Nightshade: An Enemies to Lovers, Dark Academic Romance (Sorrowsong University Book 1)
Nightshade: Chapter 20

My return to the real world and to Sorrowsong is gradual.

I’ve not seen Alex in days. It’s harder than I expected; I have no good reason for missing him, but I do. I miss the way he laughs at my bad moods and runny nose.

I miss his quiet belief in everything I do.

I’m trying to keep my mind busy with swimming and studying. Colette has been kindly letting me into the Cortinar gym so I can avoid the Nightshade one, and I even spent an evening in her halls. While the Nightshade mansion looks right out of a Regency horror movie, the Cortinar halls are plucked from between the pages of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

Rich velvet drapes sit beside geometric artwork, sleek grand pianos, and glitzy cocktail bars serving dry martinis. You can’t hear the wind howling, only the soft sound of jazz filtering through the jukebox. I’m a little bit bitter that I wasn’t in a different house.

And all the while, Carmichael’s letter burns a hole in my pocket. Now that my revenge plan is wavering slightly, my long-abandoned childhood dreams are creeping in to fill the void. There was a second reason I accepted my place here, though I have lost track of it over the last few weeks. A chance to swim at nationals, a career in child psychology; Sorrowsong is my free ticket to them all.

Now that I have the chance, I can’t quite bring myself to leave.

My effort to get good grades begins with a study session with Dr. Bancroft. I’m behind on all my modules, but he’s patient with me. He explains each lecture between mouthfuls of wasabi peas. His clothes are crumpled as ever, the gray hair of his eyebrows so long it almost droops over his eyes.

“I promise I’ll be better next year,” I say, sticking a Post-it note in my textbook.

“Don’t worry, you’re doing fine. Although, I might not teach here next year.”

“Oh.” That’s a little disappointing. “Why?”

He paces the length of his office, dusting the green wasabi dust onto his black trousers. “Sorrowsong is losing its charm for me. Just look at what happened to you. I think I’d like to go to a normal university, where my biggest worry is whether the student shop has a good bakery.”

“That makes two of us. Carmichael is looking into what happened to me. The CCTV in and around the mansion was erased that day.”

“That’s terribly convenient.”

“Maybe he’ll replace something out.” I’m determined to be optimistic. I pick up my phone and swallow down my smile at an email from Alex.

_____________________________

From: Alex Corbeau-Green

Subject: Begging (noun) ask someone earnestly or humbly for something.

Date: Friday 21st November 16:48 BST

To: Ophelia Winters

Unblock my number. This is getting old.

_____________________________

I type out a quick reply, instantly regretting it. He’s like an addiction I’m trying to drop.

_____________________________

From: Ophelia Winters

Subject: RE: Begging (noun) ask someone earnestly or humbly for something.

Date: Friday 21st November 16:49 BST

To: Alex Corbeau-Green

There’s nothing humble or earnest about you.

_____________________________

His reply comes immediately.

_____________________________

From: Alex Corbeau-Green

Subject: Not focusing on my workout anymore

Date: Friday 21st November 16:49 BST

To: Ophelia Winters

Meet me under the rugby stands. I’ll get on my knees and show you just how humble I can be.

_____________________________

Fucking hell. I sit up straighter and stare at my notes even though I cannot at this moment remember where I am or what I’m studying.

Bancroft stops pacing. “I’m surprised you’d trust Harris with that.”

I shut off my phone and my wayward thoughts. “Why? What do you know?”

“I shouldn’t say. Carmichael is a…he’s a man with great power. Not just here in Sorrowsong, but all over the world. He’s on the board of multiple companies. He has millions, billions, even.”

“Please,” I whisper, my hands together. I’m tired of half-truths and throwaway comments.

“Carmichael was not fond of your mother. Not at all.”

My leg starts drumming nervously beneath the table. So he did hate her. Did he hate her enough to bribe Cain to kill her? “Why?”

Bancroft seems unwilling to answer my questions. Maybe Carmichael is holding something over him. “I’d be very careful of upsetting him, or you’ll…”

My whisper is almost inaudible. “Or I’ll what?”

He doesn’t reply, but the words linger between us all the same. Or I’ll end up like my mother.

I feel nauseous. I throw my textbooks into my bag, dizzy on my feet. “Thank you as always, sir.”

“Ms. Winters,” he calls, stopping me as I hurtle out the door. I glance over my shoulder at him. He looks genuinely worried. “Don’t let Carmichael know I said anything.”

“I swear.”

I check the time as I speed down the steps of the tallest turret. I’ve stayed too long.

The Friday afternoon helicopter is going to come in any minute. I’m not going to make it to my room.

I run down the hallway and out into the courtyard, begging it to be a few minutes late. I can’t face the noise. Not the week of the fourth anniversary of their death. I’m waiting for the bang. Waiting for the distant sound of it hitting the hillside. Waiting for the stench of death and smoke.

I’m going to die. I can’t untangle my fucking earbuds.

A pair of heavy footsteps land beside mine. “Why are we running?”

Oh great. I swear he must be having me watched. “Leave me alone.”

“How’s that going?” asks Alex, nodding down at my earphones.

A low rumble reverberates through the air around us, my fingers desperately trying to undo the knots in the wires. “It’s not funny,” I snap, hands shaking too hard.

He takes the earphones from my hands, making quick work of the wires and handing them back to me. “Your audiobook addiction is getting out of hand.”

I don’t retaliate, shoving the buds in my ears and turning my music to full volume.

Even with the music, I know when the helicopter is landing. I press my palms over the earphones as I hurry in the direction of the mansion. The floor vibrates beneath me, rattling me down to the marrow in my bones and knocking the breath from my lungs. Alex must notice, because his hands settle over my shoulders to stop me in my tracks.

His eyes hold mine, silently asking me, telling me, not to let go. Gently, softly, a pair of warm hands settle over mine, dulling the last of the noise.

I’m so stunned by his gesture, I barely notice the touchdown. He presses my forehead to his chest, letting the outside world bleed into empty nothingness until all that’s left is him and I. The rotors whirl to a stop in the far distance. My heart slows. The sickening feeling of dread ebbs away.

Embarrassment trickles in to replace it.

I force out an awkward laugh as he removes his hands from my ears and delicately hooks his pinky finger around the left wire of my earbud to remove it. “Sorry. Just wanted to listen to Sinatra. Love the guy.”

He doesn’t mirror my amusement. “What happened?”

I chuckle again, like an antisocial clown on his first day of the job. What the fuck is wrong with me? “Just a funny moment.”

“A funny moment.” He watches me wipe my trembling hands on my skirt. “Are you afraid of helicopters?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you don’t like me?”

He probably said it as a joke, but it’s the closest he’s ever been to hitting the nail on the head. “Pretty much.”

We step out of the castle courtyard and onto the forested track that leads to the Nightshade halls. His hand sits on my lower back, warm and reassuring. He feels so unfortunately right, but my mind is full of unknowns. Why is the folder in his bottom drawer? What did my mother do to earn Carmichael’s hatred? What does Professor Bancroft know? What do I do with the report on my laptop?

And the one that burns the back of my head all day every day: does Alex know about what his father does behind the shiny businessman facade?

If so, can I ever forgive him?

An iridescent sheen of frost decorates the browning grass outside the castle, littered with tracks from foxes and deer. It looks like a festive greeting card out here. It’s almost December; almost Christmas. The thought makes my chest tight. My summers are difficult, my Easters are lonely, but Christmas…Christmas is horrendous.

It used to be chaos. My mother would set the lights on that awful flashing setting that everyone else ignores. My father would burn the turkey to within an inch of its life. My neighbors would bicker over the orange cream biscuits in the selection box.

I used to think my Christmases were kind of sad. I never realized how wrong I was until it was too late.

Sorrowsong breaks up early. I’ll have at least a month at home. My limbs feel heavier with each step I take, and Alex must notice the downward shift in my mood because he gives me a comforting squeeze on the shoulder.

I wish it didn’t soothe my soul.

My desire for revenge is the reason my heart keeps beating, and with every kindness, every gentle gesture, he strips my purpose away. I’m scared he’ll leave me with nothing; no one to fall asleep with and no reason to get up when the sun rises. “I’m too complicated, Alex. I’ll only ever hurt you in the end.”

“I hate it when you say that. It makes me want to punch whoever put that idea in your head.”

“You want to punch everyone, all of the time.”

His laugh comes out as a white puff of air. His rugby shorts ride up the thick muscles of his thigh, sitting just above the black raven inked above his knee. I forget about the cold entirely. “That is true.”

We walk beside the lichen-covered walls around the perimeter of the castle grounds. I sneak a peek over at him. Dappled sunlight spills through the trees, painting his face in shades of silver and gold. It kisses the strong line of his nose, the sharp angle of his jaw, the remarkable shade of his eyes. Whichever artist sketched him, I doubt they’ve ever produced another piece like it.

He catches me staring and I blush like a schoolgirl, frozen mud crunching beneath my boots as I almost stumble over. He blushes too; barely noticeable, but so endearing. He clears his throat. “I have to ask you a question I’ve been dying to know. Just so I can finally sleep at night again.”

Worry slithers up my spine. “Go on.”

“Under the stands after the Nottingham game.”

I cringe. “Shawn dragged me under there.”

“Did I hear the word stockings? It’s research, for…science.”

My laugh bounces between the trees around us, relieved as much as it is amused. “I’d run out of washing, okay? It had been a rough few weeks.”

“If there are forks wedged in all the laundry machine filters tomorrow, it wasn’t me.”

I muffle my giggle in my scarf as we walk toward the Nightshade mansion’s impressive facade. My next sentence sneaks out without my permission. “Same goes if you replace all your shorts have been turned up another inch tomorrow.”

He grins like this has made his day. “You like my thighs?”

“Nope. You misheard me.”

“I’d pay good money to watch you grind on one of them.”

I halt in my tracks, all my blood rushing south. I frantically bat away the erotic visions that fly toward me. “What?”

“Nope. You misheard me,” he echoes. He glances back over at me, expression sobering. “You could’ve called me today, when you were scared.”

I don’t know what to say back. I long for someone to call, he’s just the last person I ever wanted or expected to fall for. “I struggle with asking for help.”

He presses his palms together like he’s praising the universe. “Oh my god. She’s becoming self-aware.”

I can’t squash my grin. “It feels like I’ve been alone in my corner for a long time, okay?” I sober my expression. “I’ve built my walls too high.”

“They’re worth the climb.”

“They aren’t.”

We stop on the mansion steps, his tone soft. “They are. For me, they are.”

He scans the door and lets me in, standing in the doorway so my body brushes his on the way in. His touch feels electric against my skin. We reach our hallway and I open my mouth to say goodbye, to tell him I’ll see him around, that I hope he’ll have a good Christmas if I don’t see him before. But the words are snatched out of my mouth as we both stop in the hallway.

My door is ajar.

Alex’s arm shoots out to stop me from moving farther, like someone in a spy movie. I almost roll my eyes, but a sinister feeling hangs in the air around us. “Did you lock the door?”

“Yes.”

He pulls me into his room and leaves me standing in the middle of the rug. I watch in horror as he tugs a gun from beneath his desk. A real-life gun. Like, an actual one that shoots bullets.

“Alex, what the fuck?”

“Don’t move.”

He stalks back out to my room, hand hovering over the handle. My heart is in my mouth. Does everyone have guns here? Does Carmichael? Does Alan? Oh God.

I can’t watch him get hurt for me.

Alex steps inside the room and I wait, suspended in time in the silent bedroom.

My fingers tremble at my sides, bracing for a gunshot. “Alex?”

There’s no sign of a struggle, so I creep into the hallway and bite my bottom lip so hard it bleeds, calling his name again. Something slides beneath my snowy boot, making me jump. I stoop to pick up the Polaroid photograph, feeling the blood drain from my face.

The green T-shirt in the photo is the same one buried at the bottom of my wardrobe here, the ginger hair is the same shade as the one I try not to look at in the mirror. Her face has been scratched away, but I know immediately that it’s my mother.

Alex’s voice sounds far away, like it’s underwater. I feel faint. “Go back into my room, Ophelia.”

I swallow the bile rising in my throat, trying to make sense of the photo. I’m scared it means I’m wrong. Carmichael is happy to let me go. Carmichael has washed his hands of me. This person hasn’t.

I look around the doorway, frozen in place by a sickening feeling of disgust. The room has become a collage of photos of my mother. Every single one has her face scratched out. Alex tries to pull me away, back into the hallway. I can hear him talking, but the words don’t register. There are unfamiliar pictures of her here.

Photos of her in underwear. Photos of her in bed. Photos of her sleeping. Photos of her in a bedroom that isn’t one of the ones at home. Photos of hands on her body that aren’t my father’s.

Alex quickly takes down each one of her undressed while I stand in the center of the room like my world is ending around me. Achlys’s cry over the mountains sounds too much like my mother. Calling for help. Calling for forgiveness. Calling out for a lover that isn’t my father.

A Shakespeare quote is sprawled over the wall in red paint.

Villain, I have done thy mother.

A small laugh bubbles out of my throat while the world tilts on its axis. “That is a terrific choice of quote, Alan.”

Alex lowers me to the bed with two gentle hands on my shoulders, watching me warily like he thinks I might disintegrate. I might. All I have left of them are memories. Carefully preserved and dangerously fragile, constructed into delicate houses of cards that start to tumble down around me. Every happy memory morphs into a question mark. Every family dinner decays at the edges.

Did my father know?

I pluck a letter from the headboard, trying to steady my hands enough to read it. It’s my mother’s curly handwriting.

My darling,

I won’t see you next week. It’s O’s birthday. We can’t leave before her birthday.

I dream of you every night. Dream of the life we can build in Spain or Portugal. If Andy suspects something, he hasn’t said. He’s always been like that. Spineless.

Not like you.

She’ll be lucky to have you as her new father. She’ll come around.

Your Anna. X

My tears drip onto the paper. I’m broken for my father. I hope he didn’t know. I hope he didn’t die with sadness in his heart. I hope he didn’t die feeling unwanted.

A horrible feeling seeps beneath my skin as I fold the letter in half. During sleepless nights, with nothing but eerie darkness and my own conspiracies to keep me company, I had wondered if my stalker and my parents’ killer were the same person. This feels like proof.

A violent shudder wracks my spine, the anger I feel toward Alan bubbling over into full-blown fury. “I’ll end him.”

Could it be Alex’s father? Would he have been having an affair with my mother? It just seems so far-fetched. My stalker must’ve ordered the hit on my parents, and Cain was more than happy to comply. The paper crumples in my shaking fist.

Alex’s rugby boot lands beside my feet. I wrap my arms around myself. I feel too exposed. My skirt is too short, tights too thin. I don’t want him to look at me. I don’t want him to see me cry.

Two strong arms lift me off the bed and carry me away from the mess in my room. He drops me on his bed but I sit up, shaking my head. “I don’t want this,” I say, ignoring the tears that run down my cheeks and praying that he ignores them, too.

His forehead lands against mine, thumbs tracing my cheekbones. “I know.”

“I don’t want to be with you.” I sound like a broken record, stuck on repeat for so long that neither of us is really listening anymore.

“So why haven’t you put me out of my misery and left me alone.”

“I’m trying,” I choke out. “God, I’m trying. I’ve been trying since September. You’re bad for me, Alex, but I’m drawn to you by some invisible force. Why can’t you help me out?”

He shakes his head like I’m expecting too much of him. “I can’t stay away from you, Ophelia. I’ve never pretended I can.”

My trembling fingers run over his knuckles. “You make it so hard for me.”

He pulls away and rakes both hands through his messy hair. He’s exasperated with me. “So what is it, Ophelia? What have I done that could possibly be so bad?”

“What’s your dream, Alex? Why are you here?”

There’s nothing but sincerity in his words when he speaks. “To take over my father’s company.”

It’s the answer I knew was coming. It stings my heart all the same. “I’m going to leave this room, and I need you to leave me alone.”

“Right after you tell me why that’s an issue.”

He tosses the gun into a desk drawer, stands at the end of the bed, and looks down at me with that unreadable expression. He looks imposing, intimidating. He looks like the man who almost ran me over. He looks like the man who runs Green Aviation.

“I hate your father, Alex. I hate what he does. I hate who he is. I hate that you’ll end up like him.”

He looks like I’ve slapped him across the face. “You think I’m like him?”

“Do you know what he does? What he can be bribed to do?”

“Of course I know what he does.”

Nausea churns the seven Jaffa Cakes in my stomach. Or maybe the seven Jaffa Cakes are what churns my stomach. I choose to believe it’s a physical reaction to him; a warning sign from my body. “And you’re fine with it?”

His chest falls, voice softens. “It’s complicated. Business is complicated.”

I now know how he feels when I say those two words. I understand his bewilderment, because how could it possibly be complicated? A staff shuttle goes down with five innocent people in it; pawns caught up in some chess game being played by the rich and powerful.

It’s black and white. Right versus wrong. It’s anything but complicated. In the back of my mind, three burger buns sit untouched on a board. A bottle of petrol station wine remains unopened. My chest hurts. “I hate you.”

His laugh makes my blood white-hot. “For the love of God, Ophelia, Make. It. Believable.”

“I hate you, Alex. I hate that you’re studying business and not architecture. I hate that you flew home three weeks ago to unveil a new jet with your father. I hate that your boundary between right and wrong is complicated. They’re real people, Alex; the people who end up as collateral. The whistleblowers who go missing. The people who die in accidents. Hell, even the Mafia bosses with blood on their hands, they have families too. They’re not business; they’re mothers and fathers, daughters and sons.”

“I know!” he shouts, interrupting my tirade. “I know they’re real people. I am not my father, Ophelia. I’d rather die than watch myself decay into him.”

I sink deeper into the bed, my mind stuck in my bedroom, surrounded by Polaroids that serve as reminders of the fact that no one is ever who they say they are. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t want to be anything like him.”

“You just said you want to take over the business.”

He paces over to the window and stares out at the trees and the castle beyond. It’s started to rain, fat droplets snaking down the thin glass. “It’s complicated, Ophelia. I have a plan.”

“We just won’t work.”

“I know you have trust issues. You don’t tell me about your home life, but I know it’s messy. And I get that this,” he turns back toward me and sweeps his hand in the vague direction of my bedroom, “has probably made it messier. Your mom has let you down, and maybe some other people have too. But I won’t.”

“I’ll let you down, Alex. You have enough on your plate without adding me to it too.”

I hate that he fights for me so hard. Hate that he’s so blatant about the fact he thinks we’ll work. I don’t deserve it. “Give yourself a chance, Twist.” He closes the gap between us and gently pops open the tiny locket at my neck, staring at a photo of my father and me when I was six. “Give her a chance. Why don’t you give her any patience?”

I wipe the tears from my nose and snatch the necklace from his fingertips. “You don’t know anything about her.”

“Why is it so hard for you to admit to yourself that you want this?”

I almost hear my patience snap, my final shred of self-control landing on the rug between our feet. “Fine, I want this. I want you. I can’t escape you, Alex. You’re like the sun. I turn away, I look down, but I can still see you reflected in everything at my feet. If I draw the curtains, you slip through the cracks. I can’t fall for the moon instead because it’s you that illuminates it. None of that changes the fact that we just won’t work. You’re not the problem here. It’s me, and things out of my control.”

Like your shitbag of a father.

His knees straddle my legs on the bed, large hands flipping me onto my front. He sinks his full weight onto me, pinning my body to the mattress. “It’s you who’s the sun, Ophelia. I am the moon. You keep me in this tortuous cycle, lighting me up for the shortest time before you disappear again and make me invisible. Don’t give me that it’s not you, it’s me crap; I hate it.”

That’s how he feels about me? My natural instinct to push people away rears its ugly head, but Alex’s fingers on my shoulders dissolve it away before it engulfs me. A soft exhale escapes my lips. I’m as turned on as I am confused. “It’s the truth.”

“You can’t go back to your room like this. The lock is broken on your door.”

“Bet you say that to all the girls.”

My attempt at lightening the mood fails. “Whatever it is that makes you think you can’t be loved, we’ll work through it.”

“Alex,” I sigh, leaning my neck back into his touch.

He feels so good. He feels like home. He feels like I don’t have to use the file on my laptop. Like just for tonight, none of it matters.

“Let me talk, Ophelia, please. Promise me you’ll listen. Not just hear me but listen, too.”

I feel my resolve bleed into the mattress beneath me. It’s not an unreasonable request. “Okay.”

His fingers sink into my scalp, teasing, pulling, massaging. I moan into the mattress, prompting a tortured curse from Alex. His thighs are thick and solid against my back, heavy enough that I couldn’t escape even if I wanted to.

“My father is the worst of society. The shiny CEO is just one side to him. He has this darkness within him, a desperate need to do bad; he’d kill people even if he didn’t get any money for it. Everything he touches rots at the heart. Most people at the top of the chain are like that. They have sadistic tendencies, violent cravings. Money does that to people.”

“It doesn’t make it right.”

“No, it doesn’t, but it’s the way it is. It’s the way Vincenzo will have to be, because if he isn’t, he’ll be killed. I know Vin seems like a joker, but he gets a sick thrill from death like the rest of them. It’s the way my father has raised me; that we matter and those below us don’t. He reached into my chest and set his darkness free, but I don’t want bloodshed. I don’t dream about someone dying beneath my hands—not beyond your stalker, at least. My darkness isn’t like his.”

I roll over beneath where his arms cage me in, his shoulders so broad that he eclipses my view of the ceiling. His eyes are genuine and so full of patience with me. “What does your darkness tell you to do?” I whisper.

He doesn’t need to answer. His eyes say it all. It hits me what that unnamed look is. It’s a battle between his inner demons. The panic that sweeps through me, the sheer horror that he’d hurt himself, takes me by surprise.

He replaces so much strength for everyone else that there’s none left for himself. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

His lips brush my tears. He smells like rugby, the forest, and complete and total acceptance. “I won’t. Not all the while they need me. I’m here to convince Carmichael on a vote of no confidence in my father, to show him I know what I’m doing. He wants to watch me closely. The rugby, the grades, the endless meetings in his office, the four years I spent working beside my father instead of being at Yale. It’s all a careful plan. I have no intention of spending my life as CEO of Green, but the board is divided, jealous of each other.”

“You want to replace your father?”

“Temporarily, until I replace a better replacement. The ones who still have a moral compass think I’m nothing like my father, the rest of them think my father’s raised me as evil as he is.”

I clock on. “You’re the best shot at a majority vote.”

Pride flits through his expression. My desperate need for praise hums happily, swinging her legs with glee. “Atta girl. My mother, my sisters, and I, we’re all in his prison. They’ll never be free until he’s behind bars. Ophelia, I’m only here to ruin my father.”

My laugh of disbelief is hoarse. He’s here for the same reason as me.

His features soften at the sight of me. “Anyway, my shrink says I have to do something for me. Something completely selfish. Something that revolves around what I want.” Gently, he tugs my cardigan aside and plants a kiss on my collarbone. “You’re that for me. You’re not charity, you’re not a sympathy project. You’re not in my room right now because I feel sorry for you, or because I think you couldn’t take down your stalker alone. You’re what I want, my ultimate selfish act, my darkest desire. So let me work for you. It’s therapeutic for me.”

“But when I let you down in two months, or when we fight in a year, or in three years you’re just tired of me, we’ll both be more broken than we were before.” His grin widens with each word past my lips. “Stop laughing at me.”

He looks down at me like he sees me. Like he knows me. Like if I handed him my fragile heart, he’d treat it with tender kindness. “Can’t help it. You’re the most miserable person I’ve ever met. Have you ever been optimistic about anything, ever?”

“No,” I grumble.

“Let me give you an alternate scenario.” My hands snake around the back of his neck, hanging onto him for dear life. “Right after we’ve lived out our secret fantasy involving you on my thigh, we’ll hatch a plan for catching this wet sponge who calls himself Alan. Then we eat dinner here tonight. I’ve got instant ramen in the cupboard and Jelly Babies in the bedside table for dessert. We can do a crossword, or watch a movie. We spend the night in my bed, if that’s what you’d like.” He taps his phone. “It’s almost six o’clock now. Give me until midnight. For my own sanity, let yourself be loved until midnight.”

There’s only so much willpower a woman can have. Soft lips land on my neck, and for the first time, I let myself relax in his company. I surrender myself to his stupid plan. “Midnight.”

“Midnight, a hundred years from now.”

I laugh and shove him off me. “That wasn’t in the deal!”

“You should always read the fine print, Ophelia,” he says, his voice husky. Butterflies unfurl in my lower stomach, but my own guilt sticks their wings together like an oil spill.

“I’ve not told you the whole truth about me,” I whisper.

“Have you lied about the way you cry at movies that aren’t even sad?”

He can hear that? I hope he didn’t hear me sobbing at Ratatouille last week. Linguini really shouldn’t have put that little rat in the jar. I feel myself blush. “No.”

“Have you lied about your passion for swimming?”

I shake my head.

“Have you lied about the way you keep going, despite everything that’s happened to you here?”

I shake my head, biting down a smile.

“Did you lie about the way your reaction to any kind of hardship in life is to pull out a crossword book?” His fist curls into the hair at my nape, voice roughening. “Have you lied about this hair? These legs? That laugh? Those freckles? Your stupid brown outfits?”

My hands land on my cheeks, mortified and flattered all at once. “No.”

The atmosphere switches, no longer playful but thick with tension. His body is hard and heavy on mine, cocooned in warmth by the copper sun sinking low over the tarn outside. He plants a scorching kiss against my neck. I feel it down to my toes. “Then I think I’ll manage just fine.”

Slowly, like we have all the time in the world, he trails kisses over each of my collarbones. I wish I could explain the way each one makes me a little bit stronger, a little bit more receptive to the fact that I could be happy again.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, looking at me through those incandescent eyes. The storm in them is quiet, still, like his mind is here and here alone. His lips hover over mine, so close, so achingly close. And when his next word tickles my lips, I know I’m done for. “Please?”

“Please,” I repeat, heart pounding in my chest.

His hand snakes between my shoulder and the mattress, replaceing a firm grip on the underside of my neck. Something glitters in his eyes; something feral. “Gotta make sure you don’t run away again.”

Impatient and nervous, I squirm beneath him, but he’s solid and unmoving, his heartbeat slow and heavy against my fast and erratic. His hand tightens behind my head, tugging gently on the sensitive strands of hair there. Tiny pinpricks of electricity skate along my skin.

I’m glad I can’t speak French, because whatever he’s saying under his breath sounds like it would make me delete the file on my laptop and become a hermit that never leaves his bedroom. My mouth pops open slightly in a quiet plea, and like that was exactly what he was waiting for, he puts me out of my misery and touches his soft lips on mine.

My soft gasp is buried in his mouth, hot and possessive as it melts over mine. The hand beneath my neck traces the curve of my throat, skates along my waist, caresses the line of my hip. He feels so right. Everything I dreaded he’d feel like and more. He takes a slow inhale through his nose, the tiny shift of his hips enough to make me feel like a sinner.

I swear, something dormant awakens deep inside me. It drowns out the voices, the constant bickering in my head. The self-doubt, the feeling that this is too good to be true, the idea that I’ll be a disappointment, my mother’s betrayal; they all stand in stunned silence, watching as the kaleidoscope of too many clashing colors bleeds out of me and into him.

“I knew you’d feel like this,” he whispers, against my lips, hunger threaded between each syllable. The hand returns to my neck to pull deeper into him, and the low hum in his throat is fuel for me to thread my fingers through his hair, desperate for something to hang onto.

It doesn’t matter that I’m not sure what to do, because Alex is. He kisses me like he’s been planning how he’d do it for months, the monster inside him possessed by some primal need reserved just for me. Planting a strong hand on my waist, he snakes a leg between mine and rolls us both so I’m on top.

A ragged rendition of the word mine leaves his mouth, his teeth gently tugging on my lower lip. I’m on a cloud, floating far above Sorrowsong, too far to think about all my problems. The last of the day’s sun feels like honey melting over my skin, warmed by his touch.

I don’t break the kiss, holding his face between my hands as if I’m worried it’ll vanish if I don’t. My sharp breaths mingle with his irregular ones, chests heaving in perfect time as he sits up to get closer to me. My tights are so thin, offering no protection from the feel of his thigh between mine. It’s new.

All of this is new.

He pulls away first, sending disappointment lancing through me. Gazing up through long, dark lashes, he steadies me on top of him with two large hands resting atop my thighs. The cool metal of his rings burns through the fabric of my tights. His fingers flex and unflex against me, like he’s desperately trying to keep himself on a leash. “You still think the anticipation ruined it?”

My cardigan slips off my shoulder as I shrug. His eyes home in on the sliver of pale skin like a starved animal desperate to take a bite. “I don’t know. A sample size of one is too small to draw conclusions.”

He tugs his muddy hoodie over his head, exposing a strip of golden, tattooed skin across his abs. The garment joins my pride and my patience on the floor. “If you end up being the death of me, Winters, I couldn’t ask for a better end.”

His fingers settle on the first button of my cardigan, eyes laden with an unspoken question. Nerves creep back in, my fingers landing on top of his to still them. I can’t remember when I last shaved my legs, but I’m pretty sure my roommate was alive when it happened. I keep readjusting my tights so the hairs don’t poke through. And what if he takes my cardigan off? What am I supposed to do with my boobs? I guess I can’t really do anything with them; they sort of just sit there. That’s kind of their appeal.

I’m overthinking this, I am sure. “I’m not…I’ve not….”

“This doesn’t mean we’ll go any further than your sweater coming off,” he says, quieting my internal panic.

His fingers undo each green button, eyes locked on mine the same way they were in the bathroom after I was attacked. Slowly, gently, he slides it off my shoulders, over the goose bumps that rise on my arms. He hooks a finger beneath the thin strap of my camisole, tugging it aside to see the three tiny fine line circles inked over my heart.

“What does it mean?”

My mother’s betrayal is a knife in my spine. Were we ever really three perfect circles? Had the helicopter landed safely, would three burgers have been eaten that day, or two? I offer a small smile. “It’s complicated.”

He puts the stretchy fabric back into place over the symbol, covering it with his hand. It’s such an intimate gesture, I’m momentarily spellbound. “I get it.”

I hook my pinky beneath his training top, lifting it slightly to see a black raven’s wing stretching over the golden skin of his waist. The muscles across his stomach contract where my skin grazes his. “Are they your sisters?”

He pulls the shirt over his head and lies back down, watching me closely as I examine the ravens over his sculpted chest and the ones on his thighs. “One for my mother and six for my sisters.” He twists at the waist slightly, letting me see the broken bird cage on his ribs from which all of the ravens have escaped. “And one for my father, of course.”

The document on my laptop burns at the back of my mind. It might help rid him of his father, but at what cost to his mother? For the first time, I consider telling him about it.

It’s nothing he doesn’t know already.

“Bloody hell,” I whisper, prodding his firm stomach. “I have got to stop having two dinners.”

He laughs, dragging me down to kiss him. “Don’t you dare. Watching you polish off two bowls of spaghetti over a crossword in the dining hall is the highlight of my week, every week.”

“It’s not my fault it’s all the fine-dining-tiny-portion food over here. What if I don’t want tomato foam? I just want a tomato, made of tomato. What happened to a roast dinner so heavy you can’t move until Monday? This country is crumbling.”

He grins underneath me. It makes me want to lock this door and never leave. All the while, his hands encircle my waist, run up and down my rib cage, trace the crease between my thighs and my hips as though he’ll keel over and die if he stops touching me. “I actually agree. Every time I fly back to New York I eat so much shit. I miss pizza.”

“Same. And sausage rolls.” My hands clasp my cheeks in despair. “Or chips.” Jesus Christ, when was the last time I ate chips? At least I’ll have access to chips at Christmas.

I’m smiling like an idiot. So is he, and I know why. This feels uncomplicated. This feels like raspberries in June and hot drinks on cold days. So wonderfully ordinary that it’s euphoric for the soul.

It’s like stumbling home after four years of being completely and utterly lost, and by the wordless awe in his eyes when he looks up at me, I can tell he feels it too.

He tugs me back down to kiss him, my body melting against his. His hands fly to my hips, grinding me against the muscles of his thigh in a slow, scandalous circle. A delicious warmth unfurls low in my belly, my mouth dropping open on a quiet moan.

I feel his grin against my throat as his teeth graze the delicate skin there. A violent shudder wracks my body. “Fuck.”

He kisses me harder, hotter, deeper, shifting his thigh to brush against the sensitive space between my thighs. I arch forward on a desperate shudder, hands gripping his shoulders as his fingers sink deeper into the flesh of my hips. “Trust me?” he asks, pulling back a little.

I nod, because for some reason, I do.

I watch, mesmerized as he guides me onto my knees and sinks his thumbs into the fabric of my tights, tearing them at the seam without ever touching my skin. This cannot become a regular thing; shredding tights in this economy.

Cool air licks the delicate skin where the fabric used to be. His eyes return to mine, pupils dilated and lips parted. “It’ll feel better this way.”

He lowers me back down onto the hard ridges of his thigh, placing my hands over his chest. “Take what you want, Ophelia.” He keeps his eyes on mine and plants the softest of kisses on the inside of my wrist. “Use me.”

I shift my hips, gasping at the jolts of pleasure that spark through my core. It’s tentative at first, but when I see what it does to him, see the fire it ignites in his eyes, see the evidence of how I make him feel, I can’t help but move faster. Riding his thigh, it feels obscene; so wrong that it’s right, but with every moan that leaves my lips, another whispered string of praise comes to meet it.

Minutes blend into each other, Alex’s groans of approval meld into mine, each one winding me higher into the apricot sunset outside. “You look so beautiful, Ophelia. So powerful.”

A desperate plea escapes my lips, inhaling the heady scent of his skin as I bury my head in his neck. His hands take over, setting a pace that my hips cannot, every drag of my thong along his skin like a hotwire to my nervous system.

Hoarse exhales rip from his throat too, like this is as good for him as it is for me. My breaths come shorter, whimpers higher, muscles tighter until he sinks his teeth into the skin of my shoulder and sends me tumbling over the edge. He buries my cry in his mouth, wrapping two arms around me while I ride out the wave of ecstasy.

The sun finally kisses the tarn, red light bleeding into orange cotton clouds and setting the water alight. The shudders that wrack my body subside, the skin between my thighs so sensitive I can’t bear to move. I’m overwhelmed with emotion, completely lost in him.

He doesn’t talk, and for that I am grateful. He just holds me, a hand between my shoulder blades and another on the back of my head, tangling in my hair.

When a knock on the door drags us out of our trancelike state, the sky is black and my heart is content. Alex pulls away, brushing strands of hair from my face in the low light of his room. His voice is low and quiet, filled with reverence. “I wish I could pause time here.”

I trace my finger over his bottom lip, slightly swollen from me. From us. A shy smile creeps across my face, a realization of what we just did sinking in. I’ve kissed a few people, but not like that. A kiss has never given me a desire to sit in a confession booth before. “Me too.” My eyes skirt to the door, to the shadow beneath it. A frisson of worry prickles my skin. “Was I too loud?”

“God, no.” He pulls his hoodie down over my camisole, basking me in warmth and his addictive scent. He grasps the drawstrings and tugs me forward, planting the softest of kisses on my forehead. “You were perfect.”

I’m done for. Whatever revenge plan I had has been fractured into two.

The tattoos over his back flex as he tugs open the door. A broad, bald man in sunglasses and a sharp suit stands outside, like Pitbull on steroids. His shades are so dark I can’t tell where he’s looking.

I wrap a blanket around my shoulders, self-conscious. They exchange a very brief conversation in Italian before Alex turns back to me. “What time did you last leave your room before it was broken into?”

“Before swimming at seven.”

Pitbull drops a set of keys into Alex’s outstretched palm and a cardboard box at his feet.

Alex shuts the door and tosses the keys to me. “Your room has been cleared and the lock has been changed. The photos of your mom are in the box.”

The lock has been changed. It’s the smallest thing that feels like such a relief. A ball of emotion chokes my throat. He cares. He really cares. “Thank you. Who was that?”

“One of Vincenzo’s men. He’s got a fingerprint from one of the door handles. He’ll run it and get back to me.”

“You were wrong when you said I could take this guy down alone. I don’t know what I’m doing. Thank you for…” Being patient with me. Meeting each of my insecurities with equal kindness. Kissing me. Letting me believe I might be worthy of love. Giving my lonely heart a safe place to rest. “Everything,” is all I can manage.

“I like looking after you. It makes me feel better.” He swipes up his T-shirt from the floor and catches sight of my bottom lip creeping out. He laughs, letting it hit the rug once more. “I feel like a stripper.”

I watch the V of his abdomen clench and press my knuckles to my grin. “You look like a stripper.” I shuffle on the bed. “You didn’t…”

He strolls into the kitchenette and fills the kettle, pulling two cups of instant ramen from the cupboard. The power is temperamental tonight, so I busy myself lighting candles. “I didn’t what?”

My cheeks flame. I wish I had a bit more experience to come into this with, or at least some knowledge. He leans on the kitchen doorway to gaze at me and his expression softens. “Ophelia, if a genie appeared in front of me now, kissing you while you dry hump my thigh for an hour would be all three of my wishes. Don’t worry about me, I’ve got shower material for the next thirty years.”

I’m sure my smile is cracking my face in two. I bash my desperation to watch one of these showers down like a mole in that Whac-A-Mole game. Not now.

His words settle into my chest, warm and welcome, while I light the candle on his desk. There are sketches pinned to the wall behind it, and a child’s drawing has pride of place.

Six girls and one boy stand under some trees, the words good luck at uni (again) scrawled along the top in crayon. A pink friendship bracelet sits on his desk, a letter from Mia beside it. It’s obvious that he lives for his sisters. It chips the armor around my heart that little bit more.

I want him. God, I want him. “Still, I…I want to, I just don’t know what I’m doing.”

His voice mingles with the sound of water being poured into plastic ramen pots. “Then we’ll go as slow as you like.”

Easy at that. Everything is simple with him. Whatever the opposite of my overthinking mind is, it’s Alex.

“We need to talk about your mom. Are you going to call your dad?”

I pick at the skin around my nails, shoulders slumping. I need to crawl back to reality at some point. I need to sit down and think about the implications of today’s discovery. I need to face the fact that my mother wasn’t who she said she was. I just don’t have the strength to do it tonight. “I’m not ready to talk about my family with you.”

I hear his sigh, but he doesn’t argue. We pad into a third room, a small sitting room with another wall full of books and a comfy sofa, warmly lit by flickering sconces, a log burner, and a banker’s lamp on the side table. Other than the giant TV hanging from a bracket on the wall, it looks like a cozy library in a Georgian mansion.

He sprawls out on the cushions, dragging me to be closer to him. He smiles down at me, hand splaying over the soft flesh of my stomach. I let my body relax, let his finger trace the curve of my waist, let my soul mold to his with each synchronized breath we take.

He clears his throat like I’m not the only one struck with a jarring sense of completeness. This is too much feeling, too soon.

He queues up The Fellowship of the Ring on the giant flat screen, pausing a moment to send seven goodnight texts from his phone. An unfamiliar feeling fills my chest, so sweet and so dangerous. “You love this film, right?”

A laugh bubbles out of my throat, tears in my eyes. All I ever do is cry. “Yeah. Yeah, I really do.”

We eat the ramen in contented silence under the light of the candles. It tastes better than anything else I’ve eaten this week, and the steady beat of Alex’s heart against my back makes it sit warm and comforting in my stomach.

Turns out, Alex’s gentlemanly demeanor doesn’t extend to food. There was an odd number of Jelly Babies in the bag, and even though I’m still crying over Boromir dying, he’s got out a set of vernier fucking calipers to measure each half of the last one.

“It’s bigger!” I shriek, looking at his half.

“As if.” He peers at the number on the caliper. “Yours is bigger by half a millimeter.”

“Then let me have yours if it’s bigger.”

He clutches his chest with laughter. “No way.”

“Because you know yours is bigger,” I snap.

He picks it up, gathering powdered sugar on the tip of his tongue. “I licked it so it’s mine.”

“Are you four years old?” I lunge toward him, sending us both toppling backward. He reaches for his half, accidentally batting it under the sofa. We both look at each other, and then to the orange pair of legs, unscathed on the empty packet. “Don’t even think about it, Corbeau. That’s my half.”

His gaze makes my thighs clench, his voice so thick with desire that I’m not sure if we’re even talking about the sweets anymore. “Oh, I’m thinking about it.”

I slam the Jelly Baby into my mouth before he can, his expression melting into utter outrage. He lurches forward, hand grasping my neck and lips landing on mine. I’m not sure if he’s trying to taste the Jelly Baby or just kiss the life out of me, but it works.

He kisses me with so much force, so much intensity that all I can do is hold onto his arms and hope I don’t get swept away.

When he pulls away, he looks happy. Not the silly, fleeting kind, about new purchases or shallow compliments. His eyes are glittering, like the happiness has grown new, delicate roots inside him.

I have to delete that file before I damage them.

Someone making you happy is one thing, but seeing the demons in someone’s eyes go quiet when they look at you? It’s something else entirely. “Stop looking at me like that, Alex.”

His hips grind into mine. “Like what?”

“Like I’m the only woman on the planet.”

His eyebrows shoot up in very convincing surprise. “There are other women on this planet?”

I grin up at him. I’m embarrassingly elated, torn between not letting my hopes get high and just wanting to enjoy the moment. But I’ve suffered enough for one decade, and he’s looking at me like I’m something worth looking at, so I let myself feel each emotion without insecurity.

He slaps the discarded packet on the floor as if he is in denial that it’s empty. “I can’t believe you, Winters.”

I flip his wrist to read his watch. “Forgive me until midnight.”

“And if I’ve forgotten all about it by midnight, that’d be okay too.”

I plant a hot, wet kiss in the center of his bare chest, delighted at what it does to him. He makes me feel so pretty. I sit back on my heels between his legs, the hazy glow from the fireplace warming my toes.

He looks down at me through heavy eyelids, picking up my hand and sucking the icing sugar from my fingertips. Something deep inside my stomach clenches. His smile is nothing but wicked. “Oh man. Corrupting you is going to be great.”