My eyes fall on the pillows scattered across the bed and floor, and the person-sized indent in the mattress beside me.
Alaric was here.
The sleep-hazed memory returns to me. He held me through my nightmare.
But now he’s gone.
Mortification heats my skin. Did I say or do something embarrassing?
I leap out of bed. As I hunt around in my packing cubes for the perfect ‘morning after you snogged your client and he snuggles you through a nightmare’ outfit, I notice a white box sitting on the table. I pick it up.
It’s a brand-new phone.
My heart stutters. I flip over the box. A note is attached to the case, written in Reginald’s loopy cursive.
Ms Preston
Lord Valerian asked me to pick up a new phone and number for you. His actual words were, “Winnie requires a new rectangle of annoyance, as hers has joined my ill-conceived attempts at knitting at the bottom of the cistern.”
I have programmed Lord Valerian’s number in it for you, although he usually will not answer or reply to texts. He did ask me not to add your playlists, but I’ll leave that to your discretion.
Yours,
Reginald
Alaric got me a new phone.
It’s yet another strange and wonderful way he’s taken care of me, especially since he hates phones with the fire of a thousand suns. He’s willing to reshape his whole life so that I can fit into it. No one has ever found me worth changing for like that before.
I could get used to this.
I throw on a soft grey jumpsuit and an oversized purple cardigan, stuff the phone in my pocket, relight the candelabra, and head downstairs.
“Alaric?” I call to the empty castle.
“Meorrw?” Mirabelle greets me on the stairs. She rubs herself around my legs then darts off before looking back at me, as if to say, “Well, hurry up, then!”
I follow her to – where else? – the study, where Alaric is hunched over his desk, brow furrowed in concentration as he dips his brush into paint and works on a small canvas.
“Hey, stranger,” I say, the nerves creeping in. “What are you working on?”
“Winnie.” Alaric drops his brush and leaps to his feet, his presence sucking all the oxygen from the room until I feel woozy from the sight of him. “How did you sleep?”
“Much better, thanks to you.” I swallow, suddenly mortified that he saw me at my most vulnerable. I’m desperate to change the topic. “Thank you for the phone.”
“I thought you might regret your impetuous overhand throw,” Alaric says. The warmth in his voice glides over my body like his hands did last night.I am so gone for this man.“I tried to rescue the rectangle of annoyance, but it swims as well as you do.”
“That was so thoughtful.” I want to say more, but anything that comes out of my mouth right now is dangerous. “Um … we’re okay after last night? I mean, you don’t regret?—”
“I regret many things in my long life, but being with you will never be one of them.”
That warm fizz along my spine is back. “Oh, well. Good. I mean, me too. I have ro negets. I mean, no regrets … So, um, what are you working on?”
Alaric slams down the painting on the desk. “It’s an abysmal failure. I cannot show you.”
“We talked about you not being such a perfectionist.”
“Yes, but tonight is not the night to begin.” Alaric takes my hands in his. “Winnie, I said that there is something I need to tell you. About me.”
