Color Me Pretty: A Father's Best Friend Romance

“Della.” His greeting was quiet as he walked around his desk and came toward me. I was about to apologize, to tell him how stupid I was for lashing out, how sorry I was for being irrational, when his arms wrapped around me in such a tight embrace that made the words stick inside me, heavy on my tongue.

The apology was still there, but faint. All that my brain could focus on was that Theo was holding me, hugging me, his muscular arms tightening around my body as if he needed it as much as I did, like he needed me to stay right there instead of storming out again. I had a lot I wanted to say to him, but I realized it could wait for just a few more moments.

Burying my face into his chest, I inhaled the strong scent of tobacco and man that I didn’t know I missed so much until now. If I tipped my head, felt his breath on more than the top of my head where his lips had pressed in a chaste kiss, I bet I’d smell Bowmore scotch or Jim Beam bourbon—one of his two favorites that he kept well stocked. He didn’t often parade around his money in anything other than the clothes on his body and the liquor he drank.

Closing my eyes, I cuddled into his warmth, my arms trapped between us, and inhaled for a long moment, like it was the first time I could really breathe.

I murmured, “I’m so sorry.” The speech I’d practiced all morning didn’t follow the three words. They couldn’t.

Because he said, “You don’t need to be.”

And that was that.

He nuzzled his nose against my hair, running a hand up my spine until it cupped the back of my neck. I felt his lips press against the crown of my head and stay there. We remained that way for a beat longer, my eyes clenching shut like I could pretend that we were allowed to be stuck in that moment rather than dealing with reality.

Instead, Theo pulled away, sighing heavily, like he wished he could have stayed there too. I’d wondered if he fought the urge to smoke or if it was one of those days that nicotine was essential, probably because of me.

“Theo—” I began hesitantly.

He shook his head and pressed his thumb to my bottom lip, the rough pad of his finger caressing me slightly where he’d kissed, suckled, and nipped before. “You look like you’ve lost weight.”

My lips tilted downward, but I said nothing to disagree. I just looked at him, at his eyes that pierced mine. Those eyes…they would be the end of me if I didn’t end him first. Whenever they gazed at me a little too long, it fed me hope that maybe we would survive. No matter what happened, no matter how horrible I was or how badly I’d acted out, I wanted to believe those dark blue orbs would look at me with love and reassure me that it would be okay.

Silently cursing, he stepped back and watched my frown deepen as he dropped his hand. His gaze drifted to my shirt, probably on how loosely it fit. If he’d stripped me here and now, peeling off my clothes with the skill I knew he had, he would probably see the bones of my rib cage were beginning to resemble a counting game for children who were learning numbers. One, two, three, four bones!

“I painted,” I told him instead, ignoring his comment like he probably knew I would. Knowing him, he wanted to shake his head at me, push and argue and make a point about the transformation stress had done to my body. “It isn’t much, only one piece, but Lydia said—”

“Lydia saw it?” he asked suddenly.

My throat bobbed before my head did, once in confirmation. I normally hid my pieces, too afraid of what Theo would think if they weren’t perfect, like he would have judged me. Sometimes, the only way he’d see the finished product was if it were di

splayed elsewhere, not hidden away in the closet in my spare room or pawned off for a decent price to afford monthly bills or groceries. I hadn’t wanted him to see what my mind conjured, what it begged to create.

Professor Ambrose had challenged me to paint faces, but the few times I did since her suggestion, I hated each and every one because I knew the features weren’t my own. But if I had drawn the real person behind each inspiration my sleepless nights gave me, would I hate it any differently? I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. I doubted seeing my face on a stretched canvas would be any different.

“She kind of insisted,” I explained, seeing the jealousy in the pinch of his lips. They wavered for a moment, downward than up like he couldn’t decide if he was upset or happy, and I wanted to kick myself for even saying anything to begin with.

Half his lips kicked up and remained that way, easing only a sliver of anxiety that bubbled in my stomach. “I’m glad, Della.”

“You don’t seem glad.”

“What did you paint?”

I blinked, not expecting the question even if I should have. He was trying to connect, engage, and I wanted to oblige. “Just…” I paused, contemplating as I looked at him. He didn’t deserve the same answer I’d given Lydia. He deserved more. “Me. I drew me.”

“Can I come by today and look at it?”

My chest rose slowly, like his answer was the oxygen that my lungs needed to function, and I was gone. Gone, gone, gone and grateful I’d been given somebody like Theo in my life, like fate had played her hand and gifted me one good thing even though she’d taken everything else. “I would like that.”

His lips lifted higher. “I’ll bring Ramsay.”

There was another pause between us, but now it was heavy as we stared at each other. It was me who broke the silence first, my timid step toward him the first sign that something was about to happen that should have been second guessed, should have been reconsidered. But when my small hand palmed his wide chest, right over his heart, all that discipline and reason escaped him with the sharp exhale of breath I was rewarded with.

“Theo?” I studied him through my lashes, our eyes locked as my palm pressed over him with firm determination. “I really am sorry, even if you say I shouldn’t be. You and my father were friends too, and it wasn’t fair for me to say those things to you. We both miss him. We both cared.”

Placing his hand over mine, he squeezed my fingers once. “That doesn’t make it any easier to accept. You don’t need to apologize for how you feel, Della. I never want you to hold that in. You shouldn’t have to. You of all people deserve to be angry, to lash out, to be pissed off at the world. I expect it.”

One of my shoulders lifted. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.” Before he could tell me we needed to do, I shook my head and raised on my tiptoes. My lips brushed the bottom of his jaw, causing another small breath to escape his pressed lips.