Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Regardless, I know what I saw.
Thiago didn’t deserve to die like that. No one does—and I won’t forget the fact that he saved my life. I don’t know if Santos believes me or if he thinks I somehow imagined it, like Caius does, but I don’t care. I won’t forget it.
I’m unpacking my toiletries in the bathroom when I hear the bedroom door close. Assuming it’s Santos, I hurry out, but stop short when I find Caius standing in the bedroom. He sets a box down on the bed and turns to take the other from the man carrying it.
“Knock-knock,” he says to me then dismisses the other man, who closes the door behind him once he’s gone.
I’m tempted to walk over and open it, but Caius is watching me, and I don’t want to appear weak. So, instead, I take a deep breath in and put my hands into my pockets to have something to do with them. “What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Delivering the last of your things.” He gestures to the two boxes. Sticking out from one is the locked box I found when I was going through Santos’s closet at the apartment on our wedding night. He follows my gaze toward it. “That shouldn’t be here,” he says, lifting it out and setting it on the bed. “You recognize it?”
“No,” I lie and walk over to my nearly empty duffel bag, picking it up and busying myself with the notebooks left inside. I wasn’t going to unpack my sketchbooks from those two years at college, but I need to have something to do until he goes. I stack them on the table and zip up the empty duffel.
Caius surprises me when he comes to look at them. “Sketches, right?”
I put my hand over the stack when he reaches for one. “They’re nothing. Just schoolwork.”
“You’re pretty good,” he says.
I glance at him from the corner of my eye. “How do you know?”
“My brother showed me some of the ones you’d sent him.” Ignoring my obvious attempt to stop him from picking up one of the books, he does just that.
“He did?”
“Yep.” He flips through the pages. “They made him smile,” he says, glancing at me momentarily, then returning his attention to my book. “He doesn’t do that often enough, but you’ve managed it.”
He pushes his hair back when it flops forward and for some reason, seeing it, seeing his big hand, has me taking a step backward. I don’t know why I do it, but he notices. He looks at me, eyebrows raised in question. He smiles with one corner of his mouth and that dimple forms on his cheek. He’s so different in appearance from Santos, equally handsome but disarmingly so in a harmless boy-next-door way. Although I know in my gut, he’s anything but harmless.
“Do I scare you, Madelena?” he asks, taking a step toward me. “Or is it something else?”
“What would it be?” I ask, standing my ground.
“So, I scare you then.”
“No. That’s not what I meant.” I clear my throat. “I don’t like anyone looking at my work. It’s not really meant for that.”
“Oh? Then what’s it meant for if not to be seen?”
I shrug. “It was just school.”
“Didn’t you go to school to study art to become an artist? Or am I missing something?”
“Can I have that back?” I gesture to the notebook.
“You know which ones are my favorites? The ones of you flipping my brother off.” He holds out the notebook. I reach to take it, but he keeps hold of it, forcing me to look at him.
“Why do you like fucking with me?” I ask him outright because fuck him.
He grins, then lets go. “I like you. You’re fun. And believe it or not, I think you’re good for my brother.”
“I don’t think you do like me, Caius.”
“Then maybe you should take some time to get to know me, and you’ll realize your error.”
“How’s Ana?”
His eyebrows rise. “Ana?” He shrugs a shoulder. “Fine, I guess. Tell me something. You sent those sketches to him once a month. Why?”
Did Santos really tell him all of this? Did he show them all to him? What else has he told his brother?
“Well, he wanted letters,” I answer truthfully because it really doesn’t matter. I’m not even sure why he’s asking, but if I know Caius, he’s got an agenda. “I had little choice in the matter and controlled what I could. So, instead of letters, he got sketches.”
“See,” he says, pointing a finger with a smile like he and I are sharing some inside joke. He moves backward and sits on the edge of the bed. “This is why I like you. You don’t do as you’re told exactly. Not without a little sass.”
Caius’s gaze moves to that locked box and I see how his expression darkens, his bright eyes going a little darker, growing a little sadder.