Page 74 of Queen of Ruin

“You think I would be better off without you?” Darren levels me with his eyes.

“You of all people know what will happen.” I try to walk around him, but he stops me.

We stare at each other, heaviness between us, his hand wrapped around my arm, holding me in place. “They will dig up things that should stay buried,” I say quietly.

“That won’t happen.”

“You don’t know that.”

He releases my arm, but I stay in place.

“You could wait.”

His eyes flare as soon as he catches my meaning.

“I would think you know me better by now,” his voice is husky, the heat from his breath catching in the air before dissolving between us. Snowflakes settle in his dark hair.

“When I want something, I take it.”

“I’m a liability, Darren.”

He takes my chin between his fingers, tilting my head towards his, forcing me to look at him. It’s not his hand that keeps me in place, but his eyes, the way he stares down at me as if he wants to either scold me or kiss me.

“You are not a liability, Evangeline.”

“Wake up, Darren!” I throw my arms in the air. “You married a prostitute. You can’t come back from that. I don’t care who you have in your corner.”

He grabs onto me tighter. “You have no idea what I’m capable of when it comes to you.”

“Darren,” I sigh.

He lets go of me, agitation vibrating off him. “I want to do something with my life.” He runs a hand through his hair and turns away from me. “I have this last name that has been a burden most of my life, but it doesn’t have to be.”

His eyes glisten green, and tears threaten to freeze on his lashes until he blinks them back.

“This is something I can do and be really good at. I can feel it, Evan. I can feel it in my bones. Maybe I always have and that’s why I ran from it, but I can’t run anymore,” he says with frustration, an internal argument that is ancient and weary.

I know he’s capable of it, and seeing him now, on the verge of becoming something great, just makes it all the more bittersweet because he won’t be anything as long as I’m in his life.

“What about the bar exam?” I ask.

“I take the bar next week and I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life. Do you trust me?” he pleads.

I want to say that I do, but that would be a lie. I can’t even trust myself, especially not when he’s looking at me the way a man does when he will pull the moon from the sky just to make you smile. But pulling the moon is the stuff of fairytales.

Fairytales I don’t believe in.

“You just have to believe in me,” he says quietly.

“I believe in you so much that I don’t want to be the reason you don’t succeed,” I try to reason with him, but I can already see that reason won’t work.

His expression softens. “Everything depends on passing the exam. One thing at a time, okay?”

I manage to nod my head, but I can’t shake the uneasiness I feel inside.

I shiver against the cold and he takes the scarf from around his neck and places it over my head, still holding onto the ends as he pulls me close to him.

“I don’t want to do this without you.”

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