“I’m not most girls,” I reply, meeting his gaze again.
“You don’t need to tell me that.”
“There are only two hours until the Reich’s curfew. We should get on with it.”
Through my periphery, I see Stefan still staring at my profile despite the car’s engine roaring to life.
“You don’t like me much, do you?” he asks, smoothly rolling away from the estate, proving his ease of driving.
“I don’t recall saying such a thing.”
“Then, you do like me?”
“I don’t recall saying that either.”
Stefan spends most evenings trying to get a rise out of me. He does. And I enjoy firing quips right back at him, trying my best to keep a straight face while doing so. It’s becoming more difficult by the day.
“Do you think your father will like me?”
I keep my gaze out the window, watching as we pass the blur of dark trees. My cheeks fill with warmth at the thought of what Papa might think of Stefan. I want to tell him he’s not coming inside the clock tower with me, but I also wouldn’t want him sitting on the street, waiting for trouble to knock on his window. The Silbergs have immunity to some of the Jewish laws because of the factory’s compliance, but no one is safe enough to trust any word from the Reich, whether on paper or not.
“Most likely not,” I reply.
“Well, he must like my father enough to let you come live in our home. And people say I’m a chip off the old block, so…”
Financial security is what Papa agreed to. He said the Silbergs’ offer was something I’d be foolish to turn down, and he’d be foolish to keep me from taking it. Papa and Philip Silberg shook on it, along with a promise that he would make sure I return home to visit Papa weekly.
“Yes. That may be true, but your father doesn’t smile at me with a twinkle in his eyes, or stare at my lips when he thinks I’m not looking.”
I can’t believe I just said that out loud. I’ve become too quick at responding to his nonsense that I’ve lost my common sense.
“That’s a good thing,” Stefan says, unashamedly. “And thankfully, for all of us, you only look at me in that sinister way too.”
“I do not,” I argue, falling right into his trap. An endless, bottomless trap.
Then, there’s silence.
Silence I wish to fill, but won’t.
Silence that makes me wonder why he didn’t respond to my disagreement.
Silence that gives me the chills in a car fogging up from our heavy breaths.
My heart’s racing when we arrive along the side street of the village hall. “I’ll wait here,” he says.
“As if you’re my driver, you mean?”
“Precisely.”
A quiet grumble rattles in my throat. “My God, you’re impossible. Let’s go. You’re not sitting in the car.”
He doesn’t hesitate to step out and rush around the front of the black Mercedes gleaming an orange glow from the streetlight. I’m too busy feeling around for a door handle along the panel of puckered leather when he gets to it first. “Miss,” he says, holding his hand out for me to take.
I release a held breath and place my hand in his, conceding to the game he plays. Is this a game? We’re part of two very different worlds and he’ll see that clearly just as soon as we make our way up the spiral stairwell.
His hand is warm, encompassing, comforting. Nice. He doesn’t release my hand even after closing the car door and locking it up. I don’t fight to pull away.
“It’s the black metal door right over there,” I say, nodding toward the nook in the brick edifice. I slip my free hand into my pocket and pull out the key.
