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I blushed, knowing how much it cost him to be that vulnerable with me. To reveal any feeling toward me. Without thinking, I went to tuck the button in my own pocket, but Whit held out his hand, palm facing up.
I let out a disbelieving laugh. “You’d like to keep it?”
Wordlessly, he nodded.
I gave it to him. Then he carefully rolled his gift and placed it and the button into his jacket pocket, his hands trembling a little.
“Happy Christmas to you, too, Whit.”
My feelings for him had shifted, grown deeper, despite my efforts. I was sickened that I hadn’t told him the truth about how I felt when I had the chance. It took everything in me not to kiss him again. Disappointment crashed around me. Now it was too late. He had a betrothed. Someone waiting for him back home. And while my feelings went deeper for him, he only felt attraction for me.
Attraction was nowhere near love.
I cleared my throat, my eyes burning and cheeks aflame. “We ought to go.”
But neither of us moved. The quiet pressed close around us. We might have been the only two people on Philae. In the whole world.
“I’ve been engaged since I was ten years old,” he said quietly. “My family arranged it. We’ve met exactly twice.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He ducked his head, his attention fixed on the toes of his worn boots. Then he sighed and met my gaze. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter, it never did.”
My breath whooshed out of me in a long exhale. Should I feel relief? Perhaps so.
“We’ll always be friends, Olivera.”
With deliberate precision, he reached for my hand. His calloused palm was rough against mine. He laced his fingers through mine and I shivered. His eyes warmed as he slowly, so slowly, drew my hand toward his mouth.
He placed a soft, lingering kiss on the back of my wrist.
I felt it in every hidden corner of my body. Whit released my hand, and then he led me out of the tunnels and back into the sunlight.
His gift to me had only made me feel worse.
I joined everyone after they had said their prayers for the noon meal, and for once, conversation was scarce and awkward. The crew seemed to sense the tension between my uncle and myself, more so than usual. The heat clung to my linen traveling dress, wrinkled and stained with paint splatters and dirt. This was my official working dress, which meant that I was wearing it nearly every day. I tried my best to clean the worst of the stains at night but the desert’s mark couldn’t easily be wiped away.
Elvira would behorrified.
I missed her with a sharp ache, my thoughts turning toward her more often than I expected. I knew what her days were like, even though I was a world away. Breakfast in the early morning—but no coffee—followed by lessons. A break for a light lunch, and then social calls around the neighborhood. A late dinner, and then bed. But I always managed to break free from the routine in some small way, and Elvira followed.
Little adventures with a laughing shadow at my heels.
I wish I’d thought to bring something of hers, if only so I could feel her near. Conjure her smile and the sound of her voice in my mind.
When lunch ended, my uncle and Abdullah conferred quietly with Mr. Fincastle and Isadora, and after another moment, they beckoned Whit and me over to join them a little ways from camp.
“Do you have your things?” my uncle asked in a flat voice as I joined them. I gestured to my bag, filled with my sketch pad, charcoal pencils, and paints.
“Does the crew suspect what we’re doing?” Whit asked.
“It was meant to be a secret,” Abdullah said. “So naturally everyone knows.”
“Send them away,” came a gruff voice. Mr. Fincastle stood between the columns lining the courtyard, half-hidden in shadows. He came forward, a rifle in his hands, and looked uneasily toward the temple entrance. “You ought not to trust them.”
Abdullah’s usually smiling face tightened. Tension coiled in his shoulders. “And why is that, Mr. Fincastle?”
“Don’t answer that,” Tío Ricardo snapped. “As I’ve repeatedly said, I don’t care for your opinions. I’ve hired you to do a job and I won’t have you disrespecting any of the crew. Is that clear?”
