Chapter Five — Lucian
637 Words
She heard him before she saw him.
She was in the kitchen the next morning, both hands around her coffee mug, talking to Elena about nothing in particular, when the elevator opened. The sound of it was quiet but the shift in the apartment was not. Something changed in the air the way it does when a window is opened in a sealed room. Elena's posture did not change but her hands stilled briefly on the counter.
Nora turned around.
He was tall. That was the first thing. Tall and dark suited and he moved through the space like he had never once had to consider whether he belonged somewhere. He was setting his phone on the entryway table and shrugging off his jacket and he had not looked at her yet.
Then he did.
Nora had been prepared for cold. She had been prepared for arrogant, for dismissive, for the particular blankness of someone who had bought something and was not that interested in it now that it was delivered. She had prepared herself for all of that.
She had not prepared herself for his face.
He was the most perfectly made man she had ever seen. Sharp featured and dark eyed and so still it was almost unnatural. The kind of face that did not look like it had been put together by accident. She felt the observation land somewhere in her chest and immediately disliked herself for it.
His eyes moved over her once. Unhurried. The way you look at something you own.
And then they stayed.
Something shifted behind his expression, brief and controlled, there and gone. She was not the girl he remembered. She had grown into herself fully, curves where there had been angles, a stillness about her that had not been there before. He filed it away without letting it show on his face.
"Miss Callahan," he said. His voice was low and even and gave nothing away.
"Mr. Deveraux." She kept her voice just as level. She was proud of that.
He looked at Elena. "Has she been settled in?"
He said it like she was not standing right there. Elena answered him but Nora was already deciding that this was going to be the pattern and that she was not going to let it work on her.
"I am standing here," Nora said.
He looked back at her. Something moved behind his eyes, small and brief, gone before she could read it. "I am aware."
"Then you can ask me directly."
A pause. Short but deliberate. "Have you been settled in?"
"Yes," she said. "Thank you for asking."
Elena disappeared quietly into the back of the kitchen. Nora stayed where she was with her coffee mug and held his gaze because she was not going to be the first one to look away. Not today. Not on the first day.
He studied her for a moment and she had the unsettling feeling that he was seeing more than she intended to show him. Then he reached past her for the coffee pot, poured himself a cup and walked out of the kitchen without another word.
Nora let out a slow breath.
Elena reappeared and began moving around the kitchen again, quiet and calm, not quite smiling.
"He is always like that?" Nora asked.
"Mostly," Elena said.
"Wonderful." Nora looked down at her coffee and thought about the way his eyes had moved over her. Like she was an acquisition. Like she was something checked off a list.
She thought about the brief flicker she had caught before his expression closed again. The way he had stilled when he looked at her.
She picked up her mug and went to find her sketchbook. She had a feeling she was going to need something to do with her hands today.
- Writer
