Page 133

He left then.

And his words stayed.

I stared at the doorway feeling the weight of his words. Then I started to piece things together. The way Alaric was around me. The house has rules. He was colder before. Tightly wound. Stoic. And now… now he was smiling. Well, smirking for Alaric was most probably a smile. I thought about the day he’d smile for real. Those hard lips curling so hard they took space on that handsome face.

He was dangerous.

And somehow that only made me want him more.

It wasn’t just heat that found me then. It was something deeper, something… inevitable.

I moved slower to the stack of bulbs and vases and other items Mrs. Reid needed replacing in the rooms and started gathering them up. Vases first. Stickers placed on the sides of everything told me exactly where each of them belonged.

I kept myself busy.

Bulb for the second bedroom in the south wing. Vase for the pantry cupboard in the north. Three more bulbs were out in the lamps along the east wing. Alaric’s wing. My pulse sped with the thought of walking along his hallway again.

Thunder.

Rain.

My pulse beating a hundred miles an hour as I stared at the closed doors to his bedroom.

God, I couldn’t believe I did that.

Couldn’t believe I… I acted.

I gathered everything in my arms and headed out, making my way through the house wing by wing and room by room, leaving two last bulbs in my hand. Study. I stared at the stickers and Mrs. Reid’s neat writing.

Alaric was in the study.

Maybe he was already gone?

I shifted my focus.

It was quiet.

Yeah, he was gone.

I headed for the front of the house and turned at the entrance to the library.

But Alaric wasn’t gone.

He sat there, behind his desk, earphones in for a second at least. Mrs. Reid was walking ahead of me, carrying a small tray of supplies. She headed for the coffee machine against the far wall as I entered behind her.

Alaric’s attention shifted. Just a slight turn of his head.

But he was aware of me.

He slowly pulled his earphones out.

“I put fresh tea in the pot,” Mrs. Reid started. “And have ordered a new delivery of fruit like you asked for.”

She prattled on.

But he wasn’t listening.

I placed the bulbs down on the end of his desk.