Page 1 of A Deal in Darkness
1
WHAT DID YOU DO?
ADRIANA
The breeze tussles with my hair as sand blows into my face, exfoliating the skin as I walk across the beach. I need the fresh air. I need the bracing wind and sudden drop in temperature like I needed the hangover I was trying to shake off.
I shouldn’t have gone out drinking last night.
I shouldn’t have come back home.
I shouldn’t have gone out without a coat, but I did—and now I have to suffer the consequences. Of all my choices.
My arms wrap around me as I pull my cardigan closed, imagining I was anywhere but here. Somewhere warm.Somewhere comfortable. Somewhere that wasn’t on the same continent as my mother.
It’s almost better that I stay out in this goddamn awful weather than have to face my mother. I’m not living up to her impossible standards and she’s making her feelings clear.
She’s upset.
She’s angry.
She’sdisappointed.
I’ve done everything she asked of me, and life hasn’t worked out. I read English Literature for her. I went to Cambridge University for her. I got a first-class degree for her.
But I didn’t get a boyfriend.
And every other graduate has a job lined up. Already. Because we’re Cambridge graduates and the world should be ours. We’re supposed to be the best of the best, the people companies want to invest in.
Except, no one wants to hire me.
Next week, I’m graduating top of my class and then I’m going to be unemployed. Coming home should have bought me time to think, and I’d hoped my mother would give me some words of advice. Instead, I got scorn and a lashing from her tongue.
Any illusion I’d harbored that returning home was a good idea shattered within the first few days. It’s been two weeks, and the situation is getting bad enough that I resorted to a bottle of red wine last night.
The walk was meant to give me space to think. Time out of the house and away from another argument. But the storm clouds gathering over the sea draw closer and I’m enduring adifferent torment. One meted out on the vast sandy beach that stretches out, buffering the dunes from the ocean.
I’m freezing as I walk back to our cottage on the coast.
The wind howls around me as I shiver, succumbing to the cold.
“Are you fucking insane?”
I turn back, facing the man who’s shouting at me like a lunatic as he races toward me. He’s tall and his thick black hair bellows in the wind, contrasting with the pale white sand around us. It’s the same color as his skin and it only makes his dark eyes and chiseled features more striking.
More handsome.
He’s a little older than me, but more refined. Wiser. More worldly. It’s as if he’s been everywhere and seen everything, gaining experience beyond his years.
“What are you doing out here?”
The man races towards me as I freeze, waiting for him to close the distance between us. He grabs my upper arms, shaking me as he demands I meet the intensity in his gaze.
“Going for a walk.” I’m mumbling like an idiot.
“Obviously. But you’re wearing nothing. Practically nothing. You should know better.”
He’s pissed.
