“I was aware of every part of me you’ve touched and played with while on my walk.” She made sure her towel was securely tucked, then added steamed milk from the warm pitcher to her coffee.
Eric set his own cup aside then reached for one of the empty plates on the cart. Taking off domes, he filled the plate and set it in front of her.
“I can get my own breakfast.”
“This is more fun.” He picked up a croissant, and when she opened her mouth to say something, he stuffed it between her lips. “For me.”
Nikolett threw a hunk of melon at him as he sat.
This felt normal. It probably wasn’t normal at all, but since she had no real comparison for normal, she had to accept that moments like this might not beobjectivelynormal, but they were what she wanted for her version of a normal, everyday morning.
Eric ate two Viennese pastries before looking at her with a serious expression. Nikolett set down the slice of apricot she was eating, suddenly wary.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
Her stomach knotted. “About our jobs?”
He nodded. “While we were jogging, Regina asked who the next admiral of Hungary was going to be.”
Nikolett stared down at her overly full plate. “That’s what most people will assume. I’ll step down, move to the Isle of Man, and be your wife.”
“Nikolett, that’s not what I want. I told you that.”
“You did. You said that you would step down as fleet admiral, but nothing has changed. There’s no way the other admirals would allow it.”
“Fuck the other admirals. Actually, fuck the entire Masters’ Admiralty. Run away with me.”
“We went over this.”
“I mean it, Nikki. We could go. I have money from when I was a mercenary. I didn’t spend much, and it’s all in a Cayman bank.”
She stared at him. “Eric, you can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“We can’t just…go.”
“Can’t we?”
She looked at him, and he really was serious. This wasn’t a joke to him. All she had to do was say yes, and he would take her away from all of this. “Just us?”
“Yes. Just us. We won’t be rich, but we’ll have enough to live on. To hide with.”
“We could never contact anyone. We’d be breaking every law of the Masters’ Admiralty, and as much as everyone loves you, it wouldn’t stop them from hunting you down.”
“Last time I disappeared, you were the only one who hunted me.”
“Everyone was making allowances for your grief, and you were hunting a murderer of one of our own. It would be different if you and I were to run away together because we were in love and didn’t want a trinity marriage.”
“Idon’twant a trinity marriage. I don’t want to share you.”
Nikolett opened her mouth, but Eric held up with both hands. “I know. I know. I’m willing to, maybe, have the cookie guy because you like him.” Eric’s words seemed perfectly calm and rational, but his face was twisted in a harsh grimace.
“We’ll come back to that. Eric, we can’t run away. What about Colum? Would you really be okay never talking to him again?”
“Colum’s okay now,” he said slowly. “He has Xavier and Annie.”
She just waited.
