Page 100 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

I could have sworn that even my tears froze. His heart was no longer steady. It beat fast. As fast as mine.

My head jerked up. His eyes were open—the most remarkable shade of grey. And he was smiling at me.

“Apollo!” I gasped and sobbed harder, the weight of my relief almost unendurable. I threw my body at him, flinging my arms around his neck. He groaned in pain. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you? Are you okay? I should call—”

He seized my hands to prevent me from leaving. “Just… let me look at you for a moment.” He looked at me for several moments. He looked at me until I knew what it felt like to be seen. Then the barest of frowns was carved between his brows. His voice came harsh after days of inactivity, “You didn’t go home.”

I threaded my fingers through his hair, laughing through my tears. “I am home.”

With a ragged sigh, he leaned forward to brush his lips against mine. The kiss was so brief and fragile that it made me tremble.

“How are you feeling?” I whispered.

“Like glass went through me,” he rasped as he tried to sit upright. I bent over him and fixed the pillows behind his back, my movements as jolty as the heart in my chest.

He is okay. We’re okay. Gods, we’re going to be okay.

Apollo fitted his hands around my waist and gently pulled me back. “I’m fine, darling. You don’t have to do that for me.”

I nodded, wiping my face with the sleeve of my dress.

“Is Isa—”

“In prison. But she is well,” I reassured him. “Your parents are far more gracious than I am. I would have killed her for what she did to you.”

Apollo laced his fingers through my hair. “Don’t say that, darling. We both know you don’t mean it.”

“I’m so angry,” I admitted. “It’s eating me alive.”

“The anger will pass,” he promised, lowering his lips to my forehead. “We will rise above it.”

His hand at the nape of my neck started to tremble, and panic flared in my chest at once. “Apollo, are you okay?”

“I’m just… I still can’t believe…” He shut his eyes for a moment, breathing so hard that I was afraid he was going to faint. “I could have lost you. I dragged you into this mess and—”

“It wasn’t your fault, Apollo,” I choked the words out. “Please don’t blame yourself for this. Promise me you won’t.”

He turned his face away from me and gazed toward the window, more reticent and solemn than I’d ever seen him before. Then, in a kind of breathless disbelief, he slipped a hand over his chest.

“Your heart,” I muttered. “You have it now.”

He glanced at me. “I’ve had it from the moment I met you, as it seems.”

Without knowing how to even begin this conversation now that he was still tender and recovering, I pulled his letter out of my dress pocket and unfolded it carefully between my fingers. A spark of surprise kindled in his eyes. Then a knowing smile.

“I found this at your desk,” I said, my voice strained. “Why didn’t you give it to me?”

“Darling, I’m full of letters I haven’t given you yet,” he said.

Stardust began fizzing through my bloodstream. “But…Haven’t your feelings changed? Now that I don’t literally own your heart, I mean.”

A rakish grin crossed his face. “Throwing myself in front of flying glass for you wasn’t enough of a statement, huh?”

I scowled. “Don’t tease me.”

“Don’t make it so fun to tease you, darling,” he laughed. But I was too scared and overwhelmed to join in the laughter. Instead, I waited for realization to sink in, for him to lower his eyes and tell me that he was sorry, that it was all a mistake, that it was his heart dangling from my neck that had been drawing him to me all along and not love—how could he ever love a girl he knew so little?

“Nepheli?”

---