Page 22

Now, standing in the doorway of that very bedroom, seeing the first dregs of daylight spilling in through the attic window and painting her bronze skin gold, I’m so fucking aware that she’s the princess I’ve locked away in a tower.

The white linens have twisted around her in the night. Meera sleeps fitfully, with an arm flung out across the empty half of the bed. Her hair is in a loose braid that’s mostly unraveled since she’d had nothing to secure the end with. It looks like a curtain of black silk.

She’s so beautiful, it fucking hurts to look at. No photograph can do this justice, though my fingers still itch to capture this—before she wakes up and looks at me the only way she can: with hatred and distrust.

Despite the bounty I’ve brought her, I doubt she’ll see it as anything but an invasion, that I went to her apartment last night. But it was necessary. After she’d so emphatically yelled at me about her life, I needed to see how granularly her space matched up with her story.

And I had to admit, it did.

The apartment itself was the size of a postage-stamp. Her kitchen was smaller than my closet at the penthouse. She had only one sofa, and bookshelves all over the place; all of them were overstuffed with paperbacks doubled up in front of hardcovers, some of which were stacked horizontally on top as a last option. She annotated them, but with a pencil. She left bright yellow Post-it notes on random surfaces of the place, with reminders scribbled across in red ink. Grocery lists, birthday reminders, and cute doodles. But it all had a charm to it.

For some reason, I’d assumed she’d be a neat freak.

She’s a fucking magpie, instead.

She has photographs all over the place—of her mother, who looked startlingly like Meera with warm, dark brown eyes and a more severe expression; of a lanky boy who was pictured at various heights and obviously very young; and of a beautiful woman, mostly alongside a younger iteration of Meera, with a voluptuous afro that seemed to be dancing in nearly every image. Her mother, her brother, and a best friend.

Gayatri, I’ve learned, is her name. Gayatri Martinez, a well-respected veterinarian who has a clinic in Roslindale Square. Who remarried Daniel Martinez, an architect, in 2007. With whom she had Neil Martinez, seventeen years ago. Also at the wedding was Nia Davis, who’d started off as Meera’s dormmate at Boston University.

Yet there were only two pictures of Ray Gallagher I’d found: one was his wedding photo, with Meera’s mother. The second was a weathered photograph of Meera as a baby, with her arms thrown up while sitting on a swing, and a blurry Gallagher behind her, pushing, grinning.

She looked as innocent in it as she does now, asleep, untroubled.

It scares the fucking shit out of me when her eyes flash open, and she asks, “Are you watching me sleep, creeper?”

The only reassurance I have that she wasn’t just acting asleep the whole time I’ve been standing here is the way her voice is thick with sleep, still, and there’s a dent between her brows where there hadn’t been.

“Waiting for you to wake up,” I correct.

Her eyes find the ceiling as consciousness sluggishly catches up. “What time’s it?” she mumbles, digging the heels of her palms into her eye-sockets.

“A quarter to seven.”

Her exhale is more a sigh of resignation than anything. “Oh.”

I wait for her to catch up to my reason for being here at this hour. But she doesn’t. She says nothing for so long, I’m concerned she’s fallen right the fuck back asleep. Impatiently, I order, “Well, get up already. We’re going to your school.”

“Wait, what?” She nearly falls over, just managing to stay upright with her grip on the covers.

“You heard me.”

Disbelief hangs off every line and divot of her ethereal face. “You’re letting me—”

“Go? No. Don’t be obtuse. You just made a good point last night. Your absence will be noticed. So, let’s put in a leave of absence for a bit. My sources tell me your record can afford it.”

She sits up slowly, turning her bleary, but unamused, glare my way. “Excuse me?”

“A missing teacher draws attention we don’t need.” I shrug and cross the room to lay the garment bag I’d procured down at the foot of the bed. “I brought you something appropriate to wear from your own closet.”

That wakes her up.

Her eyes widen, then narrow, as she demands, “You broke into my apartment?”

I roll my eyes. “No, I used your spare key. You didn’t exactly hide it.”

“You broke into my apartment,” she repeats, exasperation contorting her features. She’s no less gorgeous for it, unfortunately. Jesus Christ.

“Yeah.”