“Mr. Shepherd! My hand! What if I can never paint again?” She sobbed. “Mrs. Shepherd told me to organize these.
“I didn’t know the frames would fall! I was so careful! Did I do something wrong?”
Henry cradled her injured hand, his eyes reddening.
Then he whipped his head toward me.
“Are you satisfied now, Rosalind?” he roared.
“Tamara’s my assistant. She only handles my personal items. Why the hell would you assign her heavy labor? What’s your game?
“I tolerated your drunken antics for years, but now you’ve sunk to victimizing innocent people?”
Ignoring the skeptical stares around us, I kept my voice steady. “I didn’t ask her to come. I was just—”
“Oh, of course you wouldn’t come here yourself!” he spat. “You control every damn thing in my studio so you could’ve sent anyone to do your dirty work!
“Apologize to Tamara now, or I’m calling the police.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
I was about to agree, to demand they check the surveillance footage, when Tamara threw her arms around Henry, desperately pleading with him not to call the police.
And whatever Tamara said, Henry obeyed without question.
“Fine. Tamara doesn’t want me to report this,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re getting away with it!”
He grabbed a painting from the corner and hurled it at my feet.
The solid wood frame nearly shattered my shin, its jagged edge slicing deep into my flesh.
Blood welled up instantly, dripping onto the floor.
“Consider this payback for what you did to Tamara!” he snarled.
“And listen up, everyone—from now on, Rosalind has no say in my studio! Anyone who takes orders from her will be thrown out!”
Then he turned back to me. “Don’t come back until you’ve reflected on what you’ve done and apologized to Tamara!”
He swept Tamara into his arms, shoved past me without a second glance, and stormed out.
I stood frozen, tears betraying me as they spilled down my cheeks.
They mingled with the blood, drop by drop, staining the shattered remains of the frame beneath me.
This was the painting Henry had spent three months creating—the one he’d used to propose to me.
Once, it had been his most treasured work.
Thirty thousand tiny renditions of my name, woven into the future we’d dreamed of watching sunsets in Valmont.
Now, the love that had once burned so fiercely had been shelved away, and the promises he’d made lay broken.
I lifted the canvas from the wrecked frame.
Then, methodically, I tore it—48 times—until nothing remained but confetti-sized fragments.
And one by one, I let them fall into the trash.
