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The apartment was deadly quiet when Xavier came home sometime past two in the morning. I wasn’t in bed—I couldn’t have hoped to rest there, or anywhere. Not after what happened in the alley. After arriving home just in time to wish Sofia good night, I’d retreated first to the TV room for my four hundred and ninety-eighth viewing ofSense and Sensibility(the Ang Lee adaptation) before adjourning to the living room for a cup of tea andWuthering Heightsto calm my nerves.
It didn’t work. Hours later, Nelly had barely started telling her story at all, and I was still swimming in mine, trying to find some kind of reorientation.
Over the last month, I’d thought we’d found a sort of comfortable rhythm together, the three of us. It wasn’t a forever kind of thing—vacations never were—but it worked. We’d had the time and space at last to learn each other’s rhythms and moods. I’d thought I’d seen most of Xavier’s.
Until tonight.
With a gentlebing, the elevator doors opened. Xavier stepped into the apartment, looking more than a little worse for wear. His jeans and the chef’s coat he had worn at the restaurant were smudged with soot and other inscrutable substances, his hair was mussed on one side and flattened at the back, and his red sneakers were now scuffed beyond repair, laces half undone and filthy from being dragged on the ground. Even from fifteen feet away, I could smell the alcohol coming off him in waves. Bourbon, apparently. Maybe with a bit of wine laced through it. Whatever it was, it was a potent combination, and not one that suggested any more self-control than he had demonstrated earlier.
I tucked myself into the corner of the couch.
“Rough night?” I asked as he kicked off his shoes.
Xavier started, then swayed in place like he might fall over. Instead, he grabbed a prong of the coat rack and pushed himself upright. “Er—yeah. You could say that. We managed in the end.”
He rubbed his face wearily, like just recalling the rest of the night caused him a hangover on top of whatever he had consumed.
For a moment, I blinked and was brought right back to my childhood. Right back to the days after my father had died, when my mother would still at leasttryto show up for her children, albeit usually wasted and during the wee hours in the mornings. She’d wake us up from our slumbers—usually it was Matthew and me who slept the lightest and would creep down the stairs to find her arguing with Nonna at the front door.
Sometimes she’d look up through an alcohol haze and smile to where we peered through the rungs of the banister.
I never smiled back. I barely felt like I knew her at all.
But I wanted to. What child wouldn’t.
“Where the hell have you been?” I snapped before I could help myself. “The restaurant closes at eleven.”
I hated how I sounded. Harping and unforgiving. The very definition of a ball and chain, and we weren’t even married.
Xavier’s gaze held mine for an extra few seconds before he grunted and dropped his messenger bag next to his shoes. “The restaurant closes, but no one goes home until late. And then that bloody frog—”
“You mean the French chef you were in the process of throttling when I got there?”
Another grunt. “He came back begging for his job. Then quit again when he wouldn’t cook the duck the way I like.” Xavier shook his head as he unbuttoned the chef’s jacket, revealing a tight white undershirt that put his muscled chest and biceps on display. “I don’t like babysitting my staff. And Ireallydon’t like people playing games with me. He learned that the hard way.”
I curled farther into the couch. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that meant.
Xavier looked up finally and found me sitting on the couch. At once, he stilled, that dark blue gaze tracking over all of me, taking in my bare legs, the short hem of my nightdress, the thin strap falling over one shoulder, the tousled hair I hadn’t yet braided back. By the time he reached my face, that blue flame was back. And I could see exactly what he wanted to do.
For the second time.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I said, plastering myself into the couch’s corner. “Not again.”
“No?” He padded his way across the carpet like a big cat tracking through the forest. “I’m not so sure about that, babe. If you don’t want to be chased, you shouldn’t look like you want to be caught so bad.”
By the time he reached me, I was shivering—out of fear or anticipation, I wasn’t sure. Xavier licked his full lips, eyes gleaming.
For a moment, I was back in that alley. Caught in the throes of pleasure, yes. But then in a wave of utter disappointment.
“Xavi, no,” I said fiercely, forcing myself to meet his gaze despite the fact that a part of me very much wanted to give him what he hunted. I loved him. I loved what he could do. But at moments like these, I had to love myself more. “You will not use me again like that.”
He paused, hovering over me, then blinked. The feral look disappeared. “I—yeah. No, I won’t.”
He sighed and collapsed on the couch next to me with such utter despondency, I couldn’t help wanting to crawl into his lap and hug him, even with the anger I was harboring. I’d never felt so torn between what was right for me and what was right for someone I loved.
“You going to tell me what happened this time?” I asked carefully.
“What do you mean?”
