Chapter 12
EVIE
Wednesday morning, I decide to go to work. I’m not rostered on shift for almost three more weeks, thanks to my supposed honeymoon, but Lori’s put-upon sighs and sulky glances are driving me crazy. I’m so tired of tiptoeing around her.
Besides, idle hands are the devil’s playground. Not that I’m giving into any kind of manual dalliances when it comes to thinking about Oliver Deubel and his pretty face. I’m also not giving his lazy threats headspace or remembering how I allowed him to feel me up in a public restaurant. Or at least I wouldn’t be thinking about it if I hadn’t been forced to spend the afternoon hiding out in the break room.
“I’ll cancel your visa,” I mutter darkly to myself. All he was missing was a mustache to twirl. Maybe a bout of maniacal laughter. And this is the man who saved me from the street—the one I practically had to trick into bed! That sounds worse than it should. I mean, I understood his reluctance, but this I do not understand!
“I should probably warn you, I make a terrible friend.”
I feel myself frown at the remembrance. It’s such a crappy defense.
“You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I won’t.”
The man I spent the night with, the only person who helped me that day—he didn’t seem the type to hold my visa over my head. But I know men like him, rich men. The kind my mother has a taste for. Men like my stepfather who will leverage just about anything to get what they want.
Which is probably why this all feels like such a head fuck.
Work hasn’t been the distraction I needed—my colleagues can barely look at me! At first, I took it for concern. Maybe they thought I would be too upset to hold a conversation. That maybe I wasn’t allocated a treatment room for fear I wasn’t in the right mindset to make sound clinical decisions. But it feels more like the issue is theirs, like they’re embarrassed for me. Like they don’t know what to say or how to act in front of me.
It’s like a bad farce out there—lots of forced laughter and scary smiles when I walk by. I mean, people, come on! Infidelity isn’t catching—you can’t contract it through a third-party host.
Even if some of them were guests on the day.
So here I sit, hiding out in the break room, eating my body weight in cookies. Weirdly, there is comfort to be found in these familiar surroundings. In the ever-present whiff of disinfectant and in the low hum of voices and animal sounds. It’s better than the loneliness that lurks outside these walls.
“What are you doing here?”
I glance up, my heart suddenly glad as Yara’s head appears around the door. “Helping myself to Rachel’s cookies.” I pull another chocolate Hobnob out of the packet—one of the UK’s best inventions, for sure. “Snitches get stitches.”
“I don’t want you coming anywhere near me with a needle,” she says, closing the door behind her. “You left that Labrador’s paw looking like Frankenstein’s monster last week.” She makes a sad face, imitating a feeble paw wave.
“My sutures aren’t that bad.”
“Not when you remember where you’ve put your glasses, at least.”
“Ha ha.” My hand lifts until I recall my glasses are on the top of my head. The one good thing to come out of today was finding them. Well, that and seeing Yara. “I thought they were gone for good this time,” I say as I dunk the Hobnob into a mug of tea the color of red bricks. I heap the soggy deliciousness into my mouth.
“You didn’t come back for your glasses.” Leaning her slender frame against the door, she folds her arms.
Yara is gorgeous, all high cheekbones and amber, feline eyes. “Bollywood eyes,” I once heard someone in the clinic say, to which she’d laughed and said she wished she had the brows to match instead of inheriting Bollywood villain brows from her dad.
“No.” My heart gives a painful little jig. “Turns out, Ivo put them in his drawer last Thursday. I wouldn’t have them at all if he—”
Yara holds up her index finger. “Question. Why aren’t you being sexed on a beach somewhere?”
The jittering stops, and my heart drops into the pit of my stomach. “Because sex and sand aren’t a good combination.”
“What?”
“Could it be you’re the only person in London who hasn’t seen my viral Pulse Tok video?”
My tone is less than joy filled. I thought being at work would give me something else to concentrate on, because Lord knows I’ve spent enough hours thinking about that stupid thing. At least thinking about it is all I have done, given I don’t have my phone. Not that I couldn’t have borrowed a colleague’s phone, because I’m pretty sure a couple of them have it saved to their favorites.
When I find out who loaded it, I’m going to give them an elephant-size dose of ketamine.
I should’ve stayed home—I should’ve turned around when I reached the coffee shop this morning. Courtesy of Riley talking Lori into loaning me a little cash, I decided to treat myself to a latte and a muffin at Coffee the universe is unjust , because if Oliver’s looks matched his personality, he’d have a face like a troll. Or maybe the devil, because wasn’t the devil an angel once?
“Can’t. I have an appointment, and I’m late.” I swing around and begin to walk again.
“All the more reason to accept a ride. Or should I go back and have a word with your friend? Was she a journalist?”
My sneakers squeak as I halt. Again. The Bentley’s tires do not do the same. “You would not,” I utter icily, my head turning like the turret on a tank. From what I’m coming to understand, he probably would, but ... Think, Evie. What benefit would it be to him? Just another manipulation. Whether he will or won’t carry through isn’t the point.
“Probably not,” Oliver concedes with a little lift of one shoulder. “But it got you to stop.”
“And now I’m starting again.” With a mean, closed-lipped smile, I pivot away. “Goodbye, Oliver. Let’s not meet again.”
I take a left out of the car park, and the Bentley follows, its pace matching mine. I hate the tiny spark of excitement inside me, and how it feeds the needy part of my soul.
“We can carry on our conversation like this, but only one of us is getting wet,” Oliver says from the window. “And not in the fun way.”
“You make me wish I had my headphones.” I could get Ted, his poor driver, to wear them.
“Hop in, and we’ll go and get them. Your phone, your belongings—everything.”
“Oh, you’d just love that.” I throw the words over my shoulder.
“Yes, you’re right. I’d love to help you.”
I hate that I glance his way again, but not as much as I hate the expression he’s wearing. It’s an incitement to violence.
Yes, Officer, that is my knife sticking out of his chest.
Yes, sir, I did say he had it coming to him.
“While we’re at his apartment, I should get you a wooden spoon from the kitchen to help you with your stirring.”
“Or I could spank you with it for being so obstinate.”
“In your dreams.”
His laugh is dirtier than the break room’s microwave. “Eve, I would love the opportunity to describe my dreams to you.”
That tempting little flutter starts up between my legs. It’s not right or appropriate, as far as responses go, but I can’t help how my body reacts to him. It makes no sense. He threatens me, trails me in his car, and I go all gooey? It’s so wrong that my body is all Oliver, just go full dark-book boyfriend, and throw me in the car!
“For someone so spirited on Saturday, you seem very fretful about facing your ex.”
“No one looks forward to seeing their ex. Unless that ex happens to be in a coffin.”
“I did suggest death by cab. Let’s make him green with jealousy instead.”
I grit my teeth and brush my rain-wet hair from my face. I take it all back. Book boyfriends aren’t supposed to annoy the heroine into exploding. “Not gonna happen.”
“How unfortunate for your fluffy clientele. I’m sure they’ll miss you.”
“That’s the best you’ve got?” I demand, spinning to face him. “I guess you must be running out of those idle threats.”
“They’re not idle, darling. I mean every word.”
I pause, because his expression absolutely belies his drawling delivery. “You’re not going to mess with my visa.” I hate the lack of conviction in my words, the upward inflection at the end.
“No. I’ll just have you deported.”
“Unbelievable.” At least, I want it to be.
“Have you even looked into how difficult it will be to remain in this country?”
I did. In the break room. And, honestly, it doesn’t look easy. I’ll probably need to leave the country to apply and start the process afresh. I guess I’d refused to believe it because I’d closed the web page and filed the issue for the attention of Next-Week Evie.
“The path you’re on currently leads to deportation.”
“So says you.”
“I’m glad you were listening.”
“Urgh!”
“Do you know the Home Office will hold your passport and only return it when you reach the door of your plane back to the US? You might even be held in detention if you’re determined a flight risk. Which you obviously are.”
My heart flaps like a sparrow in a cage as I spin away, forcing my chin high. Oh, but it’s hard being dignified when you’re filled with panic, your socks are soggy, and your borrowed sneakers are rubbing at the heel.
I’m aware of the car coming to a stop behind me, but I force myself to hobble on, ignoring the stupid pang in my chest lamenting that our moment is done. Then the rain suddenly stops, though the dark shadow of a cloud passes overhead.
No, not a cloud. A huge black umbrella.
“You are the most obstinate woman,” says a familiar yet resigned voice as Oliver’s large presence appears by my side. I totally ignore the way his biceps flex under his jacket as he gently lifts my hand, placing it there.
“Did I say you could touch me?”
“Yes, on Saturday. Repeatedly.”
I laugh even though I don’t mean to.
“If I remember rightly, you demanded it. ‘Yes. Harder. Here.’” Dipping his chin, he slants me a look. “You really were a dominant little thing.”
I shake my head. I guess my heart is just a traitor for this pretty face, because Lord knows it can’t be his personality that stops me from setting him on his ass.