Three years ago.

I grabbed another dress from the closet and forced it into the suitcase, pushing down hard until the clothes finally gave way. The zipper refused to close, so I pulled it harder and it caught on the corner of my black dress.

“Damn it.”

I tugged again, but the zipper only dug deeper into the fabric.

I was still fighting with it when the bedroom door opened.

When I looked up, Nikolai was already standing in the doorway, his eyes moving slowly from my face to the open suitcase, then back to me.

“What are you doing?”

I freed the dress from the zipper and swallowed it. “Packing.”

“Why?”

“I’m leaving.”

He stepped into the room slowly.

“Leaving where?”

“I need to go home Nikolai.”

His jaw tightened. “Rosalia, this is your home.”

“Not anymore.”

He stared at me for a moment, and I could see the question forming in his eyes.

“What happened?”

I looked away.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Any of it.”

He came closer. “Then tell me what I did.”

I couldn’t.

Not when the truth was still sitting like a stone inside my chest.

I closed the suitcase and reached for the handle.

Nikolai caught my wrist.

“Don’t.”

I looked down at his hand before meeting his eyes.

“Let me go.”

His fingers loosened.

I picked up the suitcase.

“If you walk out that door,” he said quietly, “I will come for you.”

I stopped.

Then I turned toward him.

“If you love me, you won’t.”

Something changed in his face.

For once, Nikolai had no answer.

I walked out.

The cold air hit my face the moment I stepped outside. I put my suitcase into the trunk, climbed into my car and drove away without looking back.

I had barely reached the end of the street when headlights of a black car appeared behind me.

I accelerated and the car followed.

I turned onto another road and it still stayed behind me.

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel as the car suddenly sped up.

I barely had time to turn the wheel before something slammed into my car. The steering wheel jerked violently beneath my hands, glass shattered somewhere beside me, and everything around me blurred into darkness.

Three years later.

There was something about binding books topless that made me feel like I was finally doing something right with my life.

Before anyone judged me, I was alone.

Completely alone.

My bedroom door was locked, my mother was downstairs, and the only person who could possibly catch me was God, and considering the number of things I had done in that house that were apparently against His wishes, I doubted one more offense would make much difference.

I sat cross legged on the floor beside my little worktable with an old hardcover book resting across my thighs. Music played quietly from the speaker on my desk, the kind of song I had listened to so many times that I knew when the singer was going to breathe between certain lines. My hair was tied messily at the back of my head, and I had completely forgotten about the rest of the world.

The book in my lap was falling apart.

The spine had separated from the cover, several pages were loose, and someone had apparently decided that folding the corners of nearly every page was a perfectly acceptable way to mark where they stopped reading.

It was not.

I had spent the last twenty minutes carefully removing the damaged adhesive and cleaning the spine. Now I was applying a thin layer of PVA bookbinding glue along the edge before pressing everything back into place.

I loved this part.

There was something satisfying about taking something old and damaged and making it usable again. Books were especially forgiving. They never complained about being handled too much. They never asked why you were staring at them. They never told you that you were being too quiet or too strange or too stubborn.

They simply sat there and let you fix them.

People were much harder.

I leaned closer, concentrating on the spine as the music changed to another song.

Then I closed my eyes for a second.

That was my mistake.

Because the moment my eyes shut, I saw him again.

Those eyes.

Piercing silver gray eyes staring straight at me.

I opened mine.

The book was still in my lap.

The music was still playing.

Nothing had changed.

Except my heart had started beating harder.

I frowned and looked toward the window.

There was nobody outside.

There never was.

Still, I could see him as clearly as if he were standing in front of me, tall with dark clothes.

That face I could never properly remember, no matter how many times I tried.

And those eyes.

Always the eyes.

I had been seeing them for years.

Not every day. Not even every week. Sometimes months would pass without me thinking about him, and then something completely stupid would trigger it.

It could be a song, a smell or a certain shade of gray or even closing my eyes while I was working.

My mother had worked at a large house when I was younger, and I remembered seeing him there one afternoon. I could not remember why he had been there or who he had been talking to. I only remembered the way he had looked at me.

He had been standing near the staircase.

I had been hiding behind a doorway because I was supposed to be helping my mother with something, although I could no longer remember what.

Then he looked up and looked straight at me.

And I remembered those Silver gray eyes, it was still so ridiculous that I still remembered them, because I had been much younger then.

I did not even know his name.

Well, not his real name.

The only name I knew was the one my mother had given me when I asked her about him.

I remember l standing in the kitchen years ago while she prepared dinner. I remember asking her who the man was because I had never seen anyone with eyes like his before.

My mother had stopped what she was doing.

She had looked at me for a few seconds, and the change in her face had been enough to make me stop smiling.

“Do not ask me about that man again.”

I had frowned.

“Why?”

She had lowered her voice.

“Because that man is the Devil himself.”

I laughed because I thought she was joking.

She was not.

My mother told me people were afraid of him. Not the ordinary kind of fear that made people dislike a powerful man. His name made conversations stop. People lowered their voices when they said it, and some refused to say it at all. My mother simply called him Diablo.

She told me never to go looking for him, never to ask where he lived and never to repeat anything she had told me.

All I knew was that my mother, who had never been afraid of much in her life, had been afraid that day.

Others simply called him what my mother had called him.

Diablo

The Devil

.

After that day, I never saw him again.

“Rosa!”

I jumped so hard that the brush slipped from my fingers.

A blob of glue landed directly on my stomach.

“Oh, come on.”

I stared down at it.

Then I heard my mother’s voice again.

“Rosalia!”

“I heard you!”

I grabbed the nearest piece of cloth and wiped at the glue, which only made it spread.

Wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

“Rosa!”

“I am coming!”

I reached for my shirt, pulled it over my head and nearly got one arm trapped in the sleeve because my fingers were sticky.

By the time I finally got it on, I had managed to smear glue across the side of the shirt too.

I looked at myself.

“Perfect.”

My mother was going to love that.

I hurried out of my room and made my way downstairs, wiping my hands against an old towel as I went.

My mother was standing in the kitchen with both hands resting on her hips.

That position was never a good sign.

“Where have you been?”

I looked at the clock on the wall.

“In my room.”

“I know you were in your room. What were you doing?”

“Binding a book.”

She stared at me while I waited

She continued staring.

I sighed.

“Reading.”

“You were binding a book.”

“Yes.”

“When I told you to sweep the sitting room.”

I winced.

There it was.

“I forgot.”

“You forgot?”

“Yes.”

“How convenient.”

I rubbed my hands together, trying to get the last of the glue from my fingers. “I was busy.”

“You are always busy with that book nonsense.”

“It is not nonsense.”

My mother’s eyebrows rose.

I immediately regretted saying it.

“Sorry.”

She pointed toward the hallway.

“The sitting room is still dirty and the laundry is still outside.”

I looked toward the sitting room. “It is not that dirty.”

Her eyes narrowed.

I immediately reached for the broom.

“I am going.”

“That is better.”

I started sweeping while she moved around the kitchen, putting things away and checking the food she had been preparing. The familiar smell of pepper and fried onions filled the room, and for a few seconds, neither of us said anything.

Then she looked at me.

“Rosa.”

I kept sweeping. “Yes?”

“You need to start behaving like a proper young woman.”

I stopped for half a second before continuing.

Here we go.

My mother had been saying variations of the same thing since I was old enough to understand her lectures.

A woman needed to know how to cook. She needed to know how to keep a house. She needed to dress properly, speak properly and remember that one day she would become somebody’s wife.

Apparently, my greatest problem was that I had somehow managed to become twenty three without turning into the quiet, perfectly behaved woman my mother had imagined raising.

“You cannot keep walking around like this,” she continued.

I looked down at my shirt, which had a smear of glue across it.

“I was binding a book.”

“And you have tattoos.”

I touched the side of my shirt instinctively.

“And?”

Her mouth tightened.

If my mother had enough money to remove every tattoo from my body herself, I was convinced she would have done it without asking me.

She had never liked them.

She also hated my earrings. I had several piercing holes in both ears, but I was only allowed to wear one earring in each ear when I was around her.

According to my mother, I was already testing the Lord’s patience enough.

I did not bother arguing.

I loved my mother, but I had learned that some conversations were better ended before they became sermons.

She pointed toward the hallway.

“Finish sweeping, put the laundry inside and clean your room.”

“I will.”

“Then go and freshen up.”

I looked at her.

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

I leaned the broom against the wall. “That is not an answer.”

“It is the only answer you need.”

I laughed under my breath and picked up the broom again.

My mother shook her head.

“You think everything is funny.”

“Not everything.”

“Most things.”

“That is because you make them very easy.”

She gave me a look that made me immediately return my attention to the floor.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I finished sweeping and carried the laundry inside, still wondering why she had suddenly become so particular about what I was wearing.

When I came back into the kitchen, she was wiping down the counter.

She looked at my shirt again.

“And wash that paint off.”

I looked down.

“Paint?”

She pointed at the front of it.

I touched the stain and realized she was right. Somewhere between the glue, the old book and my attempt to clean everything, I had managed to get a faint streak of paint across the fabric too.

“Fine.”

“And put on something decent.”

I frowned.

“Why?”

“We are having visitors this evening.”

I stopped.

“Who?”

Rebecca picked up a plate and turned away from me.

“Do not worry about that. Just go and do what I asked.”

I stared at her back.

That answer was not an answer at all.

“Mom.”

She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and glanced at me.

“The Veyrons are coming tonight.”

I blinked.

“The Veyrons?”

She nodded.