I look back at the first guy because he seems to be in charge. He has deep brown soulful eyes and a restrained demeanor. I know instantly that he is the leader of whatever is going on here, and maybe of much more. He looks at me with a softly penetrating stare that is more frightening than the curt annoyance of the blond.
“Take a seat,” the tall, dark-haired man says, pressing the lock on my door as he steps toward me, ushering me toward my pink armchair that I found on the side of the street and pushed into the elevator on a day when that was working.
“This is my place,” I say weakly. I’ve never practiced telling strange hot men to get out of my house, and it seems like I’m not about to start now. These two are so captivating I find myself just staring rather than defending.
The leader puts his hands in his pockets and speaks to me in a clear, somewhat patient tone.
“Did you have anything to do with the passing of Theodore Levin?”
“No,” I say. “Of course not. I’ve never had anything to do with anyone’s passing.”
He looks through me. I swear to god he sees the inside of me, parts and places that are usually obscured to everyone including me.
“You have secrets,” he says softly. Everything about this man could be mistaken for gentleness, but that is precisely what it would be—a mistake. Every time he pushes into me, he shows me something of what he is. I feel coldness. I feel cruelty. I feel a capacity for dizzying violence.
But right now he is wearing a cream suit and giving me a faint smile that sits on just the wrong side of reassuring.
“Everyone has secrets. Mine aren’t murder,” I say, shivering against cold that isn’t there. “Please let me go. I swear I don’t know anything about this.”
“You knew Theodore.”
“I really don’t think I did.”
“Teddy.”
“Oh.” God, have I turned stupid? Or has this man just managed to obliterate every bit of sense from my brain just by looking at me?
“Oh,” he says smoothly.
“I knew Teddy. Sure. Everyone knows Teddy.” I swap back and forth between present and past tense because it is unthinkable to me that someone as lively as Teddy could possibly be gone. “They said it was an accident.”
“It wasn’t,” he says.
“I… I don’t know anything about it,” I stammer. “Are you a detective?” I ask the question because I suddenly realize that thismight be a criminal investigation. He was just in my house. He let himself in. Maybe he’s a policeman. Maybe I’m about to be arrested.
I feel a cool chill run through me at the idea of this man sliding cuffs on my body.
“He loved you.”
“He did?” I am conditioned to lie, so I lie. “We didn’t really even date. We went out a couple times.”
Those brown eyes turn almost red in the flickering of the light. I know that there’s nothing supernatural about him. He’s just a man. But he doesn’t feel like one. He feels like someone with a lot of power.
I think police have to identify themselves though.
“Am I in trouble?”
He cocks his head to the side and his lips quirk a little. He finds me amusing in some way, but I don’t think it’s a good thing. I don’t think this man is someone whose attention I want.
His eyes flicker from me to the other man. He makes a little motion with his head. A tilt, nothing more. The other guy leaves, shutting my apartment door quietly behind him.
The atmosphere in the room shifts. It doesn’t feel like my place anymore. It’s his, somehow. The painting on the wall behind him is the one I did at a sip and spill event a month ago, but it’s his painting now. Every brushstroke. Every line. Everything in this place is his. Including me.
I shake my head as the sense of disorientation grows.
“Look at me,” he says, his words soft, but firm.
I do as I am told. I didn’t have to actually be told. I would look at him if he was in a room of a thousand other people. This man is the definition of magnetic. He has a charm and an authority that will not be denied. And he has Teddy’s eyes.
