The Marriage Swap || ON HOLD TILL SEPTEMBER

13 | 𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚢 𝚏𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚑 𝚋𝚘𝚢

Do you see what I see?
Do you know what I know?
For the terrors of my nightmares are true, and the reality of my life a lie.

~ from the notes written by
Axel but never given away

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☘︎ Eᴠᴇ Kᴀᴠɪɴsᴋʏ ☘︎

I should stop being a creep and make my presence known.

But there's some kind of sad charm watching Axel Hernandez standing on the balcony, his elbows propped and his tall body leaning against the scottish-styled stone railing.

The crisp, Parisian air blows his silken coppery-blonde hair in every direction, before settling messily on his forehead. For the first time, he isn't dressed in his tightly pressed Tom Ford suits. Instead, his coat is missing and he's standing there just in black pants and a matching shirt.

I watch him pull at his tie as though it's strangling him. I watch him throw it to the side and unbotton the first two buttons of his shirt as though he's feeling suffocated. I watch him run a hand through his hair, pushing away the strands only for them to fall back in front of his eyes. I watch him turn uncharacteristically disoriented, betraying his stone-cold mask.

All the while I stay hidden within the shadows, reclined against a wall, slurping on a blueberry slush. I feel like I'm invading his privacy. I almost feel like a stalker. But I'm curious. He's been edgy like this ever since I found him in the theater hall next to Victoria, both of them—along with a hundred other people—staring down at Pierce's burning body turning to ash on the stage.

Ever since people had looked at him and his niece in accusation. Ever since we left the venue, after a quick police enquiry and his grandfather letting us know he can't sign the inheritance papers today with the whole murder at his party fiasco.

For a moment there, when we were driving back to the Hernandez Villa, I caught onto the tremble of Axel's hands as he gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled force, before he sensed me watching and concealed his reaction. Then we were home and he'd walked out to the balcony of our adjoined rooms and well, here we are with the conclusion that Axel Hernandez is. . .disturbed by the sight of a brutal death.

I know normal people are supposed to be like that. But I was far from normal. Besides, watching him be so riled up from something I did, put a guilty conscience in me.

Abandoning my stalker hideaway, I approach him with silent steps. I'd changed from my dress to one of my silk top and shorts pajama and I sorely regret it as the wintry wind lashes against my exposed skin.

"When was the first time you saw a dead body, Charming?" Placing my iced slush aside, I jump a little to sit myself on the wide stone railing. Propping my elbows on my knees, my palm against my cheek, my body faces his.

Axel does a good job of hiding his startlement upon my presence, his expressionless mask on place. But he doesn't know I'd seen him loose his calm the last half hour I'd been observing him.

"When I was ten." His answer surprises me, because quite frankly I'd expected him to ignore my question completely. Maybe he's more affected by the death than I'd expected.

I tilt my head to the side, appreciating the way the moonlight illuminates his bronze skin, enuciating the sharp cut of his jawline, "Was it brutal?"

Axel shuts his eyes, illegal long lashes sweeping down in a single swish, "It was. She was a child."

Oh. . .

"What happened?" The curiosity nicks at me, urging me to keep asking.

But I see it in the moment he shuts down completely, his eyes turning hard, making me realize I'd invaded unchartered territory with that question.