He wanted it. He wanted my kiss and when he catches me eyeing him, I know that he wants even more than that. And the most exhilarating part is that I don’t think he only wants the physical. I think he wantsmore more, late night conversations, breakfast in bed and midnight dancing in the garden.
My cheeks flush at the thought and I blurt, “I love the wallpaper by the way.” No, I don’t. It’s hideous with a huge flower print but I needed to break the pressing silence.
At first it seems like he’s about to smile but then he doesn’t. “I don’t. My mother chose it and I’ve always hated it.” Callan throws a look around at the cluttered and a little too cutesy interior but I can’t really tell what he’s thinking.
“And your dad?” I ask curiously. “Did he hate it too?”
“The man who lived here was not my father. He was someone my mother was married to.”
His voice is suddenly cold, suddenly filled with some kind of controlled revulsion and I wrap my arms around me.
“Callan?” I say softly and his eyes go to mine but they are guarded as if he knows what I’m going to ask next. “Why do I have the feeling that your neighbors don’t exactly...” I don’t know how to say this tactfully, “like you.”
“Because they don’t,” he rasps and his chin is up and he’s looking at me through lowered lids and I whisper,
“Why?”
“Let me show you your bedroom, love.”
8
Callan
Like all young women, Melody is curious. But curiosity has its limits. It’sharmless when you want to expand your knowledge about mundane things but use it to dig into a man’s dark past and suddenly it’s not so harmless anymore.
And if I can stall Melody from learning about my past then I will do so. Not that I think I’ll be able to keep it up for long. She was right when she said that it seems that the people here don’t like me. But it’s not just that they dislike me.
They hate me.
The problem with small towns is that the community is close knit, they scratch each other’s backs, protect each other and above all adore the status quo. Anyone who rocks the boat is an enemy but the problem is that I didn’t just rock the boat, those years ago.
I rocked the whole fucking ocean.
Glancing at the sink in the kitchen as we walk down the hallway, I quickly avert my gaze as my muscles tense. I still remember that day. His lifeless eyes, the screaming, the cops swarming our house and our neighbors who had gathered outside.
They stood in their gardens, men in pajama pants and women with rollers in their hair and hands in front of their mouths. After that day, one thing became clear to them. That Callan Byrne is...
Evil.
My actions flooded this whole hearty town with darkness and judging by the look of my neighbors as soon as I stepped out of the car, they still remember it as if it was yesterday. And while I don’t care what they think of me, I don’t want their opinions to sway Melody.
I don’t want her to think of me as anything other than a good, law abiding man. I have worked hard to become him, worked hard to erase my past and I don’t want to see it all washed down the drain. Not when so much is at stake.
Not when a scared, lovely, beautiful girl out of nowhere fell into my hands. Hands that never want to let her go and I never want to see that look on her face that people around here give me.
Her looking at me with fear and revulsion would be the death of me, turn me into ash because the first time our eyes locked, she gazed up on me as if I was her light in the dark. And from the moment our eyes locked, I realized that she was mine.
Mine and nobody else’s but mine.
My gaze goes to the length of Melody’s hair, my hands aching to touch it. Touch her. All of her. To me she is what’s pure, what is sweet and the way she looks at me makes me feel like the ground is moving beneath me.
Despite what she’s been through, her youth and innocence still makes her optimistic about the future, a future that is sunny and bright and one that she will share with me. With her, the past can be erased, she can transform it from a dark ballad into a euphonious melody.
“I was thinking that you can take this room,” I say because when I still lived here it was used for guests. And since we rarely had guests over, almost nobody ever slept here. Nodding, Melody puts her suitcase on the bed and opens it.
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“In my old room, the one down the hall.”