“Stay, please,” she said, lifting herself on her elbows. “I won’t ask you to kiss me anymore. But don’t leave me alone up here. It’s creepy.”
Bastien hovered by the divan for a few, awkward heartbeats, until silently, he folded himself on the tiniest bit of free space next to her. When he finally dared a glance at Celine, something in his chest strained. He had made this the worst birthday for her.
“Come here,” he whispered.
Celine scooted over, laying her head on his lap. The short strands spilled out like tendrils of midnight. Bastien combed through them with careful strokes as exhaustion crept over Celine and she relaxed against him.
The candle was slowly reaching the end of the metal holder, the flame spurting its last sparks before going out completely. Bastien was suddenly aware of everything around him. The darkness felt tangible. Even Celine’s quiet breaths that delicately disrupted the silence pressed upon him, demanding attention.
Nothing he had ever done in his life had been more intimate than this.
Perhaps it was because being up here with her felt illicit. Perhaps because all she was doing was fall asleep on his lap, and the act was of such domesticity Bastien had never experienced before, that he didn’t want anything to disrupt it. He was afraid of even the slightest movement, lest she stirred and got up and the spell was broken.
What have you done to me, Celine LeBeau?
He had imagined this when he had asked her to reopen the studio together. Celine coming to him like a dream, the divan dipping slightly under her weight. She would lay her head on his lap after sewing all day and he would pick up a book, any book she wanted, and read it to her. He loved reading to her. Every day that he had done so, he had found a bit of peace.
Mindful not to startle her, Bastien moved his fingers from her hair to trace the thin curve of her brow. There were no lights now that the candle had fizzled out. The moonlight coming from the window fell on her face, turning her eyes a bright blue.
She was so beautiful it made every part of him hurt with longing.Longing, he realised with a start. Not desire. No, what he was feeling right now was something less impatient, mellower, that made him want to lower his head and place a kiss on every part of her face, starting with her dark brows and ending with her bow-shaped lips. He wanted to dip his head to the crook of her neck and lose himself in the perfume on her skin. He wanted her. Maybe he even loved her.
He also resented her for making him feel this way.
All these years of living to please himself overcome by the desperate wish to please someone else.
Bastien brushed his thumb over her brow.
“To ziba hasti,” he whispered softly in Farsi.
Celine shifted her head on his lap. “You think I’m beautiful?”
His eyes widened in surprise. He didn’t think she had been listening. Or that she could understand what he was saying. “You can hardly string two words together when you’re drunk but you can somehow flawlessly translate Farsi?”
“You told me…” Celine yawned, “to learn it…didn’t you?”
“And you actually did?
“I took a dictionary…from your house,” she went on sleepily.
He couldn’t believe it. “Celine LeBeau has turned into a thief now? What happened to your irrational fear of imprisonment?”
“You are a bad influence, Bastien Ménard,” Celine concluded.
In the silence that followed, her breathing turned even and faint as she fell asleep. Bastien’s eyes were straining too, exhaustion overcoming him, but he forced them open. Celine had become a dream he feared would vanish if he blinked one too many times. Come morning, she would remember none of this, and if this moment right here was all he was allowed with her, he didn’t want to lose it over sleep.
“Forgive me,” he whispered. “For everything I’ve ever done and said that has hurt you. And I know they’re quite a few.”
Chapter 30
It Only Takes a Loose Stitch
Celine fixed a star-shaped pin into her hair as she frantically bicycled down Rue Cambon to get to Maison Baudelaire. She was late. She was late and in disarray and if the doors were closed and she missed this round, she would never forgive herself.
Once the iron gate appeared with Gabriel tapping his foot impatiently, a clipboard propped against his hip, Celine hopped off her bicycle, leaning it against the House exterior, and tried to regulate her breaths. He didn’t look pleased to see her in the slightest.
“Mademoiselle LeBeau. Everyone else had already arrived an hour ago.”
“I know,” she returned hastily, trying not to keel over and heave. Her side was cramping. “I’m sorry.”
