“Evelyn, don’t.”
I shake his hand off my arm and continue walking down the street in my heels. It’s freezing out, so I hasten my pace, hugging my cardigan tighter.
Clack, clack, clack.
I enter the pub, and I know he’s behind me. Flashes of red fill my peripheral. I take a seat at the bar and order a gin and tonic, crossing my legs, waiting. After a minute, someone approaches.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
I turn and face the middle-aged man, a sorry soul with thinning hair and pleated trousers.
“No, thanks,” I say curtly, waving him off.
He doesn’t say anything as he retreats to his table, a little disgruntled.
Good.
The next one comes to me just as I’ve taken one sip, and I don’t bother with a response. Instead, I shake my head and give him a look of disgust. He calls me a soggy cunt and marches off.
The third contender takes a seat next to me, and when I glance over, I groan.
“Let me walk you home,” Benedict says, his voice soft and alluring. His accent is different from anything I’ve ever heard. He stumbles over English words and uses phrases like,skin of your teethandgoing to siegein my presence. He lays down ten quid and tips his head at the bartender.
“I’m fine,” I growl, fighting the annoyance and anger that want to burst through my skin.
“I am not judging you, Evelyn. For this. For everything. I don’t think any less of you.”
“I don’t care what you think,” I growl.
“I know why you do it.”
“You don’t,” I counter, sipping the last of my cocktail and wishing him away.
Always wishing him away.
“You crave the control. You yearn for consent. No means no in a place like this and telling men to fuck off is appealing. I get it. But it’s cold, and it’s raining, and I want to walk you home.”
“I’m not going home.”
He pins me with a glare, and I look up from where my eyes were fixed on a deep scratch embedded in the wooden bar. His pupils are the same color as his irises, which give his expression so much depth. Too much depth, like they might swallow me whole if I look at them for more than a few seconds. His long, dark lashes are beguiling, and his heart-shaped face is framed by stupid, perfect hair. His lips grow thinner as he assesses me, and I can see the frustration building with every tick of his jaw, every subtle clench of his fists.
I have to give the guy credit. Almost a year later and he won’t leave my side. I would’ve given up after a day.
“You are going home,” his says, his voice rumbling and low. It reverberates down my spine, one vertebra at a time. The commanding tone in his voice shocks me—and not in the way I expected. I shake it off quickly.
“Keep ordering me around, and you’ll start to sound like your father,” I quip, jumping up and grabbing my purse and cardigan.
A warm, firm hand comes around my arm.
“Do you really believe I’m like him?”
No, I want to say.I don’t even see the physical similarities anymore.
And it’s true. The hairline might be the same, but Benedict wears it messier and longer than Auguste. The golden skin tone looks different on Benedict’s toned forearms. The eyes—identical—aren’t that identical anymore. Where Auguste used his intensity for harm, Benedict’s eyes are warm, inviting. They put me at ease, as much as I hate to admit it. But my mouth stays closed as I exit the bar into the darkening afternoon. The frosty wind whips my hair around my face, and I quickly walk to my apartment two blocks away. I don’t turn around to see if Benedict is following.
I know he is without having to look.
Which is why it shocks me to my core—like I’ve been electrocuted—when he’s not there when I wake up.
