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Broderick met my gaze and we had something of a silent conversation.
Want to get out of here? His eyes asked.
Yes, please. Mine replied before I could stop them.
He stood from the couch, holding out his hand. I took it and he led me into the hallway. Mikael and company barely registered our departure. Broderick took charge, leading me up the stairs. I had a moment of panic, thinking he was going in the direction of the bedrooms to finish what we started outside the church, but then he surprised me when he said, “Pack up your things.”
My brow furrowed. “What? Why?”
“I have an apartment here.”
“You have an apartment here?”
“Uh, just one that I’ve been renting. I was supposed to stay for a few weeks, but business back home cut my visit short. The rent is already paid and I’m not going to be here so it might as well go to some use.”
I studied him, trying to figure out if I understood correctly. “Let me get this straight. You want to let me stay in your apartment for free? But you don’t even know me.”
He tilted his head, his eyes wandering from my chin to my cheeks. “I know enough.”
I lowered my gaze to the floor. “You should just get a refund. I could be anyone. I could be a maniac who’ll thrash the place and leave you footing the bill for repairs.”
He gave a low chuckle. “I’m pretty sure you aren’t a maniac, Ophelia. And besides, the rent is already paid and it’s non-refundable. So, either you move in or the apartment sits empty. I know which one I’d prefer.”
I inhaled sharply. This seemed too good to be true. It seemed like one of the daydreams I’d have while scrubbing toilets and changing dirty bedsheets at the hotel. Some mysteriously handsome American stranger I meet at a bar offers me a place to live rent free. A place all to myself. I mean, there had to be a catch. But as I stared into Broderick’s bottomless, honest eyes all I saw was a kind gesture, human to human.
After sharing with so many other people, the prospect of being alone, truly alone, seemed like heaven. Why was he doing this? I was nobody to him. Emotion swelled within me, a mixture of gratitude and relief. A tear threatened to leak out, but I sniffed it back, my mind not quite made up.
But then he said, “Think of it like a Christmas gift. Merry Christmas.”
“Broderick—”
“Are you going to turn down a Christmas gift? Rude.”
That made me chuckle, and before I knew I was speaking, I said, “Fine. Okay then.”
“Good,” he nodded, seeming happy. Maybe it just made his conscience clear to know I was somewhere he deemed safe. The girl he met and kissed and swept off her feet for a night would be okay, for a while at least. Job done. Good deed completed.
“Now go pack,” he urged. “Make sure you don’t forget anything.”
He shooed me into my room, and I made short work of stuffing my few possessions into a large duffle bag while trying not to wake my sleeping housemates. When I re-emerged fifteen minutes later, Broderick glanced up from his phone, his eyes going from me to my bag.
“I ordered us a taxi. It should be outside in a minute or two.”
A lump formed in my throat. I still hadn’t gotten a hold over my emotions. In fact, they’d only grown worse as I’d packed and realized how little I had. There was nothing like being able to fit everything you owned in the world into a single duffle bag to make you feel small and inconsequential.
We stepped outside into the icy cold night and I felt shy all of a sudden. I could feel Broderick’s eyes on me, but he didn’t speak, didn’t ask with incredulity if one bag was all I needed to go live somewhere for several weeks. I started mentally making plans. In the morning I’d call my landlord and inform him I was moving out. That way I could save my rent money and get a better place when I had to leave Broderick’s apartment.
The lights of a car approached as the taxi pulled up outside. Broderick silently took my bag and slid the strap over his shoulder. I lowered myself into the warm car and wondered if the apartment had a bath. It was a luxury I hadn’t had in a while, since the bath at the house was always way too gross to actually use.
Broderick told the driver the address and I noted that it was in a particularly upscale part of the city. I watched the buildings go by, my attention on the window when I felt Broderick’s warm hand cover mine. I turned to him, his touch sending a spark of heat through me. Our eyes met and held a moment before I dropped my gaze, unable to handle the weird way we seemed to understand one another without needing to speak. I felt an odd connection to him from the very moment he approached me at the bar.
Like it was destiny.
I swiped away the ridiculous, errant notion.
“Here we are,” the driver announced. “That’ll be eighteen-sixty.”
Broderick paid the fare, then led me inside the building. It was a modern, newish apartment block. We took the lift to the seventh floor then walked to the end of the long corridor. Broderick set my bag down and I looked around. The place wasn’t huge, but it might as well have been a mansion as far as I was concerned. It was clean and new, and I’d be able to relax without the constant worry that one of my housemates was going to burst into the room. One thing was for sure, I was going to savor every last second of the next few weeks.
