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My mouth shut tightly at that. Well, that was true. And brutal.
I was a horrible person.
“Well, er, that makes it easier,” Kate remarked after a few awkward moments.
I sighed. “Kate…”
“Well, it does,” she said. “Listen, I’m thinking this solves your problems for the time being.”
“What are you doing?” I whispered when she came close enough for Xavier not to hear.
But my sister just shrugged, then turned and leaned against the counter so she could face Xavier. “What do you think, Your Grace? Will these accommodations serve your royal requirements?”
Xavier rolled his eyes, clearly needled by the titled approach. His blue eyes, however, lasered onto me over her shoulder. “Will you come back to London?”
I bit my lip. “Absolutely not.”
“And will you allow me to move you and Sofia to a more secure building?”
I bit my lip harder. That was more tempting. But little or not, this house was home. And it belonged to me. There was something to be said for that.
“No,” I told him. “I might let you install a better alarm system, though. And get us a big dog.”
The look on Xavier’s face told me exactly how compelling he found that idea. “You don’t need a dog when you have me,” he said. “I’m staying. And that’s final.”
“Good,” Kate said. “I’ll tell everyone else we figured it out.”
“But—”
“Don’t tell me I can’t protect my family, Ces,” Xavier said. “It’s not an option.”
I stared at him for a long time, long enough for Kate to disappear up the steps, humming something that sounded oddly like the children’s rhyme, “First comes love, then comes marriage…”
In the end, I didn’t say anything at all. I found I couldn’t argue with the truth.
“Fine,” I said. “You’ll stay. Butnomore kisses, Xavi. Promise.”
His blue eyes narrowed, and the side of his mouth rose again with the promise of a smile that never came to be. But at last he nodded slowly.
“Fine,” he said. “No kisses.”
He walked back to the stairs and up to the main floor, but not before he left me with a few final words called over his shoulder:
“Until you ask for one, that is.”
INTERLUDE I
Xavier
“She just makes me so fucking mad.”
I yanked on my tie like it was a noose, and just like every other time I recalled Francesca insisting we were “over,” I wanted to rip it off and strangle someone with it. I wanted to set something on fire. Punch a hole through a wall. Doanythingbut admit defeat.
On the other side of her office, where she sat in a Chesterfield chair bookended by a fiddle-leaf fig and a wall full of postgraduate degrees and awards, Dr. Hazelwood eyed me through a pair of thick specs, then tucked a bit of her graying brown hair behind her ear. She didn’t respond right away, and it was a bit unnerving, like always. You could practically see the thoughts turning over in her mind like cogs, but whether she wanted to share them had everything to do with my reactions.
It was part of the process. I didn’t get the benefit of her reactions if I couldn’t deal with my own.
I still couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not, that self-control. Or the feeling that she could see right through me with a single glance.
