1 #2
Finally, he slowly lifts his lashes. As if deciding I have earned the risk of being seen.
The blue comes with it.
No—not merely blue. Clear, cold blue. Bright enough to look out of place against the ambience.
The contrast itself is a small, private violence. The brutal geometry of his face set against something so lucid reads more like god than human.
My stomach clenches as my mind supplies the reminder my body keeps trying to file away: those eyes belong to a man they have to chain to the floor.
I can’t even focus on words. Part of me is already framing the shots whether I like it or not.
Shadow against bone. Pale skin against steel.
The photographer in me is a beast that lives off instinct, but the rest of me is slower to follow.
He isn’t just an image. He’s a dangerous man, and I’m suddenly aware that observing him too closely might be its own kind of mistake.
He doesn’t offer anything, not any kind of smile – even just to ease my nerves.
I curse myself for having been too busy armouring myself with sarcasm to properly absorb what the officer had been telling me on the way here.
‘My name is Leandra Nottingham. Pleased to meet you,’ I say, extending a hand—
Then I lock onto the chains and stop short.
Like a bloody idiot.
His gaze drops hawkishly to where my hand hovers, but he doesn’t move. Just sits there with that deceptively relaxed posture, shoulders down.
Christ – the chains.
Of course. He can’t shake my hand. He’s bolted down.
I let my fingers curl inwards, retracting with as much grace as I can salvage. But no sooner do I pull back than his stare climbs up the length of my arm, almost like a physical thing, until those glacial eyes meet mine and hold.
‘I apologise…’ I murmur, trying for steady – and failing.
Of all the bright ideas I’ve had in the past year, this one ranks top of the list – sitting across from a man accused of murder, trying to play this like a fucking Sunday tea party.
Clearing my throat, I take inventory of myself.
‘Call me Leah,’ I add in an attempt to ground whatever this is in something warmer.
Some of the static in the air eases as his shoulders relax slightly.
But it could be just my imagination.
He leans back into the unforgiving metal chair, his weight drawing a low creak from it. In the silence, the sound rolls like thunder.
Then he exhales, the breath rasping as though it has scraped its way out of him.
Glancing down at the clinical table between us, I reposition in my own chair. My heels scrub faintly against the hard floor when I fire off my first question.
‘Are you unhappy with me being here?’
Because I am – unhappy. With myself. With this whole bloody decision. With the desperation that had dragged me through the application, the vetting – all to keep my thoughts away from the wreckage of my own life.
And now here I am, pretending I know what I’m doing.
He keeps staring into my eyes without letting his attention wander over me as one might expect from a man. His eyes never drop to my throat or chest. He only steals the small, involuntary things my own betray.
A corner of his mouth tilts. Not a smile – barely even a promise of one – but his interest settles more precisely on my face, as though he has dragged a confirmation out of me without me allowing it.
Exhaling, I give him a humourless smile. ‘We can sit in the quiet, too, if that’s what you need?’
His gaze flicks unhurriedly to my mouth, then back up again.
The silence bleeds, rebounds against the wall.
I could still pack up tonight and catapult myself to Greenland, find somewhere cold enough to freeze every bad decision still brewing in my head.
‘Leah,’ he says.
My name. Just that.
And I was right – like the sound of burning logs in the dead of a winter night, his voice runs down my spine with all the gentleness of a wildfire.
‘That’s right,’ I say, softer.
But nothing else comes. And now I’m aware he hasn’t blinked for another while. His intensity starts to scratch at my skin.
‘My dad was incarcerated once,’ I mutter, just to puncture the air.
There’s a faint reaction when his breath snags, but he still makes no effort to move the conversation ahead.
‘I won’t pretend I know what it’s like. I don’t.’ I lift one shoulder, eyes on the table. ‘He was in for assault.’
I don’t elaborate on the reason. Crane’s brief contained almost nothing about the allegations, only that he had been charged with patricide.
I hardly remember that time my dad was in prison because I was seven. The neighbour was a violent prick. Beat his wife, his kids. One day my dad caught him in the act and hit him back.
‘He was in for two years. I visited on Sundays. I was happy to see it didn’t change him.’
A breath.
‘I was scared it might.’
I’m uncertain if I’m boring him to death at this point.
My fingertips find the engagement ring at the base of my finger and start turning it slowly.
This is a complete waste of time. I can’t take photos. He doesn’t talk—
Driven by adrenaline, I let the backrest catch my weight with a soft thump. Then I cross my arms. Cross my legs.
And meet his stare dead-on.
‘I’m here to try and make your time inside easier. To talk to you. Or just listen. You don’t have to like me, but I signed up and so did you. If you’ve changed your mind, I’d rather you open that pretty mouth of yours and say it so we can move on.’
He cocks a thick dark brow, the bright caustics in his eyes flaring momentarily. The corner of said mouth twitches, and an unexpected warmth skims through my middle.
Thought it might jolt him a little.
I just didn’t expect the effect of his smile to jolt me straight back.
‘Pretty mouth of mine?’ he echoes quietly. Then his gaze sharpens. ‘So you’re one of those.’
The accent tries to be British, but there’s something in the way he stretches the vowels and rolls the Rs.
My brows pull lower. ‘One of what?’ I ask, unable to follow.
He tilts his head a fraction, looking at me as if he’s tracing bone structure with a scalpel.
‘Romancing the reprehensible.’
Reprehensible?
Wordy.
A quick breath escapes me as I battle to keep a smirk from springing out at his concealed eloquence.
‘You’re not my type.’ The lie makes him smile wider. ‘Chains and charm give me heartburn.’
And just because I’m unable to process why my instincts appreciate his amusement – and those cheekbones – I say bitingly, ‘I’m surprised you know big words like that.’
And the smile’s gone.
‘Because I’m behind bars, I don’t read?’