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Prologue
Evangeline
I'm jealous of a man I don’t know, jealous of what he holds in the palm of his hands. He doesn’t truly understand how valuable it is. How much I would give to have just one taste of it. To feel its power, its intoxicating nature.
If I ever get my hands on it, I’ll never let go.
It’s not drugs I’m after, but what I crave does have the same addictive trait, with the potential to be no less dangerous.
Freedom is all I seek.
It’s expensive and rare to me now, but it should be unrestricted. It should have beenmine, yet it was stolen from me by a dishonest businessman, and my jailer.
My brother clipped my wings and put me in a cage. He’ll force me to marry soon. Even though Frederic never talked about it until a few months ago, it’s now his top priority.
My future prospect makes me jealous of the man who lives across the street because he flaunts his freedom by going out all hours of the night.
Every morning, the stranger kisses a different woman goodbye to mark the end of their one-night stand. Sometimes, they are willowy brunettes, or tall blondes; other days, they are curvy redheads. He kicks them out in the early hours of the morning.
Then at 8 o’clock sharp, he walks back out on the street straight into his black town car. Dressed in a suit that would never be mistaken for cheap. His dark blond hair hits the nape of his neck. It’s gelled back to keep the longer locks from slipping in front of his eyes.
I don’t know his name.
I’ve never even heard him speak.
Each morning, the stranger serves as my daily dose of entertainment, but once he leaves, nothing else exciting ever happens. I have the life I promised myself I never would. The life my mother lives and my grandmother as well. A life without challenges or thrill. I’m destined to be a boring and cliché housewife, who never needs to lift a finger for herself.
The only thing that lifts my spirits these days is the fact that I’m not yet married because it would only constrict me more.
I hate my life.
I dread the day my brother would rob me of the last of my freedom by introducing me to my future husband.
But no matter how many times I desire for it to be different, it cannot and will not be.
So, every glimpse I catch of the mysterious man across the street allows me to indulge my every whim. I come up with detailed stories of how he seduced the women leaving his house and decide whether he danced with them before kissing them passionately or if he had quick, dirty sex in some loo before taking them back to his lavish townhouse for another round.
My neighbour offers me the luxury of escaping my reality for a short amount of time, living through his nights while I suffer through my days.
I moved back from New York to London two weeks ago so my brother can keep an eye on me while he goes on his quest to find my husband, but all I’ve been able to think about since I got here is him. His life. So different and completely free. I enjoy the pretence. I enjoy him being nameless because it gives me the liberty of portraying him any way that I see fit.
Until his name falls from the lips of my childhood friend.
The illusion evaporates all because I learn his name.
Chester Boyd.
The man from my daydreams is the one who ruined my reality.
The one who ruined my future.
Chapter One
Evangeline
“Evangeline.” I groan. Frederic pronounces my name quickly and harshly, so much so that it sounds like an order. I begin to silently recount the past several hours, trying to figure out what I’ve done now to anger him.
Every single time, I hate the way he says my name, but I should be grateful that he doesn’t yell it because then I know a bomb has dropped. Then I know I’ve crossed lines only Frederic drew. When I speak back, when I forget to answer his many phone calls, that's when he turns into another person. Frederic yells when his anger is all-consuming, and I swallow every insult. And now a short, strict pronunciation of my name is more than enough to make his displeasure known, and the hairs on my arms to stand on end.
