Chapter 64 Falling For Him
Evelyn’s POV
Kim clutched her arm even tighter, forcing her breath to shake, her eyes shining like someone on the edge of tears. “She pushed me…..” she whispered, her voice so soft and pitiful. “I was only trying to talk to her. I wasn’t even angry. She….. she just snapped.”
My heart dropped.
“Lorenzo, please…. I never wanted to tell you because I didn’t want to make things worse, but Evelyn has been trying to make my life a living hell ever since that night you took care of me when I was sick.” she went on, slowly sinking her shoulders like someone fragile, someone hurt, someone who needed him.
The same girl who had just tried to shove me into the stone edge of the path.
Lorenzo’s shadow stretched over the grass as he stepped forward, expressionless.
Kim lifted her face toward him, her eyes glassy. “She grabbed me so hard, Lorenzo. Look….look at what she did.”
She stretched her arm toward him, showing him the place she had pressed her own nails into moments ago, dragging them down her own skin until faint red lines appeared.
Lorenzo cursed softly under his breath.
I finally turned towards him, slowly, carefully, afraid of what I’d see on his face. He wasn’t angry. Not exactly. But there was tension in his jaw. His eyes flicked between Kim holding her arm and me standing stiffly in the middle of the garden like a child caught doing something wrong.
“Evelyn,” he said, his voice low. “Did you hurt her?”
The question sliced right through me. How could he be asking me such a question?
I inhaled shakily. “Lorenzo…. No, I didn’t…..she…..”
“She pushed me,” Kim whispered sharply, pretending her voice cracked from pain. She leaned against him slightly, her fingers brushing his sleeve as if she needed support. “I nearly fell. If you didn’t come out in time…..”
I stared at her, disbelief and anger building inside me. “Kim, stop lying. You grabbed me first. You pushed me.”
She let out a soft gasp, dramatic, wounded, raising her hand to her chest. “Why would I do that? Eve, I’ve been nothing but kind to you.”
Kind?
She might as well have spit in my face.
But Lorenzo didn’t correct her. He didn’t tell her to stop lying. He didn’t even look at me long enough to see the truth in my eyes. Instead he gently touched her arm, inspecting the red marks she created herself.
“Come inside,” he said, his voice softer with her than it ever was with me. “Your arm looks bad.”
Kim nodded, leaning into the touch as if she’d been waiting for that moment her entire life. “It hurts….. but I’ll be fine,” she whispered, her voice trembling just enough to be believable. Then she looked at me, her eyes dark with victory even as her face remained pathetically innocent. “I didn’t mean for things to get this big, Eve. But you can’t keep attacking me. I don’t know what I ever did to you.”
Something inside me twisted painfully.
Her lies fell so gently from her mouth, so smoothly, so perfectly wrapped in innocence that if I didn’t know the truth myself, I would’ve believed her too.
Lorenzo slid an arm beneath her shoulders in a gesture meant to steady her, and something inside me cracked. It wasn’t jealousy, not entirely.
“I’ll take her inside,” he said to me, already turning with her in his arms. “We’ll talk later.”
Talk later?
Words that meant nothing and everything at the same time.
Kim clung to him like she belonged there, and he didn’t push her away. Didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t even look back at me as he carried her across the grass, her head resting lightly against his shoulder, her eyes lifting just enough to meet mine.
And she smiled, not too wide or obvious for Lorenzo to notice. Just a small curl at the corner of her mouth.
A smile that said I won.
I stood there long after they walked out of sight, staring at the empty space where Lorenzo had been standing. There was no longer peace in the garden, I swallowed again by the heaviness that followed me from last night. My throat tightened painfully, and before I could stop myself, a tear slipped down my cheek. I wiped it quickly, angrily, refusing to let myself break in the middle of his garden.
Not here.
Not where anyone could see.
I wrapped my arms around myself and took a shaky step back only to hear footsteps approaching from the far corner of the yard. I turned slightly, wiping another tear that betrayed me.
Diego stood there watching for a while before he walked toward me with slow and purposeful steps.
He stopped in front of me, hands behind his back, waiting a moment before speaking.
“Ms. Martins,” he said quietly, “Are you alright?”
I swallowed hard. “I’m fine.”
He studied me for a long moment, and I knew he wasn’t fooled. Nobody in their right mind would look at me in this state and believe I was fine.
His gaze shifted toward the direction Lorenzo had gone. “I saw what happened,” he said simply.
My breath caught. “You saw….. everything?”
“Not everything,” he replied with a small nod, “just enough.” He turned his eyes back to me, and something settled in his expression, a mixture of guilt and sympathy, the kind that made my eyes sting all over again. “Lady Kim has her ways.”
That was an understatement.
He took a slow breath. “And Lucifer….. he doesn’t see everything clearly right now. His mind is split in too many places. I think something has been bothering him since he came back yesterday.”
I looked away, blinking fast before my tears embarrassed me further. “I saw it too, but why did he easily believe her?” I whispered, hating how weak my voice sounded. “He didn’t even give me a chance.”
Diego was silent for a moment. Then he stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Lucifer is not as blind as you think. He sees more than he lets on.”
I shook my head. “Or maybe he simply don’t give a fuck about me.”
“He does,” he said gently. “Just that he is fighting not to show it.”
“You make him feel things he doesn’t know how to handle,” Diego continued, his voice steady. “Which is why he behaves like this. Which is why he walks away when he shouldn’t and stands close when he doesn’t mean to. Which is why he keeps hurting you and protecting you in the same breath.”
Tears filled my eyes again, but this time for a reason I couldn’t even name. Hope? Pain? A mix of both?
Diego exhaled softly. “Ms. Martins, listen to me. You keep trying. Not the desperate way. Not the painful way. Just….. be yourself. Be patient. One day,” he said, his eyes warming with something almost brotherly. “One day Lucifer will develop real feelings for you. Feelings he can’t run from.”
A tear slipped down my cheek, and this time I didn’t wipe it fast enough.
Diego pretended not to notice.
“He doesn’t understand love,” Diego continued quietly. “Not the kind you think that you’re showing him. But he feels it. Even if he denies it.”
I closed my eyes, the ache inside me spreading deeper. “And if he never does?”
Diego tilted his head gently. “He will,” he said with complete certainty. “Because men like him….. they always fall hardest for the ones they tried to push away.”
I stared at him, unable to speak.
He gave me the smallest nod, a silent reassurance, before stepping back. “Take a walk,” he said softly. “Clear your mind. And don’t let Lady Kim win. She feeds on weakness.”
I swallowed roughly. “I don’t want to fight her.”
“Then don’t,” he replied. “Just endure better than she attacks. That alone will destroy her.”
With that, he walked away, leaving me standing there, thinking.
Who could have thought that one day I would actually want to have something real with Lorenzo?
God. I can’t believe that I’m actually falling for that monster.