Page 37

“No,rainha. No poison, just coffee and milk. I don’t want to poison you; I’d miss our heart to hearts too much.” His lips twitch as he tries to keep a straight face.

I also try to maintain my icy gaze, but his stupid teasing and charming smile have my own mouth pulling up at the corners. As soon as he notices, his face breaks out into an outright grin. I take a long gulp of coffee and sigh as its warmth flows down my throat and to my belly, but there’s an unpleasant, bitter aftertaste that has me screwing my face up.

“Where did you get those clothes?” I gesture to the distinctly un-tuxedo looking attire.

“Some guy called Murray gave them to me?”

I nod. “He’s a guard, lives in the cottage with Lee. You met him on your first night.”

“That’s right. He seems nice.”

I shrug, I’m not sure I’m the best person to judge someone’s niceness. “He’s good at his job.”

“What time did you get to sleep?” he asks me, a familiar concern etched on his face. It’s the same look Guinevere gives me when she asks me that question.

“About four. You fell asleep really quickly and you were dead to the world.” He didn’t even wake when Mabel cracked the door open an inch about an hour after we settled for the night, peering at us in the hall and closing the door again.

He chuckles. “I didn’t always have a comfortable bed to sleep in growing up, I learnt to sleep anywhere. You obviously missed your expensive sheets.”

“Actually,” I say defensively. “I don’t generally sleep very well. I probably wouldn’t have had much more sleep if I’d been in my bed.”

He regards me thoughtfully. “What keeps you up at night,rainha?”

“That’s a very personal question.” I purse my lips.

“Indulge me.” He smirks.

I get another strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, not the same as he usually instils, I recognise this one. Dread. “Would you believe me if I said monsters?”

His intense stare makes me fidget. Ihatefidgeting. He’s reading me like an information pamphlet just unfolding more and more without me giving him anything. “What monsters could possibly be scarier than you?”

“The city is full of them, Harvey.”

He nods, a lot more sombre than before. “So, you decided if you couldn’t beat them, you’d join them.”

His judgement ignites my fiery defence. “Actually, I beat them and then I ruled them.”

He nods as if impressed. “Solid game play,” he says taking another sip of coffee.

Feeling like I’ve shared enough, I decide to delve further into this man’s past. “So why didn’t you have a bed growing up?” I cradle my coffee in my hands, the house is warm enough but sleeping without blankets has left me chilled and the warm ceramic is helping.

Harvey sniffs, resting his head against the wall and looking to the ceiling like he’s thinking of where to start. “We didn’t have a lot of money is the short answer.” He looks at me and when I just stay silent, he sighs and continues. “I was born in Rio; my mother was only sixteen when she had me. Her boyfriend, my father, was twenty-two and she found herself mixed up in the wrong crowd, him being part of said crowd. She was around but my grandmother was the one who raised me really. When I was three, both my parents were shot in a drive-by, neither of them were the intended target, just collateral damage. My grandmother wanted to take me away, so we moved here. She didn’t have a lot of money, any savings she had she spent to get us here, and she didn’t speak English so getting a job was difficult. We had to move several times from one crappyapartment to another. Some of them I had to sleep on the couch. When she could find work, she often worked nights and I had to stay with her friends who had their own kids and were in similar situations, so my only option was the floor.”

I look at him, trying to read the expression on his face. He doesn’t look particularly sad or bitter about his past. In fact he’s giving me a small smile. “Is that why you went into law enforcement? Because you lost your parents?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. I haven’t really thought about it before. It’s just what I always wanted to do. Help people and beat up bad guys. The force is just a lot less down with the beating up bad guys than I would have liked.”

“Your grandmother is still alive?”

“Yeah.” He smiles. “She works at an old folks’ home in the cafeteria, even though she’s older than a couple of the residents,” he chuckles. “She likes to keep her independence.”

“You earnt a decent wage as a detective and lived way under you means.”

He gives me an unimpressed look. He knows I would have looked into his finances before he came to work for me, so there’s no need to defend my decision.

“You have been supporting your grandmother, no? That’s why you had to leave your apartment as soon as you lost your job?”

He nods, regarding me carefully. “She didn’t move country for her; she did it for me. The least I can do is help her enjoy her time now given how much of it she’s dedicated to me.” There’s a glaze to his eyes, the love and respect he holds for this woman evident; it squeezes at my chest.