Driving Her Crazy - By Amy Andrews Page 0,39

with me.’

Sadie felt the pull, the allure, of the painting even after all this time. Every brushstroke told a story of a time in her life when she’d been deliriously happy. When a man had cosseted her and celebrated her female form instead of lamenting it as her father had done.

‘Look how beautiful you are,’ Leo whispered.

His finger stroked the inside of her elbow and tears blurred in Sadie’s eyes—she had looked good. But being back here with him beside her she also remembered his obsession with her body. And how she’d bought into it. As her stomach rumbled again she remembered those days when she would have killed for a cheeseburger and fries.

When not even his compliments could soothe the ache that continually gnawed at her gut.

When the diet pills and the caffeine and nights of no sleep as Leo painted her obsessively had left her strung out.

With distance she could recognise the insanity of it.

‘I could help you get back to that, Sadie. Stay here with me. Let me paint you again.’

His voice was low and, oh, so familiar as his thumb continued to stroke her arm. Sadie fought against the illicit thrill of addiction. She shook her head. ‘I have another job now.’

‘I bet it doesn’t measure up to being Leonard Pinto’s muse. I need you, Sadie. We need each other.’

It was his utter arrogance that helped pull her back from the edge. A few years ago she’d revelled in that title; now it turned her stomach.

He might as well have said Leonard Pinto’s plaything.

As if she were some doll he could manipulate into whatever position he wanted.

She looked down at his thumb still stroking her. The skin was pink as a newborn babe’s and she could see the whorl of his fingerprint. I need you, Sadie.

She took a step away from him as realisation dawned, his hand falling away. ‘Oh, my God. You’re blocked, aren’t you?’ She looked around at the studio gleaming like a luxury car showroom. ‘You’re not in between projects at all.’

Leo looked at the floor. ‘A small slump,’ he dismissed.

‘How long, Leo?’ she asked his downcast head.

When he finally looked at her again she could tell he was steeling himself to lie. But then his shoulders sagged and he looked significantly more than twenty years her senior. ‘I haven’t painted anything decent since you left.’

Sadie blinked at his admission. She’d been gone for over three years. That had to be killing him.

Leo looked at her. ‘You belong here with me, Sadie.’

He sounded like a petulant child and Sadie shook her head as she realised she was finally free of him. ‘No. I belong to me. And I have a job that I love.’

‘You loved posing for me.’

His interjection was almost a whine and she took pity on him. ‘It’s not a real career, Leo.’

‘That didn’t seem to bother you at the time.’

Sadie ignored his sarcasm and the truth of it. ‘Journalism can take me places. I’ve been out for just a few months and already I have a shot at my dream job.’

Leo stuck his hand on his hip. ‘Thanks to me. You’ve only got this shot because you slept with me. I warned you—you were nothing without me.’

Sadie reeled a little as the crudeness of his triumphant accusation sank in. He’d obviously been waiting three years to throw that one in her face. And it was true—she had scored this interview because of her association with Leo. But she wasn’t the lost young woman he’d tossed away a few years back—she had a spine these days and his slights didn’t have the power to hurt any more.

She certainly wasn’t going to hang around listening to any more. ‘Goodbye, Leo,’ she said, turning away from him.

‘Sadie, wait!’

She contemplated ignoring him, but the urgency in his voice pulled her up and she turned around.

‘You walk away and you’re walking away from that.’ He pointed to the painting. ‘You’ll never get a shot at being her again.’

Sadie looked at the painting and finally saw what Kent had seen last night. Bones and angles and hollows. Leo had even painted her breasts smaller—artistic licence, as he was so fond of quoting. Suddenly she looked like just another skinny Hollywood starlet or skeletal model.

Like every ballerina he’d ever painted.

It didn’t look like her.

‘I don’t want to be her, Leo. I like me. I like the me I am now.’

She stalled for a moment, realising the words that had just fallen out were utterly true. Time, distance