He Only Loves Me at Night

1: 1

A marriage arranged between families, and I ended up wedded to Ezra Henson, the head of the Henson family, the man who went by the nickname Satan.

Ezra was restrained, self-possessed, cold and distant with me.

But every night, it was as if he became someone else.

Tender, clingy, careful and doting.

I thought he was only shy during the day, bad at putting his feelings into words.

Until one night, wrapped around each other, he breathed against my ear.

"Edie, don't let Ezra touch you. You belong to me and no one else..."

I stared at the man in front of me, the man flushed with desire.

He had the exact same face as Ezra.

If he wasn't Ezra...

then who was he?!

The next morning, I tested the waters with Ezra.

"What was the surprise you said you'd give me last night?"

His eyes went blank.

"I was in the study all night. When did I ever see you?"

I dropped my gaze and stirred the milk in front of me.

"Oh. I guess I was half-asleep and confused..."

Nothing showed on my face, but inside everything was churning.

I was right.

The man who had held me all through the night was not Ezra.

Fear crawled over my arms in a rush of goosebumps.

But that face...

If not Ezra, then who?

I didn't dare say a word about it, least of all to Ezra.

Ours was an arranged marriage. He felt nothing for me.

If this got out, I'd be sent straight back to the Sullivan family.

And then I'd be better off dead.

That night I watched with my own eyes as Ezra went into the study, exactly the way he always did.

Uneasy, I went back to the bedroom.

Showered, changed into my nightgown.

Midnight.

I was pulled against a burning chest.

That scent I knew so well...

My heartbeat lost its rhythm in an instant.

My whole body went rigid, and I forced myself to stay calm.

Warm breath brushed my earlobe, his voice low and lingering.

"Edie, I haven't seen you all day. I missed you so much."

But we'd only seen each other that evening...

He really wasn't Ezra.

A faint coolness touched my fingertip.

A diamond ring slid onto my ring finger.

He traced slow circles in my palm, his tone gentle.

"This is the surprise I promised you last night... Do you like it?"

I couldn't hold back the doubt and fear any longer.

I looked up at that face, identical to Ezra's down to the last detail, and my voice shook as I demanded an answer.

"Who exactly are you?"

He paused, then laughed out loud.

"I'm Percy Henson."

Percy?

Who was Percy?

Three months married into the Henson family, and I had never once heard that name.

The man who called himself Percy pinned me beneath him.

He kissed my face the way he always did, hungry for me, then my lips... trailing lower.

I came back to myself and caught his hand at once.

"I'm sorry. I'm not feeling well today."

He didn't get angry. He gathered me into his arms instead.

His warm palm patting my back, over and over, soothing me.

"Sleep. I'll stay with you."

I don't know when I finally fell asleep.

When I woke, the space beside me was long empty.

I got up and went downstairs.

I caught a passing servant by the arm and asked, "Do you know Percy?"

She shook her head.

I asked a few more people. Every one of them looked lost.

If the diamond ring Percy had given me weren't still on my finger,

I'd have doubted last night was anything but a dream.

Someone told me to go ask the housekeeper.

She'd served the Henson family for thirty years and knew everything, big and small.

But the moment she heard the name Percy,

the color drained from the housekeeper's face.

She clapped a hand over my mouth.

"Young mistress, you must never say that name again!"

2: 2

The housekeeper wouldn't tell me anything.

But one thing I was sure of.

There really was a Percy Henson in the Henson family.

That night Ezra came back, saw how bad I looked, and for once asked how I was.

I worked up the nerve and caught hold of him.

"Tonight, could you sleep in the bedroom?"

Ezra frowned and said nothing.

I rushed to explain, "I had a nightmare last night. I'm scared alone."

After a long pause, Ezra nodded.

That night, he slept beside me.

The whole time he lay with his back to me, deliberately keeping his distance.

In the middle of the night, someone was playing with my hair.

I opened my heavy eyes, and by the moonlight I saw that face clearly.

"Ezra, what's wrong?"

His hand went still, and something displeased flickered in his eyes.

"Edie, don't say that name in front of me. I don't like it."

I was wide awake in an instant.

That look, that tone.

It was Percy!

But Ezra was right beside me! How could he still dare to come?

I turned to look at the space beside me, and there was no sign of Ezra.

Panic hit me. "Where's Ezra? Where did he go?"

Percy's eyes cooled a few degrees. He lifted a hand and gripped my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze.

"Edie, you're mine alone. You're not allowed to think about him!"

The words fell, and he bent down and kissed me.

The motion was gentle, and yet there was a domineering edge that left no room to refuse.

Every struggle I made came to nothing.

Somewhere in the middle of it, I asked him through gritted teeth, my eyes red.

"What exactly are you and Ezra to each other?"

The corner of his mouth curved. "I'm his brother."

As he spoke, he pressed a piece of cold metal into my hand.

"Edie, I'll be waiting for you in the locked room."

After Percy left, I couldn't fall back asleep at all.

I glanced at the time. Four in the morning.

Percy had left my whole body sore and weak.

Ignoring the discomfort, I clutched the key he'd left me.

Quietly, I made my way toward the locked room at the far end of the villa, the room everyone avoided.

Before I married into the Henson family, I'd been warned to stay away from it.

But to find out who exactly shared my bed each night, taking the risk was all I could do.

I opened the door of the locked room.

Inside, it wasn't the mess I'd expected.

Everything was clean and neat, the desk without a speck of dust. Someone clearly cleaned it often.

I called out softly, "Percy."

The only answer was dead silence.

The bookshelf ahead was crowded with trophies and certificates.

Beside it, two school uniforms hung in a neat row.

A photo frame lay face down on the desk.

I walked over and turned it up.

Inside were two boys with identical faces, both around twelve or thirteen, still in that raw, unfinished stage of youth.

Ezra and Percy?

They were twins.

As I came out of the locked room, passing the study, the door suddenly opened from the inside.

It startled me.

Ezra glanced at the far end of the hallway behind me.

He asked in a low voice, "Where have you been?"

I swallowed nervously. "I couldn't sleep. I was just walking around."

He said flatly, "Don't go over there again."

I nodded, then asked, "Why are you in the study?"

He explained, "Once you fell asleep, I came back here to rest."

Something sank in my chest.

Ezra didn't love me, and he wouldn't touch me.

He couldn't possibly be that other man, the one whose eyes and heart were full of nothing but me, who wanted to fold me into his own body.

3: 3

In the afternoon, I went to the care facility.

Mom's condition was unstable, good some days and bad others.

She'd had an episode at noon, and after the doctor gave her a sedative she was still deep in sleep.

I held her hand, so much bitterness in me and no idea where to begin.

Years ago, my father had thrown the two of us away for the sake of his own future.

He remarried quickly, and before long had another daughter.

The betrayal broke my mother; she lost her mind, and the year I turned seven she was sent to the care facility.

Life after they brought me back to the Sullivan house was not easy.

My stepmother and my sister found ways to torment and humiliate me at every turn, and my father simply looked the other way.

It was only because of this arranged marriage between the Hensons and the Sullivans, with the Hensons insisting on me specifically, that I finally got out of that house.

All I'd wanted was a quiet, steady life.

Instead, without ever really understanding how, I'd ended up sharing a bed with my husband's twin brother.

Now there was no washing myself clean of it, no matter what I did.

A mocking female voice came from behind me.

"I figured you'd be here with the crazy woman!"

I turned to look. It was Joanna Sullivan.

My half-sister.

She looked me up and down, her eyes full of contempt and envy.

"You're looking well. Guess life at the Henson place suits you just fine."

She gave a cold snort, her tone spiteful.

"If you hadn't gotten lucky and been the one the Hensons picked, marrying someone like Ezra Henson would never fall to a madwoman's daughter!"

All these years, facing their bullying, I'd swallowed everything.

I hadn't dared fight back, hadn't dared show even a flash of anything too strong.

I was afraid they'd seize on it to say I wasn't right in the head, and lock me away like my mother.

But not anymore. I wasn't going to take it.

I curled my lips and deliberately let the kiss marks hidden under my collar show.

"Ezra really does dote on me. Every night he can't keep his hands off me. If he found out you were humiliating his wife like this, how do you think he'd deal with the Sullivans?"

Joanna went instantly nervous and flustered, scrambling to explain.

"Don't go saying things like that. I never bullied you. I only came to pass along a message. Dad wants you to arrange a weekend dinner with the Hensons, and if you refuse, he'll cut off your mom's treatment money!"

With that, Joanna bolted.

The Sullivans were set on using me to climb their way close to the Hensons.

But everything I'd just said was a lie. The Hensons didn't care about me, and Ezra had never held me in his heart at all.

My mother's monthly care cost a fortune, and my father used it as leverage, so I didn't dare have it out with the Sullivans.

That evening, I brought up the idea of the two families having dinner together to Ezra.

I'd braced myself to be turned down, but to my surprise, he agreed.

On the weekend, the Sullivans were already seated in the private room early, waiting.

Along with Ezra came Carina Henson, who lived year-round at the old Henson estate.

I'd only seen Carina once, on my wedding day.

She was cool and sparing with words, unsmiling, an air of wealth about her that warned people to keep their distance.

Ezra's cold, aloof nature was cut from exactly the same cloth as hers.

I stepped forward and respectfully called her "Mom."

She gave a slight nod, and that was her answer.

At the table, the Sullivans kept fawning over Ezra and his mother.

Joanna came over with a glass to toast me, and deliberately spilled the drink down my chest.

She pretended to feel guilty, leaning in to wipe it, and used the chance to pull my collar open.

The kiss marks scattered across my collarbone, some dark, some faint, were exposed in front of everyone in an instant.

4: 4

I clutched my collar shut, the blood draining from my face.

Ezra stared at me and said nothing, the cold rolling off him in waves.

He'd seen.

Dread pooled in me.

Joanna smiled like she'd won.

"Why so nervous, sis? Have you been sneaking around behind my brother-in-law's back?"

Every eye in the room swung to me.

Ezra's face gave nothing away, but I could see the anger and displeasure in his eyes.

Heat crawled over my skin, unbearable, as if I'd been staked over an open flame.

My father rounded on Joanna at once.

"Joanie! Watch where you are. I won't have you talking nonsense!"

But I knew he wasn't defending me.

He hadn't gotten what he came for tonight, and however much he doted on Joanna, he couldn't let her wreck his own plans.

Joanna wouldn't back down. "I'm not making it up! I heard it from the Henson staff a while ago. He doesn't love her at all. They barely exchange two words a day, and they sleep in separate rooms. And yet she's got marks like this on her. I couldn't just stand by and let him be kept in the dark, wearing horns he doesn't even know about!"

Joanna wanted Ezra.

A man like Ezra, that much power, that face, who wouldn't want him?

Back when the Hensons went looking for a match, of all families they'd picked the most unremarkable one, the Sullivans.

Joanna had been beside herself with joy, buying up piles of expensive jewelry and clothes, determined to catch Ezra's eye.

In the end Ezra never even showed. He'd sent an assistant to inform me of our wedding date.

The day I married into the Hensons, I heard Joanna smashed everything in her room in a rage.

In the middle of it all, Carina brought her hand down hard on the table.

"Baseless accusations, slander with no proof. Is this what passes for breeding in the Sullivan family?"

My father apologized over and over, signaling his younger daughter to behave.

But the arrow was already loosed. Joanna wasn't about to stop.

She snatched my bag and dumped everything out of it.

A diamond ring rolled out into full view.

Joanna said, triumphant, "There's your proof! That's not the wedding ring my brother-in-law gave her!"

"And she was clutching it the whole time, too scared to put it on. She's clearly hiding something!"

The moment Carina got a clear look at the ring, her face changed.

"Edith, you dared steal from the locked room?"

I panicked and rushed to explain.

"I didn't. Percy gave it to me."

The moment I said it, the room went dead silent.

Carina's face changed, her eyes full of shock.

And Ezra, always so composed and remote, wore a look of astonishment I had never seen on him.

I thought they hadn't heard me, so I said it again.

"I'm not lying. The ring really was a gift from Percy"

Carina's lips trembled as she fixed her stare on me.

"How do you know Percy?"

There was no hiding it now.

The words came out of me in a jumble. "I thought he was Ezra. They look exactly alike... I really didn't know Ezra had a twin brother..."

"It wasn't until he told me he was Percy that I realized I'd mistaken him for someone else."

Carina's eyes went red, grief and fury together.

"Lies, all of it!"

"Percy..."

"Percy died fifteen years ago!"