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“It’s specific. Sound to color synesthesia.”
“I have this!”
“Ha!” he hoots, and he takes her hands. “I have never met another synesthete! And when I do, we’re related! How do you see the colors?”
“They match a key. You?”
“Mine are less defined, but listen, we can discuss this at another time. I know you need to go. I’ll order you an Uber, and while we wait for it to arrive, will you play something for me?”
Alessia is giddy with joy as she climbs into the vehicle. Toby waves her off from the doorstep, and she waves frantically back until she can no longer see him. She hugs herself as the car turns and slowly eases into the traffic on the bridge. Toby is thoughtful, kind, musical, and super-smart, but most of all, he’s interested in her and her life in a way that her male relatives at home were not, and he cannot wait to meet her husband. She digs her phone out of her handbag to call Maxim and apologize for not texting. But it’s dead.
O Zot!
Well, there’s nothing she can do until she gets home. So she sits back and replays her entire conversation with Toby. Her great-uncle. Synesthete.
* * *
“Honey, I’m home!” I announce to an empty flat when I’m back from my exercise. The endorphins conjured by my run disappear as I head into the shower.
Where the hell is she?
By 7:00 p.m., I’m climbing the walls. I’ve left more messages but received no word from my wife. There’s no one I can call, nothing I can do. I’m powerless.
I hate not knowing where or how she is.
I pace the drawing room, and every time I pass the double doors that open onto the hallway, I glance at the front door, willing Alessia to appear.
I. Am. Going. Crazy.
Hell.
I step into the echoing silence of my hallway. And I’m suddenly overwhelmed. I don’t know where my wife is, and for some unknown reason, the memory of my mother’s Louboutins clicking across the hardwood as she left springs to mind—reminding me that I’ve already lost another family member this week.
Was that the last I’ll ever see of her?
And as much as Rowena annoys the hell out of me, that thought is depressing.
She’s my mother.
Mama.
Fuck.
How do we come back from this?
I shake off the bleak feeling and text her.
We need to discuss Kit’s memorial service.
When you’re over your snit,
perhaps you can give me a call.
And I want to add you faithless whore, but I don’t. She’s my mother. Next, I text my absent wife. Again.
I am going crazy here!
Call me.
Please.
M
Suddenly the key sounds in the door, and it opens to reveal Alessia. She looks fine. When we lock eyes, her warm smile lights up the darkened hallway and my heart. My relief and anger seize the day in equal measure.
Thank fuck she’s safe.
But as she steps into the hall, the anger triumphs, and my cry echoes off the walls. “Where the fuck have you been?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alessia freezes as I stride toward her, wanting to vent my spleen. I’m overwhelmed with fury, but as I step up to her, she raises her face to mine, all innocence and beauty and beguiling dark eyes. “I’m sorry. My phone died,” she whispers.
“Oh.” This is not what I thought she’d say. I’m expecting a spirited argument that will help me offload some of my frustration and fear. Her simple apology and admission steal the wind from my sails, and in a nanosecond my temper softens.
“I was worried,” I grumble.
Tentatively, as if she’s about to beard a lion, she reaches up and strokes my cheek. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Sighing, I rest my forehead against hers and close my eyes, taking a moment to calm the fuck down. Slowly, I circle my arms around her, drawing her close so she molds herself against my body, bathing me in her reassuring warmth. She kisses my cheek. “I am sorry. I lost track of the time.”
“Where were you?”
She grins. “If you promise not to be mad, I’ll tell you.”
“No. No, I don’t promise. Not at all. I’m mad already. You have a disturbing tendency to put yourself in perilous situations. Tell me.”
“I met my grandmother’s brother, my great-uncle.”
* * *
Maxim steps back, releasing Alessia. “Uncle? You have family here?”
She nods, still radiating from the joy of finding her relative.
“Why would I be upset about that? Does he live in Kew? How did you find him?”
Alessia takes Maxim’s hand and leads him into the kitchen. “Sit,” she says and points to the kitchen chair.
He frowns, confused, but obliges and looks expectantly up at her, his hair tousled and green eyes no longer flashing with anger but bright with curiosity.
“Remember when I asked you about finding Bleriana?”
Maxim stills, and Alessia doesn’t know how he’ll react.
“I went to see the detective.”
“I see. And?”
“I asked him to find my grandmother’s family.”
