The wildflowers in the jelly glass are wilting. I toss the flowers in the trash, then sweep up the dead petals from the table.
“Where’s…” My voice catches. “Where’s Darius?”
“He went up to his beach house early this morning.” My father pushes his chair back and picks up the rest of the mail. “I was surprised to learn he still has the old place. Do you remember when we used to visit him there?”
I nod. “Volkov Bay. I loved that house.”
“So did your mother.”
The mention of my mother is so unexpected and rare that for a moment, I can’t speak. Then I latch on to the subject as if it’s my only chance.
“Dad, do you remember if Mom ever showed you a photo album of her childhood pictures?” I ask. “I think it mostly had pictures of her, Darius, and her mother.”
He thinks for a moment. “Not that I can recall, no.”
“Darius told me about it, but he doesn’t know what happened to it.”
“There weren’t any photo albums among your mother’s belongings.” My father shakes his head. “Though you can check the boxes in the garage again, if you’d like.”
I’ve gone through those boxes so many times that I already know their contents—my old artwork, a few mementos like theater ticket stubs and programs, some of my mother’s clothes. None of the boxes contains a photo album.
“I told Darius we’ll have to make a trip up to Volkov Bay again soon.” My father starts out of the kitchen. “He says he needs to get some repairs taken care of first, but maybe we can plan a weekend later this month.”
I brush the dead flower petals into the trash. I can’t even think about being at Volkov Bay with both Darius and my father. When I was younger, the cottage had seemed plenty big enough for all four of us. My parents slept in the main bedroom, Darius used the second bedroom, and I camped out on the sofa with my sleeping bag. Every morning, I woke to the sight of the fog boiling over the ocean right outside the big picture window.
Ever since our dinner at the Mediterranean Café when Darius mentioned the beach house, I’ve indulged in good memories and imagined going there again. One of my favorite places in the world, I’d told him.
Not that I have many places to choose from. I haven’t been anywhere outside of Grenville aside from a few trips to San Francisco or San Jose. That’s just one reason why I drank up Darius’s stories about his travels like they were sunshine.
Until night crashed down on him.
As I go through my usual Sunday routine of grocery shopping and homework, I’m increasingly prickly and anxious to see him again. Something momentous happened between us last night—whether or not he wanted it to. But I’m enough of a realist to recognize that the barrier between us, though increasingly flimsy, is not one that he would ever breach.
Truth be told, I couldn’t either. Even if he were a stranger with no connection to me or my family, even if he didn’t have his steel-clad sense of honor, he’s a big, powerful man with an abundance of needs and desires, none of which I’m at all confident I could fulfill.
However, my inexperience doesn’t mean I’m hopelessly naive. When I woke on the sofa last night, I saw the burn in his eyes as he stared at me. I’d been struck with the urge to strip naked, to let him see everything. Silently encouraging him to take pictures of me had been as close as I could get to giving in.
The images on his memory card—close-ups of my face, my eyes, my breasts—had been more intimate that I could ever have imagined. I hadn’t looked like the girl I see in the mirror every day. The Nell whom Darius saw had a soft, untroubled face with rounded cheekbones and thick dark eyelashes. She looked directly at him, certain and unashamed.
He’d focused on my mouth, my lips parted, and the fall of my hair around my face and shoulders. He’d framed my breasts in his viewfinder, with the V-neckline of my shirt emphasizing their fullness. He’d even taken a picture of my belly, which I hadn’t realized was exposed by my scrunched-up shirt.
It might have been embarrassing to know he’d seen the extra padding around my middle, but the photo he’d composed—showing the wrinkled folds of the shirt, the half-undone button of my jeans, the curve of my navel—had been sharply erotic.
In Darius Hawke’s hands, my body was beautiful. I was beautiful.
It’s long past midnight before I hear the front door open. Cautiously, I open my bedroom door and step onto the landing.
He’s walking up the stairs, his tread heavy and his head down.
My stomach twists. Something is off. He always moves with such powerful, easy grace and confidence. But now his steps are slow, his shoulders slumped, his hair messy and falling over his forehead. He looks weary. Hurt.
I start down the stairs. The steps creak.
He looks up sharply. Our gazes collide, the impact so forceful I almost jerk backward. His eyes are dark, but a hot light of anger burns in their depths. His mouth is a straight line, his jaw tense.
What…?
I tighten my grip on the railing. He hasn’t been drinking. I’ve only occasionally seen him have a scotch, and never to excess. He’s still wholly in control, but now he’s wound almost too tight, as if his muscles are on the verge of snapping.
“Are you…” I swallow to ease my dry throat. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” His voice is serrated, like the edge of a knife blade. He pulls himself to the top of the stairs and opens the door to his bedroom.
I walk to the landing, one hand already lifting to touch him somewhere, anywhere, but he steps into the room before I reach him.
He faces me, blocking the doorway. The smell of sweat radiates from him, along with the adrenaline charge I sense whenever he comes back from a run. This is different from a regular workout rush, though. This is dark, almost sinister.
“Where have you been?” I hug my arms around my waist.
“Out.” He starts to close the door.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“But—”
“Go to bed, Nell.”
He shuts the door. The lock clicks into place.
God in heaven. My father hasn’t figured it out yet, but Darius knows me better than that. Even if he won’t admit it.
Slamming the door in my face is no longer enough to keep me out. Now, it just makes me want to break the fucking thing down.
CHAPTER 25
Darius
Not long ago, I had no freedom to physically go where I wanted to. I survived through strength of will and the knowledge that my mind was always free. My captors had no control over what I was thinking.
Now it’s the opposite. I can go wherever I want, but my thoughts are spinning in a vortex I can’t escape.
The only way I can deal with my burning shame and anger is to get the hell out of Henry’s house and move to Volkov Bay for the remainder of my teaching contract term. I can handle interacting with Nell at school, but I can’t look at her across the breakfast table anymore or feel her next to me in the passenger seat of my car. I can’t let her see into me any further than she already has.
I delete all the photos I took of her on my camera. For the next few days, I make the two-hour drive to Volkov Bay after school to work on the water pipes and the electrical system. I stay late into the night and return to Henry’s house long after he and Nell are asleep. It’s part cowardice and part self-preservation, but mostly it’s a pathetic attempt to shield Nell from the wrongness seething inside me.