Page 56 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
We rush up the steps into the chapel, where there’s no sign of Remy.
There’s no sign of the fist that blindsides me either. Not until it smashes into my face hard enough to spin me around and drop me to the ground.
Pain tears through me, ripping through my body.
“Trespassing in a church? That’s a step up from snooping around my shop,” a woman’s English accent taunts.
A yell comes next, and I flip over, still wincing, as Simon flies out from behind the altar and jumps Cass Middleton. She jabs an elbow into his solar plexus and then a fist to his groin.
“Oi!” Simon twists away from the brunt of it, but it still lays him out. Hell, it nearly paralyzes me in sympathy.
Where the hell is Remy? Before I can look around for him, Cass grabs the neck of my T-shirt and twists so tight that I struggle to breathe.
“You looking for your friend? He’s all right. Tied him to the baptism font with his scarf.” I can get a hit in on her now, if I get enough breath, but she backhands me so hard my brain rattles in my skull. Then she pins me to the ground with her foot on my chest.
“Now, listen up. I don’t go for violence,” she says without a shred of irony, “but I might make an exception for guys who keep sticking their nose in my business.”
“Might?” I wheeze, keeping her attention on me and away from the movement I spot behind her.
“You think it can’t get worse than this?” She steps harder on my chest to make her point.
I gasp for breath.
Then Remy taps her on the shoulder from behind. Cass whirls, and my bon ami throws a punch like a prizefighter. It knocks her back, to the stairs, where she rolls across the edge of the door down into the basement, with a few loud thumps
I crawl over to peer down. She’s at the bottom of the stone steps. I’m glad she’s not dead, and more glad she’s moaning too much to get right back up.
Remy joins me at the edge and, livid, shakes the tattered remains of his scarf at her. “This. Was. Hermès!”
21
That evening, Clio waits for me in the corner of the gallery, reading a book. It’s a sight that makes my breath catch, because she’s so beautiful and because of the book—I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it on a tabletop in a Cézanne.
“Is that from Cézanne’s Portrait of Gustave Geffroy?” I ask.
“Don’t worry. I’ll return it later. But it’s pretty good and has kept me—” She places a bookmark inside and looks up, breaking off her speech when she sees the cut on my cheek. “Oh, Julien!” Jumping up, she reaches for my face, but stops herself before she touches me. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“You should see the other guy,” I joke lamely, even though the other guy is a woman and she stumbled out of the church several minutes after us.
That’s what Simon told me since he hung around when the police showed up.
Besides, the only person I care about now is Clio. She threads her fingers through my hair and kisses my forehead tenderly.
“Better now?”
“Not yet. I need another.”
I feel her soft lips on my eyelids. “Does that help?”
“Only a little.”
There’s a flutter against my bruised cheek.
“More please.”
She kisses my jaw where Cass first whacked me. Soon, her lips find mine. Hers taste like cherries, and I want to stop time. To stay with her right now.
“Clio,” I say softly.
“What is it, Julien?”
“Nothing. I just like saying your name.” I run my thumb across her lip as it stretches into a smile. No, a grin, and then she’s grabbing my hand and pulling me along the gallery.
“Come with me. I have something to show you.”
Minutes later, we’re inside Starry Night, my favorite Van Gogh.
It’s a dreamscape—lush blues drip over the water, and banana-yellow stars sparkle in the night sky. They cast long rays of moonlight, like gas lamps glimmering across the Rhône.
We step into one of the sailboats on the river.
“Lie back,” Clio says, letting me rest my aching head in her lap.
“My headache feels better already,” I say as we drift into the Rhône.
“Are you going to tell me what happened to you?” She’s all sweet sympathy, but there’s real concern beneath it. Maybe she’s worked out what I did—that I might be in danger from Max. She’s certainly smart enough to add things up, and I decide it’s time to level with her the best I can, considering how much I don’t know.
I give her the details of my afternoon excursion, but I also brief her on the fading Renoirs. I haven’t wanted to worry her, but now that I know she’s a Muse, there’s no better person to help me figure it out.
