Page 124 of Dark Romeo

I gritted my teeth. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t make me helpless. You of all people know that I can take down a grown man larger than me.”

“A grown man, yes. Two? That would’ve been a miracle.”

“Oh ye of little faith.”

“Don’t give me that. I know when you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You know, a dirtbag by the name of Tate Jackson was found with his neck broken a few blocks down from where you said you’d been attacked.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that got to do with me?”

“You sure you were just off Grosvenor Road when they jumped you?”

“I am.”

“It was dark. You could have mistaken the road you took back to your apartment.”

“I’m not mistaken,” I said through gritted teeth.

He let out a breath. “Okay. Whatever. You don’t want to tell me what really happened, that’s fine. I’m only your partner.”

Way to lay down the guilt, Espo. “I told you everything. There’s nothing else to tell.”

Espo stared for me for a long moment, a hard pinch to the skin around his mouth. “Fine.” The tone of his voice told me it was not fine. “See you tomorrow, partner.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. I got out of the car, making sure to slam the door hard behind me, and walked into my apartment building without looking back.

Damn you, Roman, for coming into my life and messing it all up. Now I was outright lying to my father, my friends and my partner. My partner now suspected that something was up with me. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep hiding secrets from them. I just hoped that when it all came out, when it all blew up in my face, no one I cared about got hurt.

JULIANNA

____________

Days went by. I didn’t see or hear from Roman. The bitter pit grew in the base of my stomach. I thought that it had meant something for him to stay with me on the night I was attacked. I thought that maybe he cared. Only I’d woken up that next morning to find Roman gone, the only evidence that he’d even been there at all was the hint of his cologne on my sheets.

The truth was clear. He had stayed out of pity. I thought I was being open and vulnerable with him, instead I’d come off desperate; I had practically begged him to stay. I felt dirty, used, as if we’d slept together. Perhaps it would have been better if we did. Maybe I would have been able to brush it aside as a one-night stand. For the second time. I thought I deserved…something. Not this silence.

One evening, I found myself at Waverley Cathedral. Instead of walking around the back to the cemetery where my mother lay, I went inside the building. I needed to talk to someone living. I made my inquiries with an altar boy who was cleaning up the rows of old candles and was directed towards a room upstairs.

The door was already open. Father Laurence was sitting at his desk, pouring over the text of an ancient-looking open book.

I cleared my throat. “Father Laurence?”

He looked up, pulling his glasses off the end of his nose. “Julianna.” His face broke into a smile. “Come in, please.” He stood up, his chair making a scraping noise against the stone floor, before he walked around his desk towards me, his church robes swaying around his feet. “What a pleasant surprise.”

He held out his hands and I took them. They were warm and slightly rough. He squeezed my fingers and leaned in to place a kiss on my cheek. He smelled of the church incense and of old books.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Father,” I said.

“Not at all. Come. Sit.” He directed me to an old couch, his visitor’s couch. I’d sat on this very couch so many times after my mother had died, just taking comfort in Father Laurence’s presence. My father had been so devastated by my mother’s death that he had no room for my grief. I couldn’t talk to him about her or even say her name. Father Laurence had given me that space I needed to grieve. He had been a confidant ever since. He was the one who gave me the courage to leave home and pursue my dream of joining the police academy.

Father Laurence studied me as he leaned back against the brown leather. “Now, what’s on your mind?”

I inhaled and tried to figure out how I was supposed to start. Whether I should even start.

My eyes came to rest upon the bookshelf made of sturdy wood against the opposite wall. This was new. Filling one shelf was books, their spines reading The Alchemy of Herbs, Herbs for Healing and The Power of Plants. On the other shelves were glass jars filled with dried leaves, roots and flowers. “You’ve started studying plants?”

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