Chapter 8: Properly
1164 Words
“What do you want from me?” she demanded, but her voice came out quieter than she intended, almost breathless.
He tilted his head as a slow, predatory smile began curving his lips.
“You already know,” he murmured.
“I do not know. So get out of here before I smack your face to the ground,” she warned, her chest rising defiantly despite the flutter in her stomach.
“Why are you being so defiant toward your husband?” he teased, each word dripping with amusement.
Evelyn scoffed, the sound sharp and bitter. “Husband? I have no husband. And if there ever will be one, it won’t be you.”
For a moment, the room seemed to hold its breath. The audacity of her words made his eyebrow twitch as the barest flicker of irritation brushed his otherwise calm demeanor. With a sudden motion, he seized her arm, drawing her attention fully to him, and in a deliberate, almost theatrical gesture, he removed the mask.
The moonlight spilled over him, revealing a face that stole the breath from her lungs. Scarred at the temple, yes, but in a way that made him more dangerous, more magnetic. His heterochromatic eyes — one steel gray, one stormy blue, pierced her chest as if he could see every hidden corner of her soul. Evelyn’s rogueish grin faltered, her pulse hammering in her throat, and for the first time, her defiance felt… fragile.
Her lips parted, but the words felt foreign, like admitting a truth she hadn’t allowed herself to touch. “Who… are you?”
He stepped closer, filling the room with the heat of him, the quiet power that made her want to back away and run straight into him at the same time. His thumb brushed lightly over her bottom lip, deliberate and intimate, and her chest ached at the audacity of the touch.
“Remember my name, my lady,” he said softly, almost a growl, leaning so close his breath ghosted over her ear. “I am Maximilian Cross… and you will marry me.”
The words struck her harder than any bullet, faster than any knife she had thrown in a fight. Her hands trembled at her sides, fingers curling involuntarily. Her mind tried to resist, tried to deny the pull, but her chest betrayed her, heaving with shock, fury, and a heat she didn’t know she could feel.
“…Why… me?” she blurted before she could think, and the question sounded small, fragile, almost ridiculous coming from someone who lived her life wielding power like a weapon.
Maximilian’s gaze softened for just a fraction of a second, barely long enough for her to question whether she’d imagined it. There was something in that look that made her chest ache, something that slipped past her guard before she could stop it. Then, as if it had never been there, his expression shifted.
“Because...I love you,” he said.
The words were simple, but they landed like a thunderclap in the silence.
Certain. Unflinching. Too bold to doubt. After all, he knew what she wanted to hear. He knew her expectations.
Evelyn froze. Her breath caught, the sound trembling in her throat. She didn’t know what to do, what to feel. The world seemed to tilt for a heartbeat and her pulse was roaring in her ears. No one had ever said those words to her before...not like that, not as if they meant something.
Her world had no space for love. Love was a weakness, a distraction, a thing people only used when they wanted something. She had seen it weaponized, twisted, broken into pieces that were never beautiful. She had never expected to hear it, least of all from the man who had barged into her life, uninvited.
She didn’t know if he was mocking her or testing her. She didn’t even know if he meant it. All she knew was how it felt. The words wrapped around her like fire and ice, burning through every wall she’d built to keep herself untouched by softness.
Her chest tightened as though his voice had reached straight inside and taken hold of her heart without permission. She wanted to move, to speak, to fight back, but all that came out was shaky, uneven breath.
Defiance rose instinctively, the only shield she had. She wanted to shove him and remind herself that this man was danger, not salvation. But beneath the anger, her whole being was stirred, and it was frightening.
What if he didn’t mean it?
The question looped in her mind relentlessly like a warning she couldn’t ignore. She tried to reason it away that men like him don’t say things they don't intend, and maybe this was a game, a test, a taunt. Maybe he was toying with her, and the audacity of the words was just another weapon.
She pictured him smiling with that infuriating smirk, imagining it as calculated rather than genuine. Was he planning something? Does he know exactly which string to pull to unravel someone? God, she hated that she was thinking like this. She hated that a small, naive part of her even cared.
But then… what if he did mean it?
The thought was both terrifying and intoxicating. Someone had actually said those words and might have meant them. Someone had actually dared to stake a claim not just on her body, or her loyalty, or her attention, but on her heart. The audacity. The recklessness. The impossible idea that someone could be so bold, so brazen, so completely unafraid to name what everyone else only whispered or hid behind masks.
She felt the thrill she usually chased with guns and knives and chaos, but this was different. This was unfamiliar and uncharted. Dangerous in a way she hadn’t allowed herself to feel.
Even so...
When would she ever hear those words again? Who would dare? Would anyone else ever look at her like he did, as if she were more than the bloodline, more than the wealth, more than the power she had learned to wield like armor since she was a girl?
But then again... Does he really love her?
The thought made her laugh bitterly, a low sound that barely reached her lips. Love. Ha. She had learned long ago that love was a luxury even someone wealthy like her couldn't afford. And yet… here she was, wanting it in ways she hadn’t realized she could.
She wanted him to mean it.
She wanted him to prove it.
And she wanted, more than she could ever say, to see if she could trust him enough to let herself fall.
“Very well…” she began, “I will marry you… on one condition.”
Maximilian’s eyes shifted with curiosity, willing to listen.
Evelyn drew a slow breath, squaring her shoulders even as her heart thudded against her ribs. “Do this properly,” she breathed.
- Writer
