When Vincent showed her the photos, Jacqueline couldn’t believe it was her. This mysterious woman with the velvet soft hair obscuring her face. She’d never looked so… soft. Touchable. Vulnerable.
Pretty.
“This is really me?” She muttered it under her breath as she touched the picture. Her finger dragged lightly over her own bare shoulder.
Vincent was right next to her, proximity being the only reason he even heard the question. “Of course it’s you. What do you think? Do you like it?”
“They’re breathtaking.” Jacqueline said, her eyes were trapped in the photo. She couldn’t move her gaze to him at all. “Is that narcissistic of me?”
“It’s not narcissistic if it’s true. And it is, we have proof right here.” He tapped on the photo with his own finger, landing right on the shadow of her breast.
She was almost regretful for all the money she’d spent on a professional author photo. While the one she’d settled on to go next to her bio did its job of being sharp and clean and objectively good, there was no artistry in it. All it conveyed was her smile. Her hair color.
Not like this photo, exposing depths to her that she wasn’t sure even existed. Imagined emotional fathoms. Just the kind of thing she wanted people to think she had.
“Would you mind if I used these on my author website?” She asked. “It’s a waste of your talent to keep these to ourselves.”
“Sure, if you want to. You can do whatever you want with these, they’re yours.” Vincent pushed the photos closer to her. “I mean, they are pictures of you. I think you should be the one to decide what to do with them.”
She still couldn’t believe it was really her in the pictures. As she stared at herself in the pictures, the pretty and soft and open girl, Jacqueline wondered if she could live up to the image he’d made of her.
She smiled. “Thanks, Vincent.”
None of Jacqueline’s relationships lasted longer than a couple of months. Her relationship with Vincent was already one of the longest she’d ever had. With him, she thought she might be able to make it last even longer. That she could open up to him. Reveal herself for what she was.
In his studio, she was so close. They were so close. Everything about Vincent screamed of a kind of desperation that only someone like Jacqueline would be able to detect. She was sure he didn’t know, didn’t even suspect that she was aware of just how much he wanted her to like him. He’d hinted at something in the studio. The parts of him he kept close to his chest. When she was there with him, she told herself that she would finally open up.
But only if he opened up first.
That was why she said he could have her heart. Because he offered first. And though it was an empty gesture designed to seduce her, she thought it was cute. So she let him have her.
It was stupid of her to get scared after that. But the photos… they were a version of her that wasn’t real. She didn’t think he saw her like that. He knew that wasn’t her.
Didn’t he?
What if this whole time she’d been deluding herself into believing that Vincent was different. What if in reality he did see her like that and his motives weren’t what she thought? Maybe he did just see her as soft and pretty and sweet. The kind of girl who gets swept up in paper hearts, not the kind who breaks a heart between her teeth.
So she started distancing. Better to do it now while he still held that image of her in his head than hurt him more when he realized it wasn’t real.
Jacqueline was a master of slowly dragging herself out of relationships, so she did what she always did. She still went on dates with him, but not every date he invited her on. While she didn’t outright avoid intimacy, she didn’t initiate it. They had sex a few more times, all of which she tried her best to be mostly unresponsive during. When they kissed, she did it like it was a chore. Like she was bored.
Those parts were easy. The hardest part was when they would walk together and he would reach for her hand. She would pull it away subtly, but he still knew what she was doing. She could see it on his face. The hurt.
Jacqueline reminded herself it was better to do this now than later. He wasn’t attached to her. Not really.
He would recover from her.
It turned out to be a good move, career wise. Jacqueline’s publisher agreed to having the photos up on her author website. In fact, they liked the photos so much that he got an email from her publisher asking if he’d ever be interested in selling the rights to some of his works to them so they could use them as cover designs for future books. They would also keep him in mind if they wanted a specific photo design they thought would be suited to his style. The deal being proposed wasn’t enough for him to quit his current job as an assistant photographer, but it was a good start.
He had Jacqueline to thank for that.
Jacqueline…
Things had taken a strange turn with her. After he’d shown her the photographs he thought she would swoon into his arms again and let him take her then and there. He thought phase one of his plan had gone off without a hitch. He had her! He’d physically had her! But now… now it was like she was pulling away from him. Trying to keep her distance.
What was going on?
This all happened after she saw the photos. Did she actually hate them? When he asked if she liked them, did he sound too desperate? Was that wheedling tone of his too similar to how he’d spoken to her in the past? Was there something in the photos themselves that made his goal obvious to her? His desires? Were they visibly on display here?
Thinking it over, blue may have been the wrong choice.
He had to figure out how to fix this. At the rate they were going, their relationship would fizzle out like nothing. She would end things with him before he even had the chance to end her. He couldn’t let that happen.
Alone in his studio, Vincent worked and reworked his plan. He sketched and pinned his ideas to the wall. Color swatched as if designing a shoot. While he of course wasn’t going to do that, he wanted these memories he created with Jacqueline to be perfect. The feelings and thoughts she had during these moments needed to be captured forever.
That way he could destroy her completely. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally.
He took a step back and examined his work. The buttery yellow and warm brick rust, the sea glass green and bubbly pink. The diamond shine.
He groaned and rubbed his face. Just thinking about what he had to do was giving him a migraine.
It was time for Vincent Giallo, the fumbling romantic, to make his reappearance.
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