Novo woke up ten hours later. She knew this by the clock on the bed stand, which, naturally, wasn’t some digital POS you could get from Amazon, but an antique Cartier thing that seemed to be made of marble and had hands with diamonds on them.
She had turned away from Peyton in her sleep, but they were far from separated. He was tucked in tight to her back, that robe of his still on, the pair of them on top of the duvet instead of in between those incredibly soft sheets of his.
Man, she had to pee.
Okay, that was hardly the most important thing on her mind, comparatively speaking, but in terms of urgency? And the fact that it was a simple walk to the bathroom to take care of it?
#goals
As she moved carefully out of Peyton’s arms, he surfaced briefly from his rest to mumble something that sounded like “Where going?”
“Bathroom,” she said quietly. “You go back to sleep.”
He nodded against the pillow and let out a mutter of affirmation.
Standing over him, she wanted to smooth his tousled blond hair and erase the black circles under his closed eyes. She was willing to bet that he had stayed up most of the day to watch over her, and she hated the position she had put him in.
But she was glad, too. She was…relieved, kind of the way you would be after you excised an infection. It hurt like hell to get the boil cleaned out, but afterward? Clean was like bright sunshine in what had been a dark, damp place.
“You are so much more than I thought you were.”
And that was true not just because she had underestimated him from the start. It was because he had this way of hanging in with her, of seeing her, of supporting her without smothering her.
It was an incredible commentary on who he was to her…when the male who she had conceived her young with was not the one she had gone to with the pain of that death. No, it had been Peyton.
Peyton was the only one she had wanted. Had trusted. Had needed.
She had fallen in love with him.
And admitting that didn’t feel scary, actually. Which was a shock.
“I will name her and I will go back there,” she said softly. “And maybe you will come with me someday so I can introduce you two.”
In accepting him into her life, she wanted him to go with her back there sometime. It was not only a part of her, but had been the defining term for what had felt like the longest while.
Tiptoeing into the loo, she shut herself in the toilet room, took care of business, and then washed her hands and dried them. As she looked at her reflection in the mirror, she was surprised that she appeared exactly the same. You’d think some of the inner transformation might have translated into different-colored eyes or hair that was of another style.
But no, it was still her.
And that was rather the point, wasn’t it. Since the miscarriage, there had been two sides to her: What had happened and the pain, loss, and grief that went along with it—and then everything else. The latter had been responsible for existing and navigating the world at large. The former had been this shadowed entity that had haunted her. And she had protected both with a hard shell.
Because either she kept all the contradictions held in tightly or she wouldn’t have been able to function from the splitting apart, the falling apart.
After telling Peyton her story and crying it out, the two halves seemed to be integrating a little. She wasn’t sure how to explain it.
Who the hell knew.
“I’ll see you in class,” she said to Peyton as she came back out and put her boots on.
He mumbled again in his sleep and then roused well enough to properly focus on her. “Class? See you in class?”
“Yes. In class.”
As she leaned in and kissed him, she had the urge to say, “I love you”—and the impulse was so strong, she nearly spoke the three words aloud.
In the end, she settled for “I can’t wait.”
“Me, too.”
“Go back to sleep. You have at least an hour, maybe a little longer, before you have to get up.”
“Wish you didn’t have to go.”
“Me, too,” she parroted.
Over at the door, she took one last look at him. His lids were back down and he let out this long, slow exhale as if all were right in his world.
She felt the same way.
Out in the hall, she headed down for the stairs, striding along, her head both muddled and strangely clear. There was so much she hadn’t expected, from him and from herself…
It was as she came to the stairway that she realized she had made a mistake. In her distraction, she had gone right instead of left and ended up not at the head of the staff stairs, but rather the main, grand staircase.
“And who, may I ask, are you.”
She turned around. The male who had spoken was dressed in a three-piece suit that was dark as a shadow. He had thinning hair that was the same color as Peyton’s and autocratic features that would have been considered handsome but for his expression of total disdain.
“Well?” he demanded as he came toward her. “An answer, if you will.”
Up closer, she thought…no, Peyton’s father wasn’t as handsome as he appeared to be at a distance.
“I’m a friend of your son’s.”
“A friend. Of my son’s. Well. Has he paid you for your services, or are you looking to steal the silverware on the way out.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“I am not a whore,” she snapped.
“Oh. Forgive me,” he drawled. “So you just spent the day with him for free? That must mean you are hoping to become his shellan—but allow me to cut your aspirations short. He is to be mated unto a female of appropriate bloodline this week, so I’m terribly sorry, my dear, but there is no future for you with him.”
“Mated?” she whispered. “What are you—”
“He has consented and he has met her. And lest you think there will be a role for you on the side, I must disabuse you of that notion. Go ply your wares elsewhere. Off you go. Good night.”
She stumbled back, the words not translating into any comprehensible meaning.
“Not that way,” the male barked. “You are not front-door material. You must use the rear stairs—”
Novo turned and ran down the grand red and gold carpeted expanse, her feet flying over the steps as Peyton’s father continued to yell after her. At the front door, she fumbled with the locking mechanism, freeing herself just as a male servant came running in from some other place in the house.
Bursting out into the cold, she slipped and fell in the snow. Got back up and continued to run across the lawn, leaving a messy trail in the pristine snow.
Her heart was pounding and her head was swimming. Mostly, she was aware of being in pain once again; the reprieve she’d had, her head popping up out of a proverbial churning ocean for a breath of sustaining air, had lasted no time at all.
She did not cry, however.
It was the cold in her face that coaxed tears from her eyes. Only the cold.