They Said I Had No Choice, So I Learned How to Take One novel · Chapter 3 of 3
Chapter 3: The Ash on His Cuff
Yara confronts Bram in the east hallway about the charcoal smudge on his cuff, and under her pressure he admits he is an investigator building a case against Gregor, not a handyman.
The heat of him was still on her skin when she woke. Her body remembered before her mind did, the ache low in her stomach, the phantom press of his mouth at her throat. She lay still in the narrow bed and let herself feel it, the wanting and the shame tangled together so tight she could not tell one from the other.
The house was quiet. It was always quiet at this hour, the deep hush before the household stirred, and she had learned to move through it without sound. She dressed quickly, her fingers cold, and pulled her hair back with hands that were not quite steady.
She found him in the east hallway.
He was standing by the window at the far end, looking out at the snow, and he turned when he heard her step. He did not look like a man who had spent the night thinking of her. He looked composed, neat, his charcoal coat over his arm, his shirt cuffs visible at his wrists.
That was when she saw it.
A smudge of grey-green on his cuff. The exact color of her pencil.
Her heart stopped, then started again, too fast.
He had been in the attic. He had been in her attic, where her sketchbook was, where she had shown him the only private thing she had left, and he had been there without her, and the smudge on his cuff was the proof of it.
'Good morning,' he said, and his voice was easy, warm. 'You are up early.'
She did not answer. She was looking at his cuff, and she knew he saw her looking, because he glanced down and then back up, and something flickered across his face, too quick to name.
'Charcoal,' he said. 'From the attic. I went back up this morning. I wanted to see the drawings again in better light.'
It was such a reasonable explanation. It was exactly the kind of thing the man she had thought he was would say. The man who made her tea. The man who had touched the edge of her drawing like it was something precious.
But she had been wrong about so many people.
The question was already in her eyes before she spoke, and she did not try to hide it.
'You went back up there alone.'
'Yes.'
'To look at my drawings.'
'Yes.'
She took a step toward him. Then another. The hallway was narrow, and the space between them closed faster than she expected.
'You asked me to show you,' she said. 'You waited until I offered. You did not push. You were so careful with me.'
'Yara.'
'Was that real? Or was that you doing your job?'
The word landed. She saw it hit him, the way his stillness changed, the way his face went blank and polite. She had seen that look before. She had seen it on Gregor's face, and Pavel's, the careful mask of a man who has been caught and is deciding how to lie.
'What job do you think I have?' he asked quietly.
'You tell me.' Her voice was low and shaking, and she hated the shaking, hated that he could hear it. 'You tell me what you were doing in the east hallway before the snow came. You tell me why you know this house so well. You tell me why you look at me like you are memorizing everything I do.'
He said nothing.
'You are not a handyman,' she said. 'You never were.'
'I never said I was.'
'You let me think it.'
'Yes.' The word was quiet, and it cost him something. She could see it in the tightness of his jaw. 'I let you think it.'
She was close to him now, close enough to see the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, close enough to smell the cold on his coat and something else underneath it, something warm. Her body remembered his hands on her, and the memory made her furious, because it should not matter now, it should not matter at all, and it did.
'What are you?' she asked.
He held her gaze. He never looked away. That was the thing about him, the thing that had undone her from the first morning, the way he looked at her like she was the only thing in the room worth seeing.
Now she wondered if that was just another technique.
'I am an investigator,' he said. 'I have been building a case against Gregor Aldren for months. Your name is all over it.'
The words did not make sense at first. They were too big, too impossible, and she stood there with her mouth open and her heart pounding and tried to make them fit into the shape of her life.
An investigator.
A case.
Her name.
'You came here for me.' Her voice was barely a whisper.
'Not only for you.'
'But I am part of it. I am the witness you need.'
He did not deny it. He just stood there, his face still and careful, and she saw it all rearranging itself in her mind. The tea, the kindness, the way he had noticed her silences without pressing. The way he had refused to touch her until she was ready. It all read differently now. It all read like a man doing his job.
'So the tea,' she said. 'The listening. The way you looked at me in the attic. That was all to get me to trust you.'
'No.' The word came fast, faster than anything he had said yet, and there was something raw in it. 'No, that was not all of it.'
'Then what was it?'
He opened his mouth and closed it again. For the first time, he looked like a man who did not know what to say.
She stepped into his space. She did it without thinking, her body moving before her mind could stop it, and she put her hand flat on his chest. The wool of his sweater was rough under her palm. She could feel his heartbeat, fast and hard.
'You came here for me, didn't you?' she said. 'Not as a handyman. As a hunter.'
He did not deny it.
His hand came up and covered hers on his chest. His palm was warm, his fingers curling around hers, and she should have pulled away. She should have run. But she stood there, her hand trapped between his chest and his palm, and she let him hold it.
Behind them, the door to the east hallway stood open.
The house was waking. She could hear it now, the distant sound of movement from the kitchen, the creak of a floorboard somewhere above them. Anyone could walk past. Anyone could see them standing there, her hand on his chest, his hand over hers, the truth of what he was hanging in the air between them.
She did not move.
And he did not let go.
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