Chapter 1: Painting the colors of love

Emma Salvatore

I watched the sun sunset down below the horizon, creating a beautiful warm golden glow across the whole sky while everyone around me admired the beauty and captured the stunning view of the sky with their camera lenses. Everyone must be thinking it was the beauty of sunset I was admiring, but that's not the case.

I was admiring the two elderly couple walking hand in hand by the beach, lost completely in one another as they enjoyed their peaceful moment and laughed at one another's jokes and the moments they shared in their lives together. It was love. A pure love. A kind of love every woman desires and wishes to have in her life for a whole eternity.

I sat on the grass of the park attached to the beach with paint splattered on my jeans, my auburn hair flying in the air as the cold breezes hit my pale white skin. The canvas that once was blank when I arrived over here was now full of beautiful colors as I painted the picture to life with my hands.

"Wow, that's such a beautiful painting that you are painting." The man who was walking by stopped to compliment me when his eyes landed on my painting " Can I have your number? You are such a great artist and I would love for you to paint some paintings for me."

"She is not available so you can keep your eyes to yourself before I rip them out leaving you blind for a lifetime so you don't dare to look at her with your filthy lustful gaze and eye fuck her." came the deep booming voice of a man who came walking towards me dressed up in tailored designer three-piece suit looking handsome with his dark hair perfectly styled with the hair gel and his amber eyes glaring daggers at the man who stood beside me.

"Yo...you...you are Liam Harrington, the CEO of Harrington Software, one of the top ten software companies in the USA." The man gasped in shock when he saw Liam walking close to me. Liam's pissed-off expression didn't change for a single second, his glare still fixed on the man.

"Fuck off," was the response Liam gave to the man. The man trembled and went running like his ass was on fire while Liam sat down beside me, wrapped his arms around my shoulder, pulled me close to him, and kissed my cheek.

"Hello, my precious little artist. Lovely painting by the way " he greets and compliments, taking off his suit coat then placed it around my shoulders to cover me up protectively from other men's lustful gaze "How many times I have asked you not to step out of the house wearing almost to nothing? You are revealing so much skin to my liking. I don't like it a little bit." he spoke looking at my white tank top, now turned into rainbow with my great painting skills.

"Hello, Liam. Last time I checked, you are not my husband or my father to demand me not to do this or that, and thank you for your compliment like always on my painting. And, can you believe that it has been twenty years today since we met for the very first time at this park?" I asked Liam who had a faint smile plastered on his face as he shook his head and spoke.

" Time really flies fast, doesn't it? I still feel like that day was just yesterday when we both first met by a chance encounter. You were coming right over here at this park, running on your small feet as fast as you can with sea shells in your hands.

You were too excited to show them to your parents that you didn't see give attention to your surroundings and bumped right into me, causing both of us to fall and in the process, you broke my transformer's robot. I got angry at you for breaking my bumblebee and began to shout at you in anger while you looked at me with tears in your eyes.

I felt really bad and that was the moment I realized that I couldn't see a tear in your eyes so I apologized for your mistake when it should have been you apologizing to me. By the way, you still owe me that apology for that." he said the exact same last sentence he had been saying to me for the last twenty years of our lives.

"No, I don't. I won't ever apologize to you for that because bumping was the best thing that happened to me because through that I met you and since then we have been inseparable and bound for an eternity." I reminded him like always. He laughed while taking out his phone and captured my painting then made it his phone wallpaper.

"Okay, so that's the painting for this week. Looking forward to the other one." Liam announced with a smile. It's his habit to make my paintings his phone wallpaper every week. Every week he captures my new paintings and turns them into his new wallpaper and anxiously waits for my other one. He is my number one fan and I love him so much.

"It's better to take a picture of your painting before you drag me down to the beach with your painting in your hand then gift it to that elderly couple for free of cost," Liam said while gathering my things and organizing them back in my bag pack. He got back on his feet and then helped me out. He picked up my canvas bag and painted canvas and began to move.

"Should we do the honor of gifting the painting to the couple and get going to our regular coffee shop and get our coffee fix? I don't know about you but I am desperately in need of one," he announced. I smiled, leaned closer, and kissed his cheek with a happy expression.

"How do you always know my next move?" I asked him, and he rolled his eyes and spoke.

"Because, every Friday you paint a new portrait of someone and gift them for free. That's why?" he responds with a smirk. He took my hand in his and we walked down the beach hand in hand, enjoying the evening breeze. We reached the couple after a few minutes of walk and stopped.

"Hello, I hope you both are having a nice time. You both look so beautiful and in love. I know you both don't know us, but let me introduce you. I am Emma Salvatore, an artist and this is Liam. Your beautiful moment caught my artistic eyes which is why I couldn't resist and paint this heartwarming moment on my canvas." I inform while taking the canvas from Liam's hand.

"This is you and your wife walking by the beach. Consider this a gift from me as the symbol of your love for the rest of your life." I said passing the painting over to them. When the couple looked at the painting they let out a gasp of surprise, their eyes sparkled with happiness, their facial expressions full of joy. I don't know what happened next but I was pulled in for a tight hug by the couple while the older woman cried out of happiness.

"Sorry, about my wife. For my whole life, my beautiful wife kept on insisting on getting our portrait painted but we didn't have time or money to do so, since we were too occupied raising our five children and earning for them.

The expenses were too loaded while we had less amount so we always put our children's needs first and sacrificed ours. Today is our golden jubilee anniversary, so we decided to come and celebrate over here at this beach where we met for the very first time and started our life journey together." the old man informs and continued with tears in his eyes.

"We still didn't have much amount to spend on our 50th anniversary so we decided to come and celebrate over here at the beach where this all began. I was praying to God to do some kind of miracle and provide me with something to gift my wife. God listened because he sent you as an angel to bring a smile to my wife's face and fulfill her dream. Thank you. Thank you so much!" he thanked me. The woman smiled and placed Liam's hand on mine.

"May God always keep you both under his blessings and together always as a lovely couple for eternity, full of love for one another." The woman blessed us with her prayers while Liam and I looked at one another. We were opening our mouths to speak when we heard a feminine voice calling for Liam.

"Liam baby, there you are. I have been looking over for you everywhere." the woman with blonde hair announced as she came running towards Liam and smashed her lips on his while Liam pulled back in a hurry with a shocked expression to see the woman.

" Sarah! What the hell are you doing over here?" Liam demanded, looking at me and then at Sarah with a worried expression, while the couple gasped and looked between Liam and me with their mouths hung open.