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He swallowed hard. “Not tonight. We should sleep.”
After I took off my bathrobe, he tucked me into bed. He undressed and lay beside me. I rested my head on his chest. His heartbeat thumped under my ear, a constant reminder that hewas still alive, and he was still here with me. When I had almost fallen into the oblivion of sleep, he whispered something.
Quietly, so quietly I didn’t understand him at first.
His words sank through my mind like stones in a pond.
“I love you.”
29
Morning dawned in a gray the color of doves. Rain drizzled from the sky and hushed the sounds of the city. We sat in the restaurant of the Imperial Palace Hotel.
Wendel, who had a hangover, winced at the daylight like a vampire caught in the sun.
“That bad?” I asked.
He hunched over the table and sipped his coffee. “I would appreciate a convenient assassin right now. Put me out of my misery.”
I hadn’t been nearly as ambitious, and had only a slight headache from the absinthe.
I sipped my chamomile tea. “You look terrible.”
“Thank you.” He stirred his coffee. “Last night…”
“Yes?”
“I might have said too much. Blame it on the devil of drink.”
“After that much absinthe, I’m amazed you stayed conscious for as long as you did.”
He glanced into my eyes. “You asked about my scars.”
My fingers tightened around my cup. “I did.”
“And after I told you…?”
I realized what he meant. “You don’t remember?”
“No.”
My heartbeat pounded. He didn’t remember saying he loved me last night?
He straightened the silverware to distract himself. I reached across the table and stilled his hand.
“Will I regret not remembering?” he asked.
Should I tell him what he said last night? But he was drunk. Maybe he didn’t mean it. Maybe it was just the alcohol talking.
“We were naked in bed together, but it wasn’t that scandalous. You fell asleep.”
“So you need some more scandal tonight.”
I rolled my eyes at his smirk. “You might still be too hungover for that.”
“I apologize. I drank too much.”
“You did…you did say something else.”
