And yet?—
“You, eat pasta?” I asked. “But thecarbs.No one will believe that part.”
“That’s how out of my head I was after meeting you. Yes, I ate the maccheroncino pasta with wild boar ragù, and then the duck for my second.”
“Wow, love at first sight. Or, carbs at first sight. Do they actually serve that thing you said, there?”
“Yes. I’ve been watching it for years but never indulged.”
I squeezed his hand. “Honey, Nico, you should eat the pasta. You deserve to eat pasta.”
Nico blinked like he was glitching, but then continued to lead the waltz.
We waltzed down a sidewalk where there were fewer and fewer couples, until we were alone between rows of breeze-rustling bushes and palm trees.
“And then what?” I asked.
“We talked about the art and displays in the Juliet House. I recited the paintings’ histories and named the acts and scenes that the costumes and sets had been in, but you talked about what the play made you feel, their longing, their desperation for love, even though it killed both of them. I realized I’d never really seen the playRomeo and Juliet,just observed it, or been present for it, or studied the text or the film for the test, and then I wanted to see all of Verona through your eyes.”
“Nicolai, you’re making me blush.”
He gazed down at me while we moved. “It would have been easy if we’d met with you on the balcony like that, if I’d seen you standing there.”
“That’s a nice thought. I mean, in reality, you would’ve seen me standing up there fumbling my lines because I’ve never done the play. I would’ve been wearing my cheap ragged jeans and an old tee shirt, probably saying dumb things about theatre that I didn’t really know anything about. You wouldn’t have been attracted to me. At best, you would’ve felt sorry for me.”
“I would’ve been enchanted, you standing there with these masses of chestnut curls cascading over your shoulders, your eyes as fathomless as stars on the sea at night, and I would’ve known within seconds that I was already falling for you.”
Nicolai stopped waltzing, and I almost stepped on his foot but staggered sideways at the last second to keep from piercing his shiny leather shoes with my stiletto sandals. “Oops.”
“I would’ve seen you, I would’ve listened to you, and I would have felt more like myself than I had in years. With those people in the cotillion, it’s always a performance. I’m always acting. I must always be manipulating people to do what I want, to have them introduce me to people I must win over, to make sure they see me in a certain light, usually either politically unthreatening or socially domineering. I must constantly act as if I don’t care about anything real lest it be too gauche or earnest for polite society. I must live in a perpetual state of sophisticated ennui, and it’s exhausting. I’d much rather be out here dancing under the stars with you, where it’s easy.”
Nicolai’s palm cradled my jaw, and his fingers slipped around the back of my neck.
Of course, I leaned into his hand. It was enticing, and his affection felt like something real.
I was a sucker for anything that felt real.
A tiny part of my heart sighed and reminded me not to believe in it, because I was an interlude, because this marriage was for a year. We’d signed a contract to make sure of that just this morning.
His head dipped, and his lips came to mine in a sweet and slow kiss.
The kiss infiltrated my senses. It was easy to pretend that nothing was changing with each quiet stroke on my lips, his hand on my back dropping to my waist, and our arms extended for the waltz gradually drawing in to nestle against our sides.
It was too easy to step closer to him, to lift farther up on my toes and to reach, as our arms twisted, knotting us together. First his thumb stroked my spine, then his arm tightened around my waist, pressing me against him.
The music from the ballroom drifted away, and the darkness was quiet around us. All my consciousness concentrated down to where his arms were around me, his body pressing on the delicate fabric of my dress, and his lips on mine.
When he lifted his head, he slipped his thumb over my cheek.
My voice was hoarse. “It’s like you’re trying to seduce me.”
“Oh, but I’m not allowed to do that. It’s in the contract.”
Minuscule tremors swept into me, shaking apart the dreaminess. “That’s too bad. And here I was, ready to be swept off my feet by the guy I met at Juliet’s House in Verona.”
Nicolai whispered, “Let’s go.”
“What? Go where?”
