She waited a beat. “Fine. Since you think everyone’s psychic, you’ll know what I’m about to do next.”
Then she hung up.
Like hell he’d call back. Suddenly infuriated, Nico deleted a series of emails, until he came to Gia’s. What was the point? Nothing would change. He deleted that too.
He took a deep breath and stood up. He wanted Valerie and a debate on the pros and cons of belly flops versus cannonballs for maximum splash. Something safe.
Something that would help take the sick feeling away.
* * *
He eventually found Valerie curled up with a book on her lap in the study. He hadn’t expected her there. Why, he couldn’t quite say except she seemed more of a creature of bright sun rather than the muted lamplight of the only windowless room in the house.
“Hello, Nico.” How did she do that, bring his entire body to attention with a single sentence? Fitzgerald said Daisy’s voice was filled with money. Valerie’s was filled with sunlight.
He handed over a new pastry he’d picked up in town when he’d went for a drive to calm down after the call with Stefanie and his inability to find Valerie earlier. It was a flavor called kaya he’d never heard of but suspected she would enjoy. “They were testing a new kind of croissant at the bakery.”
Valerie looked pleased as she tore it in two. “We can both try.”
Nico gave a tentative sniff before taking a small bite. Although notsomething he would have thought he liked, the croissant was delicious and the coconut provided more of a tropical whisper rather the feeling of drowning in a piña colada. A sprinkle of coconut sugar provided a pleasant sweet crunch.
“Nico, this is incredible. I love you. Thank you.” Valerie finished off the pastry as he relived her saying that a couple more times. She’d said she loved him in the same tone she used when she said she loved whipped cream in iced coffee, but he didn’t care.
“What are you reading?”
In answer she held out the book.Nexus Point, by Dot Voline.
“I liked that one, but I preferredClementia,” he said.
“‘Her reflection wavered through the glass,’” Valerie stood and declaimed grandly, raising her arms like an opera singer hitting a high C and causing her shirt to ride up and reveal the rounded slope of her stomach. “‘Herself but not her. A sovereign yet indeterminate shape that others would take and mold to their own requirements. Was this not love, after all? After all that, was this not love?’”
Somehow, Valerie had quoted from one of his favorite scenes. “You like Dot Voline?”
“EspeciallyCabinet Girl Secrets. There’s a copy here.”
That was the book with another of Nico’s favorite lines, although he didn’t have the nerve to quote back at her.He thought love was quiet, but his heart sang it like a bell. It clanged throughout his chest, reverberating until he felt the world must shake with him.
Valerie had turned to look at the books and bent down. “Here it is,” she said, pulling the paperback out and flinging out her arm as if to flaunt it.
“Whoa!” Nico caught her wrist right before she whacked him in the face.
She rose to put a hand to his cheek with a flurry of apologies. “Did I hit you? I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking.”
“You missed,” he assured her.
But she was looking at him intently, her fingers lingering on his jaw as she traced her hand down. “Good,” she breathed.
A trail of heat bloomed as she passed from his throat to his chest. A pink flush rose to her face, and then she licked that lusciously thin bottom lip.
Nico was only a man, and he was weak. Incredibly, somehow, he was still holding her wrist and he tightened his grasp. He stepped forward, and she tilted her head up and leaned back.
Right into the bookshelf, which rocked alarmingly. Nico instinctively let go of her to steady the shelf and Valerie cursed as a small photo album dropped out from where it had been balanced on top of some books to open onto her foot.
Nico had never hated a bookshelf as much as he hated one now. With the moment broken, Valerie picked up the bronze-vinyl-covered book. “Oh, interesting.”
The album was much smaller than the others, with a single photo on each page, and had opened to show the Lakeview, with the Badgertons at a table, smiling broadly into the sun. Judging from the hair, ages, and overall vibe, it was from the mid-nineties.
As Nico wondered if there was a way to turn back time thirty seconds, Valeire pulled out the tiny magnifying glass on the ribbon around her neck and pointed it at a woman at the back of the photo. Her hair was styled in a ponytail with heavy bangs, and her resemblance to Valerie was unmistakable. She was dressed in a white apron that had been tied with strings around her waist and a short-sleeved shirt. “It’s Yvette,” she said.
