“Please, I know you understand heartbreak. Stop Luc from marrying Marisol. Save my heart from breaking again.”
“Now, that was a pathetic speech.” Two slow claps followed the indolent voice, which sounded just a few feet away.
Evangeline spun around, all the blood draining from her face. She didn’t expect to see him—the young man who’d been tearing his clothes in the back of the church. Although it was difficult to believe this was the same person. She had thought that boy was in agony, but he must have ripped away his pain along with the sleeves of his jacket, which now hung in tatters over a striped black-and-white shirt that was only halfway tucked into his breeches.
He sat on the dais steps, lazily leaning against one of the pillars with his long, lean legs stretched out before him. His hair was golden and messy, his too-bright blue eyes were bloodshot, and his mouth twitched at the corner as if he didn’t enjoy much, but he found pleasure in the brief bit of pain he’d just inflicted upon her. He looked bored and rich and cruel.
“Would you like me to stand up and turn around so that you can take in the rest of me?” he taunted.
The color instantly returned to Evangeline’s cheeks. “We’re in a church.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” In one elegant move, the young man reached into the inner pocket of his ripped burgundy coat, pulled out a pure white apple, and took one bite. Dark red juice dripped from the fruit to his long, pale fingers and then onto the pristine marble steps.
“Don’t do that!” Evangeline hadn’t meant to yell. Although she wasn’t shy with strangers, she generally avoided quarrelling with them. But she couldn’t seem to help it with this crass young man. “You’re being disrespectful.”
“And you’re praying to an immortal who kills every girl he kisses. You really think he deserves any reverence?” The awful young man punctuated his words with another wide bite of his apple.”
―
Stephanie Garber,
Once Upon a Broken Heart
