Page 78 of The Beast's Heart

“My father was a hard man. He had very little control in life, so he exerted what control he had at home. He would find excuses to be angry with us. Nothing we did could ever satisfy him. His favorite saying whenever one of us was sad or upset? ‘Take a spoonful of cement and harden the f… harden the hell up.’ So I did. I got as hard as I could. And when the neighborhood kids picked on me for being a foreigner, for being different, I showed them just how hard I was. Their parents wanted to charge me for assault. But my father? He was proud of me for the first time ever. Because I’d finally demonstrated a talent in something. And that’s how I started boxing. And that’s how we paid our rent. And if I lost? If I got hurt? I just wasn’t hard enough, or intimidating enough, was I?”

I look at Mal again. He’s listening. A little less bunched up now.

“I was a meal ticket and I was hard. And even when I managed to escape from that situation, when I got signed onto a promotion for the first time and I left my family behind, I remained hard and I believed the only worth I had was the worth that my family had seen in me: the ability to turn violence into cash.”

I pick up the little cigarette case and turn it in my fingers. “I know what your circumstances were like before. Maybe not all of it, but I know enough. I know how your father wasn’t around, and how your mother was too drugged up to take proper care of you. I know how often you went without. And I know about the Petersens and how they turned their backs on you.”

Mal flinches at the name. “They didn’t— they were really nice. I… well, Belle probably told you.”

There’s a note of resentment there. I hope Belle won’t be too upset that I’m having this conversation.

“Here’s the thing, Mal. It’s a thing that my therapist told me. When you’re small and your great authority is your parents andyour concept of right and wrong revolves around them, when they don’t take good care of you and they tell you that you’re not good enough or worthy enough, you don’t resent them. You take all that on board. Because it’s either that or admit that you’re completely on your own. What I’m trying to say is that you’re wrong. The Petersens were not nice. Because nice people would not do what they did. Nice people, who held up their promise of caring for you, would have asked why you were acting out and would have helped you find a solution. They might have considered how different and strange their way of doing things was for you and given you more time to adjust. They would have, perhaps, thought about how your circumstances might have led to you wanting to keep mementoes of good moments, hold on to those moments as tight as you could, because you had no faith that they would last.”

I hold out the cigarette case to him again. “Lloyd would have wanted you to have this. He would have said you had good taste in mementos.”

Mal slowly, tentatively, reaches out and takes the cigarette case. “You’re not mad at me?”

“Oh, I was. I didn’t much like you sneaking into my space and taking something of mine from me. You can understand that, can’t you?”

He nods again, squeezing the case tightly.

“But Mal, I don’t want you to be frightened of me. You’re safe here. And I need you to know it’s safe to admit when you’ve done wrong. I’m not my father. I may be large and grumpy, but I will never hurt you.”

I walk back into my bedroom to find Belle standing, drowning in the forest-green pajamas that I laid out for him, beside the dusty rolls of wallpaper. He’s unwound a sheet, which he is examining with what can only be called awe.

The green of the paper matches his PJs. I’d forgotten how intricate the floral design was.

“This is Blackthorn,” he says.

“You know the name of my wallpaper?”

He runs his fingers over it, reverently. “Designed by John Dearle in the early 1890s. Often mistaken for William Morris’s work, but...” he turns, dropping the paper and clasping his hands in front of his chest, eyes downcast. “Sorry, I… I got curious.”

I smile. “I’m glad at least someone appreciates it. It cost a fair penny.”

“You never thought of…” his eyes dart around my face and he blinks quickly. I guess I’m too far away for him to see my expression without his specs.

I move closer, “finishing his work?”

Belle nods. “But I guess it’s all Lloyd’s aesthetic, not yours.”

“I don’t have an… aesthetic.”

“Of course you do. Ocean blues and stormy greens. Cornwall on a misty day. The smell of the earth after the...” He blushes bright pink.

I reach past him to trace one of the swirling branches on the wallpaper. Belle smells like my shampoo. Like mine. I try to focus on the wallpaper. “I always loved Lloyd’s vision for this place. Never knew how to start making it real. Always felt like I’d do it a disservice.”

“Another road trip you didn’t want to drive solo?”

I hum agreement. Is Belle also aware of how close we’re standing? Only inches separate us. “You feeling okay? Need anything?”

“I’m okay, thank you.”

He’s staring up at me and I have the sudden urge to kiss him. It’s not the first time I’ve felt that, but this time it’s almost all consuming, the magnetic pull in my stomach. How soft would his lips feel against mine? Would he melt into my arms? Would he see it as comfort? Of course not. I terrified him. Whatever trust I’d earned before today, I need to earn again. Whatever Ray saw—the man’s head over heels for you—it’s probably gone now.

I clear my throat and take a step back. “I, uh, spoke to Mal.”

His face falls. “You did?”

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