Page 12 of From Hell

I grit my teeth to stop myself from gnawing my lower lips bloody. “Ouch. Stop. You’re hurting me.”

His hard gaze falters, and then a flicker of awareness creeps in. He looks down and then releases me so I can snatch my limb back. “Alright, you’re done,” he adds smoothly like he wasn’t manhandling me a second before. No apology, not even when I frown at him.

I resist the urge to bolt. Instead, I get to my feet. My brow creased as my mind wraps around the fact that he freaked out when I told him my name. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

“Didn’t think I had to.” He points to his door where his name badge gleams, his lips twisting in amusement at some obscure joke I’m surely the brunt of.

Jaxon Clémont.

And that’s when my heart stops beating, and I stare at him, open-mouthed.

“Good to see you again, Elaine.” The dimple in his cheek puckers, though the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

He shouldn’t remember me. Most people from back then don’t. I’ve changed my hair, got rid of the awful fringe, and no longer wear glasses if I can help it. But knowing who this man is, the tension in my body dissipates a little.

“Jaxon,” I say his name out loud just to hear it on my lips. “It’s been years.”

He nods. “Nearly a decade.”

“When did you get back to England?” The last I heard was he left to finish his studies in America. He didn’t even say goodbye. Just up and left. Vanished.

Not that I’m bitter about that. He was always ambitious, always chasing the next big challenge.

“Oh, I’ve been back and forth to London over the years.”

“But you’re working here?”

“I moved back to England a year ago to take over my father’s company and clinic but returned to Whitechapel to start at Mitre last week. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

I glance around his office, and his success needles me like a prickly coat. Jaxon was in my year at medical school before I dropped out. He would be a surgical registrar by now, but having this office, my mother’s office means he’s fast-tracked himself to junior consultant somehow. Why not. He was first in all his classes, which used to annoy the hell out of me. “You’re doing well, then.” I’m breathless when I say it like I’ve been running for my life.

Why am I breathless?

He smirks, the young Jaxon superimposed on the older, more mature version before me. “You should wrap that. Unless you want me to do it for you?”

“I—” I glance at my arm. Each stitch is minuscule and precise. Perfect.

The last time I saw Jaxon…

I force a smile at him, burying my emotions deep down, away from the surface, and nod. “I can do it.”

“So you’re not completely a damsel?”

Suddenly, I’m hot, burning up. His presence is beginning to bother me like it used to. A look of displeasure crosses my face. “I should go.” It comes out like a croak. I don’t bother thanking him. Instead, I snatch my bag from the chair and stride to the door, ready to leave.

“Coffee?”

“Huh?” I falter and turn back. “What?”

The smirk on his lips has the dimple in full glory, but it's no longer endearing. It's a reminder of the games he played that once fractured my heart. I used to imagine kissing that dimple, believing that the warmth of my touch could thaw the icy facade of Jaxon Clémont with just one press of my lips. His eyes looking into my soul as he kissed me back, one hand sliding under my shirt, the other gripping my bare ass in an embrace that promised an eternity of devotion.

Once upon a time, I used to imagine a lot of things.

“There’s a quaint little place just across the road. They make good coffee. Would be great to catch up if you’re free one morning before my shift?” The glint in his eye is unmistakable, but it’s not desire—it’s arrogance.

I feel my head nodding in agreement, his hand offering me his card with his number. As I make my hasty escape into the dimly-lit hallways, trying to escape him and the memories that serve no purpose but to haunt me, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve just stepped back into the past with no easy way out.

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