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“You can’t read those.” I made a greater effort to sit up. “They’re my private notes—”
“I already have.”
Did he not have a shred of decency? Had I written anything about him in there, anything… private? I didn’t believe so, but my head was still fogged and my thoughts sluggish. “All of them?”
“You’ve been asleep for…” He took a watch from his pocket. “Twelve hours. I’ve unpacked your belongings, folded them away, organized your drawers, hung your day suits, and studied your books. What else was I to do?”
“What?” Had he been here all this time? And he’d unpacked all my luggage? Why? “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
He huffed through his nose. “You’re insufferable.”
I’d locked the door, hadn’t I? “How did you get in?”
He sighed again. If I was so exhausting, then he could go.
“Leave,” I growled, and immediately wished I hadn’t. I didn’t want him to go, but my mouth wasn’t connected to my heart, just my head, and that was foul.
He stood so fast that the chair almost toppled over. He would leave, and then I’d be alone again, and I didn’t want that either.
“Wait…” I winced and buried my face in my hands. “I er… Don’t go. I’m… sorry.” I groaned and flopped back onto the bed, not yet awake enough to battle with Devere.
He loitered in the middle of the room, torn between abandoning me to stew in my shame and staying for reasons unknown. If he left, it would probably be for the best. But I liked having him near, liked the fact he’d come. Devere, of all people, had been worried about me.
“I had planned to come back a new man.” I chuckled at my own foolishness. “But look at me… I’m the same as I always was.” A failure, broken, wrong, no good.
He tutted. “There was nothing wrong with you before.”
Good gracious, had he said something nice? Perhaps I was still dreaming. I turned my head on the pillow and caught him frowning. His new permanent expression.
His gaze crawled back to me. “Why are you smiling?”
I promptly banished the smile. “No, I’m not.”
“Hmm.” He righted the chair at the desk and poured his lean body into it with innate fluidity. He’d make a fine dancer. Had anyone ever taken him dancing?
I’d dreamed of him, I was certain of that, and while the dreams had vanished like mist after the dawn, their warmth remained. Some dreams were worth having.
He caught me watching him and glowered. “Let us discuss your work.”
“No, that’s definitely not what we should do. I need to”—I swung my legs off the side of the bed—“get cleaned up, change my clothes, and pretend all of this never happened.”
I stood, feeling somewhat like myself again, and headed for the washing area at the back of the room. A screen had been provided, so I could strip and change in privacy while he glowered on the other side.
“According to your research, and your extensive notes, it’s quite clear who killed Jacapo,” he said.
It was? I peeked around the screen. He’d studied all of my work and books for twelve hours and thought he’d solved what I could not? “Who is it, then?”
He leaned an arm over the back of the chair and said simply, “Me.”
This was a game. He was toying with me. I laughed. “It’s not you.”
“Why not?”
“You want to do this? You want to get into this now?”
He spread his hands. “I have nowhere else to be.”
