The Girl Who Couldn'T See Rainbows. Rosette

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ it,” I admitted with a half-smile. “I fear, however, that I only listened to her half-heartedly.”

      “Good for you, I get lost after the tenth word,” he complimented her without sarcasm. “I’ve never had a generous spirit. I'm selfish.”

      “Sometimes you have to be,” I said without thinking. “Or else other people’s expectations will crush you. And you’ll end up living the life that others have decided for you.”

      “Very wise, Melisande Bruno. You’ve found the key to spiritual peacefulness and you’re only twenty-two years old. Not many people manage to succeed in doing so.”

      “Peacefulness?” I repeated bitterly. “No, the wisdom of knowing something doesn’t necessarily mean you accept it. Wisdom is born in our minds; our heart follows its own path independently, although dangerous. And it tends to make fatal deviations.”

      He moved his wheelchair, and came to my side of the desk, his eyes probing. “Well? Are you curious to learn the reason for the name Midnight Rose? Or aren’t you?”

      “Midnight Rose” I translated, struggling against the emotion of having him so close. I had avoided male company for a long time, since my first and only date. It had been so disastrous to mark me forever.

      “Right. In this region there is a legend of centuries, or perhaps thousands of years ago, according to which if we witness the blossoming of a rose at midnight, our greatest and secret wish will magically come true. Even if it’s an obscure and cursed wish.”

      He clenched his hands, almost challenging me with his eyes.

      “If a person wishes something that will make him happy, it's never obscure and cursed,” I said calmly.

      He looked at me carefully, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. A devilish laughter escaped him. I felt a chill run down my back.

      “Very wise, Melisande Bruno. I’ll admit that. Those words are scandalous for a girl who couldn’t kill a mosquito without crying.”

      “A fly maybe. With a mosquito I wouldn’t have any problems,” I said bluntly.

      Again he became alert, a dim flame warming the frost of those dark eyes. “How much valuable information I’ve learned about you, Miss Bruno. In a few hours, I’ve found out that you’re the daughter of a former miner with a passion for Debussy; you can’t dream and you hate mosquitoes. I wonder why. What did those poor creatures ever do to you?” I heard the amusement in his voice.

      “Poor my foot,” I replied promptly. “They are parasites; they feed on people’s blood. They are useless insects, unlike bees, and not even as pleasant as flies are.”

      He hit his hand on his thigh, laughing out. “Flies are pleasant? You're very strange Melisande, and very funny, maybe too much so.”

      As unpredictable as the weather in March, his mood changed abruptly. His laughter choked into a cough, and he stared at me again. “Mosquitoes suck blood because they have no other choice, my dear. It’s their only source of livelihood, can you blame them? They have refined tastes, unlike the praised flies that are used to wallowing in human waste.”

      I gazed at the desktop, cluttered with papers, uncomfortable under his cold stare.

      “What would you do if you were a mosquito, Melisande? Would you give up eating? Would you starve to death so you wouldn’t be labelled as a parasite?” His tone was unrelenting, as if he required an answer.

      I contented him. “Probably not. But I'm not sure. I would have to be in a mosquito’s place, to be sure of it. I like to believe that I could find an alternative.” I carefully kept my gaze off of him.

      “We don’t always have an alternative, Melisande.” For a moment his voice trembled, under the burden of a pain that I knew nothing of and that he had come to terms with every day for the past fifteen years. “See you at two o’clock, Miss Bruno. Be on time.”

      When I turned to him, he had already turned the wheelchair, hiding his face.

      The awareness of having made a mistake crushed my heart in a vice, but I couldn’t make it up to him in any way.

      Silently, I left the room.

      Chapter three

      At two o'clock, I entered the office. Kyle was leaving, carrying an intact tray, with the air of a person who wants to drop everything and everyone and move to the other end of the world.

      “He’s in a foul mood, and he refused to eat anything,” he mumbled.

      The thought of being the involuntary cause of his state of mind struck me deeply in every fibre of my being, in every single cell. I had never hurt anyone, almost walking on the tips of my toes, so as to not disturb, mindful of every word I uttered so that I wouldn’t hurt anyone.

      I stepped over the threshold, one hand leaning against the frame of the door left open by Kyle. At my entrance his eyes lifted. “Oh, it’s you. Come in, Miss Bruno. Hurry up, please.”

      I hurriedly obeyed.

      He pushed some sheets on the desk written with a male calligraphy towards me. “Send these letters. One goes to the manager of my bank, and the others to the addresses on the bottom.”

      “Right away, Mr Mc Laine,” I replied reverently.

      When I raised my eyes on his face I joyfully noticed that he was smiling again.

      “How formal, Miss Bruno. There’s no hurry. These letters aren’t that important. It’s not a matter of life and death. I've been a living dead person for many years now.”

      In spite of the rawness of his statement, he seemed to be in a good mood again. His smile was contagious, and it warmed my turbulent soul. Luckily, he never stayed angry for too long, even though his anger was frightening and violent.

      “Can you drive, Melisande? I need to send you to pick some books up for me at the local library. You know, for research.” The smile was replaced by a grimace. “Of course I can’t go,” he explained.

      Embarrassed, I squeezed the sheets in my hands, risking creasing them. “I don’t have a license, sir,” I apologized.

      Surprise altered his beautiful features. “I thought that today's youth was in a hurry to grow up exclusively to have the right to drive. Usually, they secretly do it before then.”

      “I'm different, sir,” I said laconically. And I really was. I was almost an alien in my diversity.

      He looked at me with those black eyes that pierced through me like radar. I held his gaze, inventing a plausible excuse then and there.

      “I'm afraid of driving, and therefore, I’d probably end up causing some disaster,” I explained quickly, smoothing out the wrinkles from the sheets that I had crumpled.

      “After all the sincerity on your part, I smell a lie,” he chanted.

      “It's the truth. I could really...” I lost my voice for a long moment, and then I tried again. “I could really kill someone.”

      “Death СКАЧАТЬ