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“This is me,” I tell him, pointing at my door with my thumb.
“I gathered.” For the first time since I got in his car, the grim lines around his face soften. It’s not quite a smile, but there is some humour in his expression.
“What’s tickling your balls?” I blurt out.
“I beg your pardon?” His brow raises with a cock of his head to the side as he looks down at me.
Foot, meet mouth. If today could just crawl back to where it came from, I’d be grateful. I don’t bother explaining it’s just a thing Joe used to say; instead, I go about letting myself in.
“What amused you?” I ask again, turning to find him admiring the dinosaur planters on the ledge of the wall overlooking the courtyard of the flats.
“Your fondness of dinosaurs,” he tells me, lifting my violin case as evidence.
“It’s more of love by association.”
I walk inside, and he pauses on the threshold. It feels odd having him in my space, and even though he seems to have made peace with his surroundings, there’s still an air of distaste when he looks around.
“You can come in,” I say when he leans forward and puts my backpack down by my shoe rack. “So long as you don’t have a cat hidden somewhere that you intend on swinging around…”
“Am I making you nervous?” The question catches me off guard.
Let’s be honest, there isn’t much about him that wouldn’t make a girl nervous. For one, his presence fills every space he enters. Then there’s the fact that he’s tall and broad and just huge, really. Without heels, I have to crane my neck to look at him properly. Then there’s the surly attitude. He’s a whole dark, brooding aesthetic on tall, muscular legs. So, yes, he makes me nervous. Henry makes me feel a lot of things.
“Eve?” he calls my name, coaxing me to answer his question.
“Why?
“Because you’re rambling. I’ve never heard you ramble before.”
Shit. “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” I murmur, shucking off my wet trainers to the side before I stand in front of him again.
“Eve…”
“Why don’t you like being called that?”
“Because.” He shrugs in reply. The lightness in his face all but disappears, and my insides twist violently at the change in his demeanour.
“Just because?”
“Just. Because.”
It’s a shame since he suits that title more than any other Duke I’ve ever known of. Henry has that regal air down to a fine art. Actually, he could be the fine art with all his chiselled edges. But there’s more to him and his dislike of his title than he lets on, and I’m curious enough to hope that one day, I might get it out of him. When he’s not out of his comfort zone.
“My car will be waiting for you every morning,” he states suddenly. “Andrew will take you wherever you need to go. Anywhere you want to go.”
“What?”
“Pardon, Eve. You say pardon or excuse me.”
I don’t tell him that it’s how he talks, not me or most people around here. We’re straight talking in these parts. No frills. No fuss. You get what you see.
“Andrew will make sure you get around. Safely.” He tags on the latter, punctuating the word with a glance at our surroundings.
“I am safe.”
“Are you?”
“Yes, I am,” I reply, sucking in a breath to steady my temper. It was obvious he felt some kind of way about this place, and while I can understand that it’s a shock to his system, I’ve never once been embarrassed about my roots, and today won’t be the day that changes. “I don’t need a chauffeur. I can get myself around perfectly fine.”
