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“Maybe…” I said. “I still don’t want to leave New York, though.”
“Of course not.”
“And I don’t want to leave Brooklyn either. We’re not moving to some fancy townhouse in the Village just so I can be closer to Bobst Library.”
There was a light chuff, but Xavier didn’t argue.
I sighed. “But, um, yeah. I suppose it does. Pending my acceptance. And funding, of course. And a new renter downstairs once you leave. But if you’re willing to help more with Sofia’s costs, and the baby’s—”
“Done,” Xavier interrupted eagerly. “Honestly, Ces, it’s not even a question. We’ll get a nanny for the times and whatever else you need.”
I looked at him, curious. “Why—why would you do that? For me or for them?”
Xavier looked irritated at the question at first, then put the book down on the table. “Mum spent her life barely scraping two pence together. And my dad was rich, but his life was all about what was expected of him. When I struck out on my own, I didn’t have anyone to look at to show me how it’s done.” He blinked. “I don’t want our children to ever doubt that they can do what they want. And I want them to know that because they watched their parents do it too.”
I blinked across the room. Whatever I’d been expecting him to say, it wasn’t this. All summer long, while he’d encouraged me to do what I wanted, he’d never had a real sense of what that was. He’d seemed to think I was fine being a lady of leisure, even when I said I wasn’t.
This was different. He was addressing one of my actual passions. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
So I just nodded. “Several of the programs request a research plan. I could give them my old graduate work as a sample of something to expand, but I want it to be something new. Something worth working on. I do think your family’s journals fulfill that brief. If you’d let me work on them.”
Xavier studied me a moment more, then stood up and made his way across the room until he was standing directly in front of me, close enough that my knees brushed the sides of his thighs. Another step forward, and he’d be wedged between them. A quick lift, and I’d be sitting atop the counter, legs wrapped around his waist or maybe his head, while he devoured me the way only Xavier Parker could.
I inhaled deeply. Wrong move. That signature scent of fire and brine wrapped around me like a foggy dream.
I couldn’t think. I could barely see. Right now, the only thing I could imagine was grabbing his tie and dragging him down to heaven with me.
Or maybe it was hell.
“Here.” His deep voice pulled me out of my waking dream as he held out the book. “What’s mine is yours.”
I shivered again, and this time couldn’t ignore the way his eyes latched to my lip as I took it between my teeth.
Crap. I needed some space before I lost it all completely.
“Who were you talking to?” I blurted. “Imogene?”
“What?” Xavier stiffened as I wriggled off my seat and moved around until the kitchen’s peninsula counter was safely between us.
“I didn’t hear much. Just that she was English.”
Yes, that was better, even if the idea that Xavier was talking to Imogene made me physically ill.
When I looked up, though, he looked about the same.
“No,” he said evenly. “I was not talking to Imogene Douglas. Nor would I be. I was…inmrphmpy.”
I cocked one ear toward him. “Come again? I didn’t quite get that.”
At that, he took his own seat on the stool. “I said I was intherapy.”
I gaped. “You have a therapist?”
Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that.
He gave me a long, morose look, not unlike a basset hound. “Yes. I’ve been talking to a bloody headshrinker. Happy now you find out I’m crazy?”
“Oh,” I said, all sense of joking evaporated. “Oh, I don’t think that at all. Xavier, I think it’s great you’re in therapy. I think it’swonderful.”
