We stopped, and I met her eyes. “You have absolutely nothing to apologizefor.”
“Then why do I feelguilty?”
“I don’t know. You shouldn’t. You didn’t take anything I didn’t offer gladly.” I lowered my voice. “And would offer again should youwish.”
Her lips curled into a smile. “Maybe in another life, Gray, we can figure this whole thingout.”
I nodded and stepped closer, closing in to wrap my hands around her small waist. She met my eyes with a question but didn’t sayanything.
“If this is the last of you I’m going to get, then I want you to rememberit.”
I leaned down and brushed my lips against hers, softly and slowly. Then I ran my hands up the curve of her body to cup her cheeks and draw her into me. It took a second, but then I felt her entire body shudder in my hands, and she let go, pressing into the kiss and leaving a nibble on my bottom lip. When I opened my eyes again, we were bothpanting.
“Thank you,” I whispered. Echoing her words from earlier. Her cheeks, already flushed, went a deeper red before she turned from the cradle of my arms and entered herbuilding.
I stayed until she was out of sight. This wasn’t the last time I’d see her, but if I cared about her, I’d keep my distance. Her career meant a lot to her. I would protect it, and in doing so, would protect her aswell.
I walked home instead of calling Michael, trying to clear myhead.
When I got inside, I felt that familiar indifference rising up in my chest threatening to choke me. I’d been content with it for so long, now that I’d felt the pure honey of hope and longing for the first time in years, I didn’t know if I could go back to that box. That tiny box where the world couldn’t getin.
I stood in the middle of my living room and stared at the books. Now they only reminded me of what I didn’thave.
A flash of something struck me. An incendiary grenade to the rib cage. I swept my hand along the first shelf I could reach and dragged the books to the floor. Beautiful antiques and first editions, and I didn’t care. I didn’t want to look at themanymore.
It was as if losing Sibyl a second time had shown me I wasn’t meant to live in thisworld.
I should have died years ago. Decadesago.
Maybe it was time to figure outhow.
10
Izzy
When I got inside,I stripped to my underwear and climbed into bed. The soft comforter and sheets cocooned me in silence, and I felt like I could breathe for the first time all day—the first time in the last few days,even.
The first thought that came to my head was Gray. Maybe I’d been too hard on him. Or maybe I hadn’t given him a properchance.
The other part of my brain told me to lock it up, that he and I had only been seeing each other for a few days. I shouldn’t feel like I owed him anything. Ididn’t.
And yet, this guilt ate at me from the inside, turning my belly and the coffee I’d drunk into a rolling drum on the back of a concretetruck.
The longing for home hit me hard. For the first time since I’d arrived to work in Paris, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed in my own apartment in New York. I wanted the Chinese food smells to drift into my window and to get too drunk too early at Sunday brunch. I wanted Jake. Damn, I wanted Jake to wrap me up in his big arms and let him tell me everything would be all right, even if we both knew it was alie.
We were good at that, lying to save eachother.
I don’t know how long I stayed that way, curled up in my blankets longing for my brother like a little girl. It was dark before the growl in my stomach forced me out of bed to thekitchen.
I poured some corn flakes in a bowl and doused them with milk and a couple teaspoons of sugar before hiking myself up onto the cold granite toeat.
I’d forgotten I sat my phone there, and when I opened the screen, I found a missed call from an unknown number and two textmessages.
I opened thetext:
Excuse me for texting you Miss. This is Michael, Mr. Gray’s driver. Can you come to his flat immediately? I’m downstairs now and can take you as soon as you areready.
Crap. I checked the time. He’d only sent it ten minutes ago. I went to the window and sure enough; he was at thecurb.
