"I know.I'll give you all the time you need."He pulled the blanket over us."Stay tonight?"
"In your bed?"
"Where else would you sleep?The guest room seems far away right now."
I should say no.Should maintain some boundaries even after we'd thoroughly destroyed them.But his arms were warm and his bed was comfortable and after the day I'd had, I didn't want to be alone.
"Just sleeping," I said.
"Just sleeping," he agreed.
But we both knew it was a lie.
We lay in the dark, his hand tracing lazy patterns on my shoulder, my head on his chest listening to his heartbeat.It should have been awkward, sleeping with someone I was supposed to be angry at, someone who'd lied about the fundamental nature of our relationship.
Instead it seemed right.
"Can I ask you something?"I said into the darkness.
"Anything."
"When you were Peter in the stables, teaching me to ride, was any of that real?Or was it all just part of the plan to make me fall for you?"
He was quiet for so long I thought he wasn't going to answer.Then: "It was all real.The only thing that wasn't real was my name.Everything else, the conversations, the connection, that was genuine."
"How do I know you're telling the truth?"
"You don't.You have to decide whether to trust me or not.I can't make that choice for you."
I thought about that.About trust and truth and the complicated mess we'd made of everything.
"I want to trust you," I admitted."I just don't know if I can."
"That's fair."He pressed a kiss to the top of my head."We'll figure it out.Together, if you'll let me."
"We still have to catch whoever's trying to destroy me."
"We will.I promise you that."
I wanted to believe him.Wanted to believe we could solve the mystery and fix our marriage and somehow make this impossible situation work.
But want and reality were different things.
"Go to sleep, Betty," he said."Tomorrow we'll keep investigating.Tonight, just rest."
So I did, tucked against his side in his too-large bed in his palace apartments, surrounded by all the complications I couldn't solve and all the feelings I couldn't fully name.
Tomorrow I'd wake up and remember all the reasons I should be keeping my distance.Tomorrow I'd go back to being appropriately angry and guarded and smart about protecting my heart.
But tonight, exhausted from destroyed rooms and threatening texts and a day that had swung wildly between investigation stress and stable peace and this, whatever this was, I let myself take comfort where I could find it.
Even if that comfort came from the man who'd lied to me about forever.
Even if I'd just made the situation infinitely more complicated by sleeping with him again.
Even if I had no idea what any of this meant or where we went from here.
His breathing evened out first, his hand stilling on my shoulder as sleep claimed him.I lay awake a while longer, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the rise and fall of his chest, trying not to think about how right this felt despite how wrong it should be.
