Page 99

I smile.

“It’s finally working out.”

“Oh really, that’s good. Who is the girl, again?”

“A girl from the Academy. Her name is Ellise.”

I keep my eyes locked firmly on my plate, not looking up from the bowl.

The silence that follows has a particular suffocating quality to it.

“She must be talented,” Carmela states carefully, “to be paired with you, Amore mio.”

That is another thing about Carmela. She has always been my biggest cheerleader. It is easily one of her more endearing qualities, and also occasionally, like right now, one of her deeply inconvenient ones.

“She is—” I pause slightly longer than intended. “She is a beautiful musician.”

Beautiful musician. Fuck sake, Julian. Control your tongue.

Carmela places her cup back on the table and snickers.

“Beautiful,” she echoes, letting the word sit there.

She’s a talented musician. She’s a violin prodigy. Anything else would have been sufficient.

I can see the spark of triumph in her eyes, and I can feel the bead of sweat forming on my forehead. It has absolutely nothing to do with the speed at which I am devouring this spaghetti bolognese and everything to do with the fact that Carmela has been reading me since I was three years old, and I have never once successfully hidden anything from her.

“Will she be joining you here over Christmas?” she asks.

“No.” The words come out sharper and faster than intended.

“Ah.” Carmela takes another slow sip of her tea. The particular serenity of a woman who has all the information she needs and is choosing not to press further. “That’s a shame,” she says simply.

I say absolutely nothing, burying my face back into my dinner. She just smiles into her cup, thoroughly amused by how much this conversation is making me sweat.

“More bolognese, sweetheart?”

“Yes please.” The words come out immediately, but it is extraordinary bolognese, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

I end up in the library after two and a half servings of dinner, almost bursting at the seams.

Carmela was convinced I wasn’t full enough, so she continued piling portions onto my plate, making up for two days without properly feeding me.

I ate them. Obviously, I ate them.

It shouldn’t be here—the library. My original plan was to hit the gym, the purpose built complex at the edge of the gardens. It’s the kind of building that is designed when money really isn’t a problem—indoor pool, steam and sauna, equipment that Alistair had installed for reasons unknown to me. I’ve never once seen him use any of it.

That’s where I was going.

I wanted to try to work off this restless tension and try to clear my head, but after all of the food I consumed, I was physically incapable of exercise.

Now, I’m standing in the doorway in the pitch dark, letting myself think about Ellise in this exact room.

I lean my shoulder against the doorframe for a moment, letting myself think about the way she explored the shelves with her fingertips touching the spines softly enough, like she was afraid to disturb them.

The way her face lit with pure excitement when she stumbled across the first edition of Wuthering Heights.

How she stood completely still when I reached past her, trapping her against the books, my chest brushing against her.