by Peak, Renna
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he picks me up off the ground.
“Why do men always insist on carrying me places?” I ask him. “I have feet. I can walk.”
“Actually, I’m not sure you can walk right now,” he answers. His tone is clipped, his voice flat.
I try to look up at him, but the room is spinning again. And it’s too dark to see much anyway.
“You sound mad,” I say. “Are you mad at me?” When he starts to answer, I cut him off. “Because you have no right to be mad at me. I am mad at you. You left. You got in a stupid car and drove away. After you said you loved me.”
“I’m not mad,” he says, but he still sounds like he is. “But I’m not exactly pleased to find you like this on my return.” He sets me gently down on the bed.
“Like what?” I demand.
“Intoxicated. Lying on the washroom floor, nearly naked. With Caspar sneaking out just as I arrive.”
“Oh,” I say. “This is about Caspar again.”
“It’s about a lot of things, Clara. Not the least of which—”
“You think we had sex, me and Caspar.” I try to sit up, but it’s too hard. “Well, I’d have every right to have sex with him if I wanted. And him with me. You left me, remember? You drove away.” I stop struggling to sit up and fall back down on the pillow. “I can have sex with whoever I want now. I can have sex with all three of your cousins. Maybe at the same time. That would be fun, don’t you think?”
In response, he grabs the empty glass and stalks back to the bathroom without a word.
“I can have sex with all the men in your family!” I shout after him. “All your brothers. And Pax. And then I could come back here and have sex with all your cousins again. Just because I wanted to. And you’d have no right to stop me.”
Nick returns with the glass full of water. “Is that what you want?”
“What?”
“Is that what you want—to have sex with my cousins? And my brothers? Is that what this is about?”
“I want to have sex with you,” I tell him. “But you took that option away from me.” I struggle partway up again, and this time I manage to prop myself on my elbow. “Unless you’ve changed your mind. What do you say? Are you going to have sex with me now?”
He shoves the water toward me. “Drink this.”
“Only if you have sex with me.”
He sighs. “I mean it, Clara. Drink it.”
I take the glass and scowl up at him. “You’re an idiot. You can’t have it both ways, you know. If you’re not going to have sex with me then you can’t get mad at me for having sex with someone else.”
“So you did have sex with Caspar?”
“What? Who said that?” I sip at the water. It tastes like heaven, so I quickly drink lots more. I drain the glass in seconds, and when I look up again, Nick is still frowning at me.
“You’re an idiot,” I tell him again.
“Yes, I think maybe I am.” He takes the glass from me. “I’ll go get some more.”
As he walks away, I lie back down again. It’s too much effort to hold myself up, and I let my eyes fall closed. My head is still pounding, but not as bad as before. And if Nick is just in my imagination, then he’s more realistic than anything I’ve ever imagined before.
“I can have sex with whoever I want,” I repeat to myself. “I don’t need you. You left me. You don’t care that I love you.”
I hear his footsteps return to the bed, hear him set the glass gently on the bedside table.
“Are you going to leave me again?” I ask him without opening my eyes.
He hesitates before answering. “Not tonight.”
“Good,” I tell him. And that’s the last thing I remember before sleep overtakes me.
Nicholas
Perhaps I was wrong to return.
I sit in the armchair beside Clara’s bed for the rest of the night, watching her sleep, unable to rest myself.
This is a mistake, something inside me continues to whisper. There is nothing to be gained here, nothing but misery and heartache.
But maybe there is something besides that. As I watch her sleep, I can’t help but wonder if there might be something more—the something that brought me back to her in the first place.
Even after finding my cousin sneaking from her room—and finding her clothed in nothing more than her underwear—there is no part of me that is concerned that she was with Caspar, despite her protests of “being allowed to have sex with whomever she wants.”
I must close my eyes eventually. When I open them again, Clara is still lying on the bed, but her head is turned and she’s staring at me.
She blinks a few times. “You’re really here?”
I give her a single nod, motioning to the water on her nightstand. “You should drink some water.”
She stares at me for a few long moments before rolling onto her side and trying to prop herself up. She groans as she rises, taking a drink of the water before flopping back onto the bed, covering her eyes with her forearm. “I feel like death.”
“Caspar told me you drank almost an entire bottle of Scotch by yourself.”
“Mm. Benedict was helping. It couldn’t have been an entire bottle.” She finally peeks at me from beneath her arm. “You’re really here?”
“As far as I’m aware.” She probably deserves more of an explanation, but I’m sure neither of us is up to it at the moment.
“You left.” She’s still only barely looking at me from beneath her arm.
“And I returned.”
She closes her eyes, bringing her other arm up to cover them. I can only imagine how her head must be throbbing—and my gut twists with guilt knowing that I caused her enough pain to do this to herself.
After several long minutes, she finally lowers her arms. It takes her a few moments to be able to prop her head up enough to look over at me, and when she finally does, I can’t read her expression.
She drinks the rest of her water before gingerly sitting on the edge of the bed. It’s only then that she turns to me.
“My clothes are off.”
I give her another single nod. “I’d noticed.”
Her gaze narrows. “You didn’t…?”
“You were in this condition when I arrived last night. When Caspar was leaving your room.”
She groans, nearly toppling over onto the bed again.
I move to catch her, but she holds a palm out to stop me. “Just…don’t.”
I sit at the end of the bed instead, far enough away that I can’t touch her but close enough that I might be able to help her if she needs it.
“You left,” she says again.
“And as you can see, I returned.” I suppose I should apologize for my abrupt departure, but I’ve spent the night trying to convince myself that she didn’t jump into the arms of my cousins at her first opportunity—finding her nearly naked with Caspar leaving her room did little to allay my fears. And her talk of having intercourse with all three of my cousins at once also did nothing to help. I might have already left again if my heart didn’t speed a bit every time I look at her. Every time I think of spending my life with her.
She looks at me for a long moment. “You said you love me.”
“I did.”
She nods to herself. “But you still left.”
“I made a mistake.” I watch her carefully—she’s still probably at least a little inebriated, and there’s a high likelihood that she’ll pass out again, unable to remember any of this conversation.
And perhaps that might work to my advantage.
“People make mistakes, Clara. I attempted to right my wrong last night. I didn’t wait weeks to do it.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” I can tell by the way she slurs her words she isn’t quite sober.
“Only that I recognized immediately that I’d made a mistake.”
She points a finger at me. “Not immediately. I wouldn’t have gotten so drunk if it had be
en immediately.”
“I’d say it was close enough.” I rise, taking her water glass to the bathroom to fill it again for her.
When I return, she’s lying down again, so I sit back down in the armchair beside her.
She carefully turns onto her side to look over at me. “Do you love me, Nick? Really?”
“I…do.” I frown at her. Even though it’s unlikely she’ll remember anything about this conversation, it’s still difficult to say the words out loud, still infinitely painful to admit that she’s managed to break through the barriers I’ve built around my heart.
“That sounds super convincing.” She gives me a weak smile, her eyes fluttering closed. She opens them again a moment later. “You know I love you, right?”
“You’ve said as much.”
She laughs, though it sounds pained. “Caspar wouldn’t tell me who she was. I asked him. I asked Xavier and Benedict, too. None of them would tell me who broke your heart.”
I lift a brow, though she still has her eyes closed and can’t see my expression. At least my cousins can maintain a sense of decorum, even when the alcohol is flowing as freely as it seems it was last night. I suppose there is a sort of unwritten code in our family—we don’t discuss the dramas of the other members with outsiders. Ever. Even within the confines of Montovia, we still keep to the same traditions.
“But someone did, right?” Clara mumbles, obviously falling back to sleep.
“It’s of no concern now.” I edge closer to her, though I’m still too far from her to take her hand.
“It’s of concern to me,” she protests. “Because you can’t even say it.”
“Say what?”
“That you love me.”
“Clara…” Her name comes out on a sigh. “I did say it. When you said it yesterday.”
“No.” She shakes her head against her pillow, her eyes still closed. “You didn’t say it, say it. You just said you loved me, too.”
“It’s the same thing—”
“It is not the same thing!” Her eyes open, and there’s no trace of the sleepiness that was there just a moment ago. “It isn’t the same thing at all.”
“How would you like me to say it then?” I cock my head. “I love you? I love you more than I’ve ever loved any woman?”
Her lips spread into a slow grin as her eyes close again. “Yes.” Her voice has fallen to a near whisper. “That’s exactly how I wanted you to say it.”
Clara
When I wake, I feel like Prince has kicked me in the skull a couple of times.
Groaning, I roll over, trying to remember where I am and why my head hurts so much. There’s a glass of water sitting on the nightstand, and I grab it gratefully and choke it down. My throat is still tight and scratchy, but my head clears a little. When I set the glass down again, I notice Nick.
He’s sitting in a chair next to the bed, his head leaning to one side, fast asleep. For a moment, just the sight of him is a shock—He left! I saw him drive away!—but slowly, bit by bit, fuzzy memories of last night come back. I remember him returning, remember talking to him, but not much more than that. I definitely don’t remember what excuses he gave for leaving me like that.
Right now, though, it’s hard to hold onto my anger. He looks so peaceful in his sleep. For once all the sternness is gone from his face.
I carefully climb out of bed, drawing closer to him. I remember, among the hazy memories of my night, asking Nick’s cousins about the woman who broke his heart. I’m still no closer to having any answers. Will Nick ever trust me enough to tell me the truth?
I lean over him in the chair, reaching out and trailing my fingers down his cheek. He breathes softly, not even stirring, so I let my hand drift down the side of his neck to the bit of skin that peeks out over his collar. Half the time I don’t think he realizes how breathtakingly handsome he is. How can he be even the least bit jealous of his cousins when I have to spend half the day just resisting the urge to keep touching him?
One day, his walls will come down. I’ve seen it happen here and there—seen him laugh or smile without worrying about what others might think, heard him talk about the deeper desires of his heart—but he usually keeps those things locked up so tight it’s a wonder he hasn’t snapped by now. How can anyone hold that much inside and never go crazy?
His breath catches, and before I can pull my hand away, his eyes open.
“I…” I yank my fingers back. “You’re awake.”
He straightens in the chair. “So are you.”
I tuck my hands behind my back, as if hiding them will make him forget I was just touching him while he slept.
He rises, and I’m forced to back up a step. But my equilibrium hasn’t quite returned yet, and I stumble slightly. Nick reaches out and steadies me, his hands closing around my waist. His fingers are warm and firm against my bare skin.
Wait…bare?!
I look down. I hadn’t even noticed that I’m wearing next to nothing. When did that happen? How?
“Did we…?” I glance up at him. Oh God, if we… And I don’t remember…
He releases my weight abruptly. “No.” His eyes are studying me, trying to puzzle something out. “I already told you that, though. How much do you remember from either of our conversations in the middle of the night?”
“Only some.” I back up another step and sit down on the edge of the bed. “I remember you were worried about Caspar being here. And that you still wouldn’t tell me about that woman in your past.” I look up at him. “The rest goes in and out. I was really, really drunk.”
“I noticed.” He moves a little closer. “How are you feeling now?”
“Still a little pissed at you, but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking.”
He just regards me steadily, waiting for me to go on.
“What you did was pretty shitty,” I tell him, crossing my arms. “I’m not sure I’m going to forgive you for it.”
His brow rises. “No?”
“No,” I tell him, lifting my chin. “Not unless you do something really, really romantic to make it up to me.”
“Really, now.”
I nod. “Really.”
He moves right in front of me, his hands cupping me on either side of my face. “Do you remember what I told you right before you fell asleep?”
“No,” I confess.
“I told you I—”
He’s cut off by a loud rap at the door to the suite. I stand, and Nick’s hands fall away from my face.
“Where’s my robe?” I ask.
“Ignore it,” Nick says. “They’ll go away.”
But even as he says the words, the rap sounds again, louder this time. I dart into the closet and find the robe carefully hung from a clothes hanger. I pull it around myself.
When I return to the bedroom, Nick has already walked across the suite to the door. He pulls it open as I scurry up behind him.
A small army of people stands there. At least half a dozen of them are servants—a couple of maids, plus others bearing carts. The seventh person is none other than Caspar.
Nick’s back goes rigid, but Caspar only smiles at his cousin.
“Good morning, Nicholas,” Caspar says. “Good morning, Clara. I trust the two of you are well?”
“What are you doing here?” Nick grumbles. He sounds more exasperated than angry, though.
“Just looking in on my guests. It was a long night for everyone.” He gestures to the carts behind him. “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering breakfast for the two of you. An entire feast’s worth. Plus tea and coffee, of course. And just in case anyone had an especially long night, the chef has included a pitcher of his famous hangover cure, as well. I can tell you from personal experience that it works very well.” He shoots a glance my way, and I give him a grateful smile.
“That was very thoughtful of you,” I tell him. “Nick and I would love some breakfast, wouldn’t we?”
Nick doesn’t look at me, but he ste
ps aside, allowing the people with the carts to enter.
“That’s not the only reason I’m here,” Caspar says. “I just came from speaking with my mother. As you know, my father returns in a few days, and I suspect you’ll wish to speak with him, Cousin, especially concerning everything we’ve discussed these past couple of days. But in pleasanter news, my mother has decided to throw him a party in honor of his birthday next week. She’s decided on a masked ball. It won’t be a large affair, only a hundred guests or so, but the two of you are invited, of course. The rest of your family as well, Cousin, though we will not be affronted if they can’t make it on such short notice.” He looks my way again. “Have you ever been to a masked ball before, Clara? I think you might find it enchanting.”
“It sounds amazing,” I confess, and I can’t keep the excitement from my voice.
“Then it’s settled,” Caspar says. “I’ll leave you two to your breakfast.”
Nick has already turned away from the door, but as I do the same, Caspar catches me by the wrist. He leans toward me, dropping his voice.
“I do hope the two of you stay long enough to attend,” he murmurs to me. “There’s a certain someone on the guest list you may want to meet.” He casts a meaningful look at Nick. “Don’t tell him, though. We don’t want my dear cousin running away again, do we? Sometimes we have to force people to confront their pasts.”
He winks at me, smiling as he turns away.
Nicholas
I close the door behind my cousin as he leaves before turning to Clara. “What did he say to you?”
She flops onto the sofa after taking a croissant from one of the many trays of food. “Where is that hangover cure Caspar said was here?”
I eye her carefully for a moment before walking over to the tray that holds the pitcher she’s looking for. I pour her a glass of the pink liquid before handing it to her.
Her nose wrinkles as she smells the contents of her cup. “It smells like tomato juice. What else is in it?”