“Dinosaurs don’t win Nobel Prizes,” is all he says, the words tight and clipped.
Ripley thinks about a bag of Christmas toys that turned out to be something else. A woman and a girl looking in a mirror, so alike and yet so different.
James, who has all the security and accolades she tied herself in knots trying to win. Herself, with the freedom he’s never let himself even imagine.
“Can I tell you an awful story?” she asks.
“Is it as awful as my story?”
“Oh, this is a whole other league of awful.”
“In that case.” He waves a hand for her to go ahead.
“One time at the regional hockey championships, there was this mom from another team. She kept trying to get to me. Like, ‘It’s just you and your dad? Does your mama not want to cheer you on, sweetie?’ She could totally tell it worked. I mean, my face—zero filter,” she says, circling her palm in front of it. “Before I knew it, I was sobbing. I said, ‘My mom’s dead. She died saving my life.’ That lady could not apologize enough.
“The next time a stranger asked about Mom, she’d saved me from drowning. The time after that, she’d gotten mauled by bears. The time afterthat,she’d given me her kidneys. Both of them. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her daughter.”
James looks at her, one eyebrow cockedallthe way up.
“I know, I know. I’m truly sorry about your mom, and I’m not trying to be an asshole. Stick with me here. Lying made me feel sick, but it was better than knowing my mom would never step in front of a bear for me. When she realized she couldn’t use me for her acting career, she didn’t even visit anymore.”
This seems to snap him out of his head. “This is the mother who cares a lot about the way she looks?”
She leans back, a little bemused. “You remember that, huh?”
“I was sedated, not comatose. I remember everything. You said she was very beautiful. Butyoudon’t like being told you’re beautiful.”
He sees Ripley far too clearly for her peace of mind.
“Anyway,” she says, papering over her discomfort, “if I’d gone into show business, my mom would have thrown a parade. It wouldn’t have mattered if I hated it. And that’s how I know thatyourmom, who loved you, wouldn’t have wanted you to spend your life doing something you loathe. I bet she was…” Ripley laughs with the irony of what she’s about to say. “She was fresh off a breakup with the worst fucking guy. A little panicky that she’d never get another chance to do the thing she loved. But she would’ve gotten over herself, because she loved you. I bet she’d have all your lightning-dragon book covers made into T-shirts.”
“Dear Lord,” James says, trying not to smile. Ripley can tell he’s picturing his mother in an unflattering white unisex T-shirt with a giant purple-and-black graphic on the front.
“You can’t torture yourself into liking something. You want what you want, James.”
She tips her chin up, away from his gaze. The high, dark ceiling could be a sky if she didn’t focus too hard. The two of them could be anywhere under that sky. A different place. A different time.
He shifts on the divan, his weight tilting toward her.
“And what if I can’t have what I want?” he says. “What if what I want is delicate, and one wrong step might damage it? What if what I want is in America, and I have to return to London?” He takes a tormented breath. “What if the way Daisy plays the violin could break your heart, but my father is determined to breakherheart by packing her off to university rather than a conservatory? After all, he’s already proved any child of his can succeed in science if they justtry.My example doomed her, but my trust fund can save her. If I keep my father satisfied.”
Ripley brings her gaze back to earth. He’s leaning toward her. Pressing his fingertips into the back of her hand, his mouth inches from hers. His eyes are the barest corona of blue and gold around a deep deposit of carbon black.
There’s a lump in Ripley’s throat that won’t be swallowed down. “And what if what we want is locked in this museum? What if, for the next few hours, the rules of the real world didn’t apply? What would you want if you weren’t James Smithson?”
He brings his hand to her face, splays his fingers down her neck. “You know what I want, Ripley Adams,” he says in that contradiction of a voice with its uptight diction and down-dirty timbre. Goosebumps spill down her back.
James isn’t the kind of man who’ll get close just so he can take what he wants from her. He’s the kind who’ll stay away to protect her—who stayed away precisely because he wanted her. He’ll do anything, sacrifice anything, to give her back what she lost.
One night isn’t enough, but it’s all they have.
She takes a breath for bravery, then leans in, touches her lips to his.
The exhibit cases twinkle like constellations in an ancient sky. Somewhere far away,T. rexesroar.
All of it recedes before the insistent press of his mouth; the short, sharp sound he makes when her lips part for him; the barely there touch of his fingers that evolves into a convulsive, trembling grip on her neck. His thigh meets hers in one long unbroken line of hot, stony muscle. His straight spine is undone as he curves to put his teeth where they can catch her lower lip.
This time, he kisses her the way he does everything—carefully, intentionally, with his whole attention on every small thing. Underneath the restraint, she feels the hunger he unleashed before, and the fact that it’s controlled doesn’t make it less huge.
