A Kiss For Three

chapter 19

The back alley behind the gallery smelled like rain and cigarette smoke and a little bit of luxury’s leftovers—the kind that slipped out the side door when no one was looking. I sat on the curb, the asphalt cold through my dress, one heel kicked off beside me, the other still clinging to my foot out of spite. I lit a cigarette.

My hand shook just a little—probably from adrenaline, not emotion, or at least that was what I told myself. I could still see it when I closed my eyes: that painting—me, frozen in time, happy in a way that almost felt fictional. I took a long drag, then exhaled toward the stars I could not see.

Footsteps echoed behind me—slow, deliberate, expensive. I did not turn until I heard his voice.

“Thought I might find you here.”

Adrian.

He looked less like the man who had just charmed thirty reporters and more like someone who had been running on empty for weeks. His tie was loose, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled to his elbows. Still, that tired smile of his could have melted every bad decision I had ever made.

He sat down next to me on the sidewalk without asking. It was a strange sight—Adrian Cole, billionaire technocrat, sitting on dirty asphalt. He held out a hand silently, palm up. I passed him my cigarette. He took a drag, exhaled, and handed it back.

“Did you like the painting?” he asked.

For a second, I considered lying. But the truth slipped out instead. “I did. It looks so much like me, but also… not like me.”

He chuckled, smoke curling from his lips. “Nico caught you better than a photograph ever could. Not just what you look like, but what you don’t let people see.”

I stared at the cigarette before taking another drag. “That’s a dangerous skill.”

“For him or for you?”

“Both,” I said softly.

The silence stretched comfortably between us for a few moments, broken only by the faint hum of traffic from the main road. Then Adrian’s voice returned, low and roughened by the smoke.

“You know,” he said, “I didn’t hate Serena.”

That caught me off guard. I turned to look at him, brows raised. “Is that so? You acted like you were trying to escape her.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “I was. We both were, actually. Nico and I—it’s the same story. You think it’s easy being part of this… performance?”

“Performance?”

“Our lives,” he said simply. “Status. Headlines. Appearances. It’s all about the pretty picture in the paper. A billionaire with a perfect wife, a successful artist with a flawless muse. Every move we made had to fit into that script.”

“And you were tired of the script,” I guessed.

He smiled faintly, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes. “Tired of pretending the audience still claps for the right reasons.”

His voice was calm, but something heavy hid underneath it—years of exhaustion, maybe, or loneliness with sharp edges.

“Serena and Camille,” he continued after a drag, “they were part of it too. It wasn’t about love anymore. It was about power. Connections. Staying untouchable. But I was done playing that game. So was Nico.”

I leaned back against the wall, watching the smoke coil upward like a secret escaping. “That’s why you both started… what, noticing me?”

He glanced sideways at me, the faintest smirk ghosting across his lips. “We noticed you because you didn’t perform. You didn’t need to. You were deep, Iris. Real. Refreshing.”

His words should not have made my pulse trip like that. But they did.

I laughed quietly, half bitter, half sincere. “You’ve got a strange definition of refreshing. I lied for a living.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, “but you were honest about it.”

I did not answer. I could not. My throat felt full of things I did not want to name. He passed the cigarette back to me. Our fingers brushed—barely—but the spark that jumped between our skin was enough to make me forget how to breathe. I took it, pretending not to notice.

“Adrian,” I started, my voice quieter now, “what happened when this all fell apart?”

He glanced toward the glowing front entrance of the gallery, the laughter and music spilling faintly into the night. “Then we’d finally be free.”

It sounded too easy—too beautiful and too impossible. I laughed under my breath. “You made it sound like a happy ending.”

He looked at me again, eyes steady and searching. “I didn’t believe in endings. Just choices.”

Something in me ached at that. Choices. I had spent my entire career making them, but for once, I could not tell if this one was right or suicidal. Without thinking, my hand brushed against his knee—small, unintentional, but real. Neither of us moved. The city seemed to hold its breath with us.

He finally spoke, his tone barely above a whisper. “You scared me sometimes, Iris.”

I smiled faintly. “That was mutual.”

We sat like that a while longer—sharing smoke and silence and something heavier neither of us could name. When I finally stood, my legs felt unsteady. “I should go.”

Adrian didn’t stop me. He just nodded. “Text me when you get home.”

I rolled my eyes but smiled anyway. “You sounded like Nico.”

“I’d take that as a compliment.”

He stayed seated as I walked away. For a second, I looked back—the glow of the streetlight painted him in amber, his profile soft, tired, and heartbreakingly human. The city felt colder without him beside me. I walked home through the usual chaos: taxis, laughter, a siren or two. A rat darted past an overturned trash can, and someone somewhere shouted about a missing wallet.

New York at its most honest. My mind, though, refused to quiet.

I thought about Nico—how his eyes had followed me before Camille appeared, how his hand had nearly met mine before the moment shattered. I thought about Adrian’s voice, soft and sincere, sharing a cigarette on a sidewalk like we were equals, not broken people wearing masks.

For the first time, I realized something that should have terrified me. They were different.

Among the men I had known—greedy, cruel, predictable—Adrian and Nico were an anomaly. They didn’t just take; they saw. They looked at me like I wasn’t a tool or a conquest or a prize. They looked at me like I was real. And I didn’t want to let that feeling go.

By the time I reached my building, the city’s night had turned silver. I climbed the stairs, heels in hand, too lost in my thoughts to notice the flicker of a streetlamp outside the window. When I reached my apartment door, my phone buzzed.

I stopped mid-step. It was a message. No name. No text. Just an image. It took a second to load, and when it did, my blood went cold. It was me—standing next to that painting, the resemblance impossible to miss.

The caption below was nonexistent, but the meaning screamed loud enough to drown out everything else. Same number as before—whoever was watching hadn’t stopped. They were closer now. Smarter.