I smile now. “I’m not sorry that it happened,” I tell him honestly. “A twisted side of me enjoyed it.”
His head snaps up now, his surprised gaze locked with mine.
“You enjoyed it?” he croaks. I have to smile at his expression. I shrug.
“It’s been a long time for me,” I admit. “And you’re a very handsome man, Luca. In all honesty, I’ve been attracted to you since the moment we met. Was it an ideal encounter? No. But I can’t lie and say that I’m sorry it happened.”
He’s quiet now as he assesses me. He’s probably trying to determine just how much of a freak I am. Clearly, only a freak would enjoy what happened last night. Right?
“I’m drawn to you, too,” he tells me quietly, finally. “You’re refreshingly honest. You’re such a light in the world and I am exactly the opposite. I shouldn’t be near you, I should stay far away. But I haven’t. And for that, I’m truly sorry.”
I roll my eyes.
“Oh, God. Please tell me that you’re not going to say that you’re dangerous for me and that you need to stay away from me for my own good. Please tell me those words aren’t going to come from your mouth. That’s the stuff that movies are made from. That’s not reality.”
Luca is silent, every muscle still.
“It’s my reality,” he tells me soberly and I can see that he is completely serious. “I’m dangerous, Evangeline. I really am. And while I would like nothing more than to explore this attraction that I feel for you, I simply can’t. And after I’m finished explaining everything, you will understand why.”
I’m uncertain now, hesitant.
“Okay,” I answer slowly. “Explain. Do you have a drug problem? Is that why you can’t remember last night?”
“Jesus, Evangeline!” he snaps. “Of course I don’t have a drug problem. Although I wish that was the case. It would be such an easy fix.”
I’m taken aback by the brusque tone to his voice, then dumbfounded to hear that he thinks a drug addiction would be easier to overcome than whatever his problem actually is.
“I’m sorry. But a spotty memory and out of control actions can signal a drug problem. Tell me what it is, Luca. Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t help,” he says quietly, his expression dark. “No one can. And I don’t want to discuss it here. Do you trust me enough to come with me? I need to show you something so that you’ll believe me.”
I ponder that for a moment and to my surprise, I do find that I trust him. He might have secrets, but I can see in his eyes that he would never knowingly hurt me. Whatever last night was, it wasn’t something that he purposely did. He was out of control. He wasn’t himself.
He wasn’t himself.
I nod. “Yes. I trust you.”
He stares at me, long and hard and regretful. “I hope you don’t live to regret that.”
He stands and offers me his hand, and to my surprise, I take it. His fingers are long and strong and warm as they wrap around mine. I expect him to release it after he helps me from the bed, but he doesn’t. He holds my hand tucked inside of his as we make our way through the house, out the back doors and into the English Maze.
Chapter Twenty-One
Luca
I lead Evangeline down the secret steps into my cave. Her expression is contained and guarded. She meant what she said. She’s desperately trying to withhold judgment. I respect that about her even though I know that after I am finished explaining, she will contact the authorities and I will be arrested. Surprisingly, I am numb to that. I don’t dread it at all.
I almost welcome it.
As we round the corner into the suite, Evangeline’s eyes widen.
“What the hell?” she murmurs as she takes everything in. When her gaze passes over the bed with the chains protruding from the wall, her eyes narrow.
“What the hell, Luca? You’re into kinky shit and you thought you would bring me here because you think I’m kinky, too? I’ve got news for you. I’m not. I enjoyed last night, but I’m not a sexual freak.”
She spins on her heel and starts to walk for the door, but I grab her elbow gently.
“Please wait,” I ask her. “You don’t understand. This place is for me, those chains are for me. I needed for you to see it before I tell you my story. See how elaborate this hideout is? Do you see the expense that has gone into making it safe and secluded from the rest of the world?”
Eva keeps her eyes narrowed as she nods. “I do. But I don’t see how it is relevant, Luca.”
I take a deep breath. “Can we sit? I want to explain. Would you like a glass of wine?”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s 9:00 a.m., Luca.”
I shrug. “Do you?”
She levels her gaze at me. “Yes.”
I have to laugh and I get a bottle of wine and two glasses, and we sit on the couch facing each other.
“You need to talk now,” she instructs me as I hand her a glass.
I nod. I’m not sure where to begin, but I decide to just start speaking. The words begin pouring from my mouth, beginning with when I was small and first realized that I was different.
“My mother would lock me in my room,” I remember aloud. “She would bind my hands and lock me in my room until the darkness passed.”
There is horror on Evangeline’s face. “She locked you in your room? Alone?”
I nod. “She didn’t know what else to do.”
“There are many other things that she could have done,” Eva says drily. “What do you mean when you say ‘the darkness’?”
“The only way I can describe it is to say that everything becomes blurry and then shortly after that, I enter oblivion. I don’t know what happens or what I do. When I wake, I can remember feeling blurry and entering the blackness, but nothing after that.”
“How long has this been going on?” Evangeline asks, her voice no-nonsense and medical. She’s trying to tap into her psychiatrist self, to remain impassive and detached, but I can hear a thin strain of horror in her voice.
“All of my life,” I answer simply. “I don’t remember a time when it didn’t happen.”
“Is this why your mother thinks you are evil?” Eva asks. “Because you have blackouts? Perhaps they are seizures. Have you been examined by a doctor?”
“Yes, this is why my mother thinks that I am evil,” I tell her. “And no. I personally have not been examined. My mother would never hear of it when I was small. It would have been devastating for the family name for this to get out. You see, it doesn’t just affect me. It affects Minaldi men. My father was afflicted. His father, his father’s father and so on. My father once told me that my grandfather had gone to a doctor in desperation, but they could find nothing wrong with him. It is a medical mystery, a genetic anomaly.”
“What do you do when you become ‘afflicted’?” Evangeline’s voice is small now, as though she is afraid of the answer. She is gripping her wine glass with white fingers. I’m not sure what is paler, her fingers or her face. The blood seems to have leached from her entire body.
“I think I’m violent,” I tell her. “It’s been getting worse. And I fear that I might be responsible for the deaths of the girls in Valletta.”
She gasps and her wine glass tumbles to the floor and shatters, spattering the couch and the rugs and our legs with crimson wine.
Evangeline leaps to her feet, hunting for things to clean up the mess. “I’m sorry,” she tells me. “I’m sorry. I was just…. this is surprising. This isn’t what I was expecting to hear. I’m sorry.”
She is keeping her distance now and I don’t blame her. She flutters about like a hummingbird, finding paper towels and a broom and dust pan. I take the broom from her and when my fingers brush against hers, she cringes away. And then she apologizes. When I look into her eyes, I see fear there.
And it is crushing.
I hadn’t realized that I would care so much about what she would think. But the fear in her eyes practically reaches in and crumbles
my spirit into twisted up bits. More than anything else, I don’t want her to fear me. I would never purposely harm her, so I tell her that.
“Not purposely,” she agrees. “I know you would never purposely harm me, Luca. I know you well enough to know that.”
She is still keeping her distance as she throws the broken glass into a trashcan. I notice that she stays a small distance away, leaning against the marble counter in the kitchenette.
“I know when it is coming,” I tell her. “You’re safe. If I begin to get an episode, I’ll let you know and you can stay away from me.”
She sticks her chin out, an attempt at pluckiness.
“I don’t want to stay away from you,” she tells me firmly. “I want to help you. I know that I can, Luca. This is the twenty-first century. Medicine has come a long way since your great-great grandfather tried to get help. Back then, they were still using leeches to suck toxins out, for God’s sake. I can help you. I promise.”
I stare at her.
“You should never make a promise that you can’t keep, Evangeline,” I finally answer. I can hear the hopelessness in my voice and I’m sure she can, as well.
“I don’t,” she answers.
I know that she believes it. Evangeline Talbot has spirit. I have to give her that. It never occurs to her that perhaps something is impossible, that something just can’t be done. That she can’t do something. It’s a trait I admire about her. It’s something similar to what lives in me.
I finally nod.
“Okay. I’ll let you try. What should we do first?”
Evangeline thinks on that for a moment. “We’ll have an initial session. We’ll just talk. I need to get a feel for things. And I’ll want to have a blood panel run on you; just to make sure your blood levels are all normal.”
“Fine,” I agree. “We can start tonight after dinner.”
“Fine,” she answers. She smiles and there is no fear there now. And for a scant moment, just one, I feel hope. I feel like perhaps, just maybe, Evangeline can help me. But then reality comes immediately crashing back down because I know she can’t. There’s no reason for false hope. No one can help me.
But I smile back at her anyway.
“It’s a date.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eva
Luca doesn’t show for dinner.
He sends a handwritten note excusing himself. Apparently, there was an urgent matter at Minaldi Shipping and he had to leave unexpectedly. He won’t be home for at least another day and so he promises me a rain check.
I can do nothing but think about what happened last night, about the things that he told me this morning…about his theory that he is the one killing the girls in Valletta. The mere thought causes chills to race down my back, standing the hair up on my neck.
It can’t be him.
I don’t know if that’s what I really believe or what I want to think. Either way, I sit on my balcony with my laptop and throw myself into research. I uncover everything I can possibly find about the murders in the newspapers online. I research disorders that could possibly explain Luca’s symptoms. I try to piece everything together.
More importantly, I focus on my own feelings about him. I’m angry with him; for scaring me, for confusing me, for practically accosting me. I say practically because I really did want it. I’m so conflicted by the events and my own emotions that I consider leaving.
Chessarae is dangerous for you.
Melina’s words play in a loop in my head. Maybe I’m really not safe here. It’s only a coincidence that I wanted Luca. It wouldn’t have mattered if I didn’t, he would have taken me against my will. I am under no delusions about that. The cold and dark look on his face as he hovered above me in the night can attest to that.
But then I remember the tortured look that was there after I told him what he’d done and it threatens to rip my heart out of my chest. Especially when I remember what else Melina said. I should’ve had his nurse drown him when he was an infant.
What kind of mother says such a thing? My heart breaks for the childhood he must have had. He grew up knowing that his own mother wished that he’d never been born. I can only begin to imagine what kind of issues that would give him. And yet he still takes care of her, still gives her top of the line medical treatment. I think that goes a long way to show what kind of person that he really is.
I swallow hard.
I can’t abandon him. For reasons unknown to me, he’s chosen to let me in and expose everything that he is. Probably for the first time since he was a child, he’s made himself vulnerable to someone. To me. Against his better judgment, he’d like to hope that I can help him. I can sense that. I just can’t bring myself to crush that fragile hope. I can’t do it.
So instead, I’ll stay. I’ll stay and try everything I can think of to help him.
Luca touches me in a place where I haven’t ever been touched. He pulls at my heart; his vulnerability, his darkness. He needs me. It appeals to the psychiatrist in me, but more than that, it appeals to the woman in me. The feeling is as strong as anything I’ve ever felt.
It’s as though I’m getting sucked out to sea in a dark current, the waves swelling above me and pulling me under… and I can’t swim away from it. I can’t leave him.
I can’t abandon him like his mother did. She didn’t physically leave, although that would probably have been healthier for him. No, she tore his heart apart by rejecting him when he needed her the most. I won’t do that. I won’t.
I walk restlessly on the beaches and in the gardens. I turn the situation over and over in my head and even though I have theories, I can’t make much progress in analyzing it until I have spoken with Luca in depth.
On the third day, my phone rings.
“Evangeline, it’s Luca.”
As if I wouldn’t recognize his voice.
“Hi,” I say softly. “Are you planning on coming home or have you made a run for it?”
He laughs.
“I’m so sorry,” he tells me. “It was a supply chain emergency that I had to handle in person. I’ll be home tonight so I’m calling to reschedule our date. I should arrive after dinner. Will that work for you? You could meet me in my study after you eat.”
“Of course,” I tell him. “It’s a date.”
We hang up and I take a walk in the fresh air and then put my notes together, organizing my thoughts as well. As much as I’m looking forward to it, hearing what Luca might tell me frightens me as well. I only hope I’m ready for it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Luca isn’t back in time for dinner. He said that he wouldn’t arrive until afterward, but I guess I was still a little hopeful that he might be early. Instead, I’m alone once again in this huge room.
I pick at my food, pushing it around on my plate. I’m not hungry. I’m anxious. I’m scared about what Luca might tell me, about how I should process hearing un-hearable things.
I’m also anxious because I’ve never encountered a disorder like his and I have to wonder how much of it is as he thinks. Schizophrenia sometimes presents itself as paranoia. The patient gets crazy ideas and fully believes them. But Luca doesn’t seem Schizophrenic. He seems calm, lucid, intelligent. And dangerous.
I suck in my breath at the thought, at the memory of his eyes from the other morning. So dark, so pained, so full of emotions that I can’t even name. It wrenched something inside of me loose, something that I had hidden long ago.
The ability to care.
When my brother died, I lost the ability to care. Not because I wanted to, but because it was so very painful that I had to find a way to cope. My parents weren’t themselves during that time; they were so engrossed in their own grief and anger and devastation, that they didn’t really have it in them to help me through my own ordeal. I was left to deal with it alone. And the way I eventually handled it, the way that I was able to come through it intact, was to compartmentalize my emotions, to learn to step back from anythin
g that might be painful. It’s why I’ve never been in a serious relationship.
I’ve been in sexual relationships. I’ve had casual relationships. But I’ve never had a lasting, deeply emotional relationship. I would never take that risk. I unconsciously made the decision long ago that nothing would ever hurt me again.
I know that drawing closer to Luca is taking a chance. I feel him pulling me to him, closer every day. Every time I see him, I want to be even closer. And he’s damaged. I don’t know to what extent yet, but my heart doesn’t seem to care.
I push my plate away and glance at the giant clock on the far end of the wall.
It’s time.
I pad through the quiet, darkened halls that lead to Luca’s study. But before I get there, I hear faint music.
I stop.
Music?
I strain my ears and listen.
In this house, this large and silent house, the piano music that drifts down the empty hall is haunting and desolate. It causes chills to run up my spine and goose bumps to form on my arms. I don’t know why.
Without thinking, I turn into the direction that it is coming from.
I am led into a large open room that overlooks that sea through a wall of glistening windows. A grand piano is situated next to the windows and Luca sits at it, bathed in silvery moonlight as his slender hands deftly and gracefully play the ivory keys. His dress shirt is unbuttoned at the collar, his tie untied. He is immersed in the music that he is creating, oblivious to everything but the haunting melody that is flowing through the beautiful instrument beneath him and into the salty air around him.
Each breath I take is saturated with the haunting melody and the sea and I am frozen in the doorway, unable to move. Luca’s beauty in this moment is greater than anything I’ve ever seen. His face, so chiseled and perfect, is dark and shadowed now. His glossy dark hair slants across his forehead but he is distracted by nothing. He is intense as he leans into the music.
I watch his hands, so slender and graceful and long. They lightly urge the music from the ivory beneath them and I know in this instant that this man, this beautiful man, cannot be a killer. It is impossible. This is why I haven’t gone straight to the polizia with his claims. He cannot be the person that he thinks he is.
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