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Chapter 3

G R A C E

Hmm. A very important and probably older Moretti saw me naked on the beach. It is the weirdest thing, but the moment the thought sinks in, I look down at my unshaven legs and my untoned butt. That is not what I should be concerned about right now but if I am honest it is the only thing I think about for half a minute.

I don't know everything there is to know about Sofia's family, but I do know that she doesn't have a dad. She lost him 7 years ago, around the time we met for the first time– around the same time I lost my entire family, I remember bitterly and immediately blink the thought away. I think she has an uncle, though, who lives with the family and has been operating their business–whatever that is– for the past seven years.

Oh, and her older brother. My stomach twists uneasily at that thought, which is odd because I’m as acquainted with him as I am with the criminal law of North Korea, which literally translates to ‘not at all’. I've never heard Sophia speak about him more than once or twice in the past many years of us knowing each other. I don't know what he looks like, though I imagine he must have her light green eyes, her dirty blonde hair and a soft smile. Sophia is the most delicate, beautiful person in the world, and I imagine her brother, even though an older, more masculine version, would be the same. The wild thing is, as I try to put his face together in my head, my brain does not create a picture, instead it almost clears one up for me making an unsettling feeling take over me that feels a lot like of déjà vu.

That is strange.

And I am probably ovulating because there's no other sensible explanation for the way, very slowly, my feet start to move toward the bigger house. It is a two-storey house with a porch the size of my dorm back at Oxford, all white marble. Most of the exterior is either white walls or big glass framed windows, all followed by curtains that make any peeking impossible. I step backwards and tilt my head up to get a better look at the upper floor. It’s mostly all the same except one of the windows where one of the glass panes is slid to the side, letting the wind in, making one of the curtains dance behind it inside the room.

There is someone in the room, most definitely. The possibility makes my heart race. I want to see the face of the man who most probably saw all of me earlier this morning, but I can hardly see anything. It’s dark and shadowed and-

Before I can squint more to adjust to the lights and get a better view, a hand reaches out and grabs onto the frame of the window, making my heart skip a beat. The next second the window is slid shut a little too aggressively, but before he can step back, in the process of him struggling with the dancing curtains and sliding the window shut, I see what I can just describe as a ghost of a man. None of it is clear, his picture is a blur of wet skin, drenched hair, a tall frame and wide shoulders–except for the eyes.

The sharp and shadowed green eyes that stare so deep into mine within those small seconds that I feel a chill run down my spine.

I sidestep into the shade of his house, my back scoots into the wall for protection, but it is too hot, scorching, dangerous. The urge to get away from it– anything that connects me to him–pricks my skin and I jog into the alley between the two houses.

Skinny-dipping in unfamiliar territory was a bad idea.

My mind’s hazy from excitement that’s almost scary, as I run into the back door of Sophia’s beach house.

I shouldn’t be moving around this place without Sophia.

Even with the ceiling on my head, I can’t seem to think straight, I can’t seem to form a thought in my head and at the same time I can’t seem to stop thoughts from flooding in.

I was swimming naked in the sea.

I need to calm down.

Someone was there while I was swimming naked in the sea.

It’s no big deal.

Someone very powerful and close to my best friend.

Just an assumption.

I most probably followed that someone to his house.

Not deliberately.

He probably- no most definitely saw me peek into his room.

I- he did.

And he stared back too, with those dangerously mesmerizing eyes, and that’s the worst part. That’s the one thought that I keep wanting to push away but it keeps coming back. It has to be a lie, it surely is, an imagination of my mind because there is no way… there is no fucking way…

I’ve seen those eyes before.

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