Page 104 of Beautiful Villain
For one ridiculous, suspended second, I just stared.
Then she crossed the street.
She didn’t go in the opposite direction.She didn’t walk past me.But straight toward me.
I did not have time to prepare for that.Or recover or remember any of the reasons why this was a terrible idea.
Her knuckles tapped lightly against the window.
Three soft knocks.
I slowly lowered the window, half convinced that if I moved too fast she would vanish, like some cruel hallucination my brain had invented to punish me.
Her face filled the opening.
It was warm, real, and close enough for me to reach out and touch her.
She looked… good.Better than I remembered.Alive in a way that made something deep under my ribs tighten and ache.And somehow, impossibly, she was smiling.
At me.
“What are you doing here, Gianni?”she asked, her voice light, amused.“It’s terribly rude to lurk in the neighborhood and not even come in for a coffee.”
For a second, I just stared at her.
It felt like she had reached into my chest and moved something fundamental.Like gravity had politely resigned.
“I—” I stopped, tried again.“Dunn shouldn’t have sent you out here.”
“He didn’t,” she said, a small smirk tugging at her mouth.“He suggested.”
Of course he did.The man had never met a situation he could not meddle in.
I opened the door and stepped out of the car, suddenly too aware of myself.The stubble.The sleepless eyes.The fact that I probably smelled like I’d stepped in a pile of shit and forgotten to wash it off.
She did not seem to notice.Or if she did, she was being kind enough to ignore it.
“Come on,” she said, already turning back toward her house.“You cannot sit out here like a serial killer.It’s terrible for resale value.”
I followed her, because of course I would.
Inside, the house was quiet and orderly in a way that felt clinical.Like someone had been scrubbing their life clean and hoping nothing bled through.The furniture was ordinary, but some things were obviously missing.The ghosts had been packed away.
She set a kettle on, moving through the kitchen with the kind of confidence that comes from deciding you belong somewhere, even if you are still convincing yourself of it.
“So,” she said, glancing at me over her shoulder.“What are you doing these days?Besides stalking me.”
I leaned against the counter, hands in my pockets, trying not to look like a man who had almost lost everything.
“Fixing things,” I said.“Breaking others.Same routine.”
She hummed.“Sounds very emotionally balanced.”
“And you?”I asked.“Do you like working at the library?It looks like a quiet, murder-free existence.”
“I shelve books,” she said.“I argue with old men about late fees.I pretend I do not jump every time a car door slams outside.You know.Living the dream.”
That smile again.Brave.Fragile.Infuriatingly bright.
