Page 51 of Until She's Mine
“Mr. Blackwood?” The flight attendant hovers at the cabin door, her gaze carefully averted from Evelyn’s rumpled blouse. “Your car is ready whenever you are.”
The driver takes her bags without comment. I guide her into the town car, my hand lingering at the small of her back just long enough to feel the minute tremor there. The partition glides up at my nod, giving us privacy as the car pulls away from the tarmac.
Evelyn leans her head against the tinted window and watches as the city blurs past.
Her reflection in the glass shows a woman I barely recognize—softer, more at ease, but with a shadow of unease lurking in her eyes. She’s quiet, her fingers twisting in her lap as the car glides through the bustling streets.
The car turns onto 57th Street, the penthouse’s silhouette cutting a sharp line against the bruised evening sky. I watch her take in the building’s brutalist architecture and the doorman who’s been on my payroll for a decade.
“Move in with me,” I say.
The penthouse has been prepared since the night I first spoke with her—the walk-in closet stocked with her preferred designers’ pieces, the museum-grade humidifier installed for her delicate Renaissance paintings, and the security system upgraded to military standards. Every detail was orchestrated for the moment when she’d finally come home to me.
Evelyn’s laugh is low and throaty. “Just like that? No negotiations? No contracts?”
The car pulls up to the curb, and the doorman steps forward to open her door, but I hold up a hand, signaling him to wait.
“You already signed the only contract that matters when you said yes to me in the mountains.”
She leans back, her gaze searching mine. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Deadly. We’ve waited long enough, Evelyn. I’m not letting you go back to that life, not when I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
She exhales slowly, her shoulders relaxing as if she’s finally letting go of something she’s been clinging to for too long. “And if I say no?”
I lean closer, my lips brushing against her ear as I whisper, “You won’t.”
Evelyn doesn’t speak for a moment, but when she does, her voice is soft but steady. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yes, I’ll move in with you. I was tired of you showing up at my door unannounced anyway.”
I capture her wrist, pressing a kiss to the delicate skin of her inner pulse point. Her breath hitches, just as it always does when I touch her like she’s the most precious thing I’ve ever held. “You won’t regret it.”
The elevator ride to the penthouse takes exactly thirty-seven seconds. I count each one by the hitch in Evelyn’s breathing. The doors open directly into the foyer, where the marble floors gleam under the soft glow of recessed lighting.
Evelyn steps over the threshold and turns to me. “Now that I signed my life away, I’d like to see the sketches.”
“You’re making them a bigger deal than they are.” I take her hand and lead her down the hallway, past the grand living room, and into my private study. The air is cooler here, the scent of aged leather and ink filling the space.
The sketches are kept in leather portfolios lining the north wall of the study to avoid the damaging effects of sunlight. I pull one from the shelf and set it on the desk. I unclip the brass fastenings and open it, revealing a stack of delicate papers. Each one is protected by a layer of tracing paper, preserving the fine details of the charcoal and pencil strokes.
Evelyn’s breath catches when she sees the first sketch. It’s one of my earliest—her standing by a window in my parents’ estate, sunlight streaming in and catching the curve of her cheek. Her expression is contemplative, lost in thought.
She doesn’t speak as she lifts the tissue paper aside to reveal the next one—this time, a quick study of her hands, delicate and graceful as they cradle a teacup. Her fingers glide along the edge of the paper.
“I didn’t know you were watching me so closely.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
She flips through more sketches—her laughing at a garden party, her profile outlined by the candlelight, her silhouette against the city skyline as she stands on a balcony. Each one captures a different facet of her, a different moment in time when she was completely herself, unaware of my gaze.
They are more than just drawings. They’re fragments of time, pieces of her I’ve hoarded like a man starving for beauty. Starving forher.
“You can go and plot your world’s domination. I’ll find you when I’m done here,” Evelyn says. She doesn’t look up at me, and I know she’s already lost in the labyrinth of lines and shadows I’ve drawn over the years.
I hesitate, my hand hovering near the doorframe.
