking yet. I waited. I could wait all night if he was the view. Ethan naked in the bed was a sight I never tired of. He was male beauty personified. His arms, his chest, the washboard abs and V-cut hips, all of him—a delicious feast for my eyes.
Funny how he said the same thing about me sometimes. But my body would change as the baby grew. I would get big as all pregnant women do. Would Ethan still want me then the way he did now?
“I need to tell you something that happened today. It really shook me up and was mostly to blame for what happened at your photo shoot . . . and with me.” He smoothed my hair back behind my ear.
That makes more sense. I should have known there was something driving Ethan’s off-the-charts irrationality. Something had happened to trigger his behavior. “Okay . . . tell me.”
In the dark of our bed, he shared with me the latest events: the stalker photos he’d received earlier in the day, and the knowledge that the person was American and had been here the whole time watching me. Watching us and taking pictures of our daily movements. I was really scared now . . . and I understood better why Ethan had been so panicked and unreasonable at the shoot. This situation was not getting better. It was getting worse. Who knew what would stop them? Or if I’d even get through this alive? All I could do was think about my baby and about Ethan and knowing that whatever it took, or sacrifices I had to make in order to see us all through, I would do it.
We talked about security and GPS and guards and precautions. All the ways to ensure my safety in the next weeks until the wedding could happen and Ethan’s full attention could focus on me solely. He explained things clearly and I listened to him. We both ended up on the same page, and when I finally slept again it was up against his chest with his strong arms wrapped around me. I knew I was in the best possible hands I could be in, and that the man who held me did indeed love me. Ethan needed me as much as I needed him.