//CLARA//
Bartholomew was leaning against the tall windows, his silhouette cutting a sharp, dark notch into the setting sun, and I felt that familiar jolt of recognition followed immediately by a glitch in the matrix.
He didn't look like the man who'd tried to force himself on me in the park. The one whose hands I could still feel like a phantom bruise on my skin. That version of him had been desperate, frantic, losing his grip. This man had something in him filed down, or maybe just sharpened to a lethal point.
But here's the thing about men who practice sincerity in the mirror—they always rehearse the wrong parts. The tilt of his head was too calculated. The slight furrow between his brows was staged. He'd practiced this face, probably in his bedroom mirror, practicing the exact angle of remorse that made him look noble instead of pathetic.
He wanted me to see a man burdened by guilt. What I saw was a man who'd decided it was time to stop being the villain in his own story.
