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“I—um. I’m not lying.”
“Is that why you’re mad?” I dipped my head and brushed her hair behind her ear. “You’re mad because I did—and do—want to kiss you?”
“I’m not mad,” she breathed, refusing to look at me.
“You are. You’re pissed off because I won’t lie to you. Why else would you spill the beans about your illicit night-time adventures?”
She said nothing.
“Because now the problem is, you’ve told me something I didn’t want to know,” I said in a low voice. “But now I do. I know you’ve been dreaming about me, Adelaide, and I want to know exactly what I’ve been doing to you in those dreams.”
Slowly, she drew in a deep breath, steeled her spine, and met my eyes. “Sorry. You’ll just have to keep wondering about it, won’t you?”
I dropped my gaze to her lips. “Will I?”
Her chest rose and fell with the heaviness of her breathing, and she inched back. “Yes, you will. And you can see how you like it.”
With that, she stalked away from me. This time she made it out of the library and disappeared without turning around to shout at me.
And I was standing here like a tortured fifteen-year-old boy thanks to the boner that was pressing against my trousers.
Why the fuck did she have to tell me that?
Now all I’d be able to think about tonight was her lying in her room, in her bed, dreaming about me fucking her.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and turned around.
If there was anything good that came out of that conversation, it was that it wasn’t over.
Oh, no.
Adelaide could walk away if she wanted, but this conversation wasn’t over. Not by a long bloody shot.
***
“They’re going to review everything now,” Adelaide said, closing the door to the study room behind her. “They said it’ll take about twenty minutes.”
I rubbed my hands down my face. “Then we’ll know?”
“Then we’ll know,” she confirmed.
Fuck.
I wasn’t ready for this. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. Olympia deserved answers, but I couldn’t shake off the fear that a diagnosis was opening her up to cruelty and ridicule. Life was already so hard for her—every day was a true struggle, and I was terrified that an official diagnosis would make it even harder for her.
Rationally, of course, I knew that wasn’t true. I knew it would only help her, but there was a huge part of me that wanted to keep her wrapped up in cotton wool and safe from anyone who might hurt her because she was different.
“Alex. Hey.” Addy rested her hand on my arm, making me look up. “You know what they’re going to say in there. And absolutely nothing changes for you. She’s still going to be the same Olympia she’s always been. A diagnosis doesn’t change your life at all, but it will change hers. It means instead of the world trying to make her conform, everyone else has to conform to her world. Her life will be easier for this.”
“I know,” I said quietly, resting my hand on top of hers. “I just—it’s so hard. I feel… guilty… like it’s my fault. Like I didn’t do enough at some point.”
“You do more than enough for her. All the time. There’s not a second of your life that you haven’t dedicated to her.”
“I don’t spend as much time with her as I should.”
“Everything you do is for her,” she repeated. “Alex, even if you don’t have any more children and the dukedom dies out, this place won’t.” She motioned around her. “These walls will still be here. This house will still be here. This estate will still be here, and it will all belong to her. Everything you are doing right now is to ensure she has the best possible future, and that’s the best you can do. Even if you weren’t, there’s nothing you could have done. You don’t… catch… autism. It’s not the flu.”
I fought back a laugh.
“It’s just the way she is. It’s the way she’s always been.”
“I know. I just feel guilty because she doesn’t deserve her life being this difficult. I feel like it’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault.” She took a step closer to me and rubbed my arm with her other hand. “This isn’t anything you can control, Alex, and it never has been. Nothing you did would have changed the fact she’s autistic.”
“It just—”
“Stop. It’s not your fault.”
“You’ve said that three times.”
“And I’ll keep saying it until you listen to me.” Her eyes were firm, but there was a deep kindness to them. “You have absolutely nothing to feel bad about. You love her. You give her everything she needs and more. And again, nothing that happens in that room will change anything for both of you. Your life will continue on as it always has. Olympia will still need her cups organised in a specific line, and her books will have to be shelved in size order, and her coloured pencils will still have to be laid out in the colour of the rainbow before she can use them.”
