Page 31 of Beautiful Villain
He sighed then, like I’d forced him into a conversation he’d hoped to avoid.Finally, he looked at me properly.His eyes were sharp.Measuring.
“She shouldn’t have done that,” he said.
“Done what?”
“Run,” he replied.“From the altar.It’s… not right.A good Catholic girl doesn’t leave her future husband at the altar.”
“No,” I agreed.“It’s not.”
He pursed his lips, shaking his head.“Uncatholic.”
There it was.His Kryptonite.
I leaned in just slightly, lowering my voice—as though what I had to say was for his ears only.“I thought the same.”
His shoulders relaxed a fraction.
“She embarrassed you,” he went on.“Embarrassed God, too.Sacrament’s not a suggestion.”
“Exactly,” I said.“And you strike me as a man who values order.Tradition.Family values.”
He snorted.“Someone has to.”
For a moment, it felt almost companionable.Two men agreeing on the state of the world.On how thingsshouldbe.
Then I asked, casually, “You didn’t happen to see where she went, did you?”
His face closed instantly.
“I don’t get involved,” he said, turning the hose back to the flowers.“Not my business.”
Of course.
I nodded, stepped back—and my heel sank straight into his garden bed.The crunch was loud.So was the silence that followed.He stared at the crushed flowers like I’d just murdered a family member.
“That,” he said slowly, “was African Blue Basil.”
I glanced down.“It’ll grow back.”
“No,” he said.“It won’t.”
I met his eyes and saw the shift immediately.
The righteousness was gone.The quiet Catholic moralizing had drained out of him, replaced by something sharper and far more useful—indignation.He wasn’t a man defending God anymore.He was a man ready to go to war over a crushed plant, offended on a deeply personal level.
I sighed inwardly.
“How much?”I asked.
He didn’t even blink.Just adjusted the spray of the hose like he was watering his dignity back into place.
“For the plants,” he said, then paused, eyes sliding back to mine, “or for the information?”
I smiled.Slow.Polite.I knew my smile usually made people nervous.
“Let’s be efficient,” I said.“Both.”
That was when he finally turned the hose off.
