Page 151 of House of Roots and Ruin
“What a pity.”
He stepped inside, crossing over to the settee, and I nearly fell off it, struggling to distance myself as he sat.
“You look unwell,” he observed, setting the candle down on the table in front of us.
“Just a headache,” I said, repeating my earlier lie.
“I shouldn’t wonder, sleeping with all those clips digging into your scalp.”
With a flick of his wrist, he grabbed the combs holding my waves in place. They came toppling down my shoulders, streaming long and loose, and a flush crept over me, burning as bright as a fever.
This was too intimate.
Too undone.
Too…
“Beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes dancing over me.
I buried my hands in the fullness of my skirts, my mind full of impossible wonderings.
What if I held his gaze a moment too long? What if our hands brushed, just a touch?
Would we truly spark the world’s destruction?
Alex,I thought fiercely, dragging him to the forefront of my mind. It slapped like a cold wave, dousing the treacherous desire coiling through me.
I’d never betray him. I knew that with all my heart.
But oh, how the deep, wicked wondering parts of me wanted to.
“You seemed upset earlier,” I said, carefully slipping from his brazen touch. “In the statue garden. When Julien said he’d give the dukedom to Alex.”
Viktor shrugged. “It makes no difference to me if he wants to give up the title and all its trappings but I would have thought he’d at least inquire if I’d like them. He’s right, though, I suppose. I haven’t the faintest idea how to run a place like this, do the things I’d be expected to…. Still. No one ever thinks to ask what I want.”
“Whatdoyou want?”
It was a simple-sounding question but heat stole across my chest as his gaze fell on me. As I realized how he might construe my meaning. As I wondered if he’dwantto construe it.
He ran his tongue over the sharp edges of his teeth, considering. “Right now?”
My mouth opened but no words came out.
“A walk with you?” Viktor suggested.
“A walk?” I repeated. “It’s so late….”
His lips rose. “What better time? It’s not as though I could take you out for a stroll in broad daylight. What would the staff think—Alexander suddenly springing from his chair just in time to waltz you down the aisle?” His eyes shifted downcast to his lap.
“What are you doing here, Viktor? Truly?”
He shrugged, his lightness dimming. “Truthfully…I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Father’s notes,written across my mind as sharp as a brand.Too volatile.” He swallowed. “I feel as though he summed up and discarded my entire life in just two words.”
“He might have written it down, but it doesn’t make it true,” I murmured hesitantly. It was clear he was hurting but I hadn’t the slightest idea how to go about comforting him.
Hewasvolatile; it was impossible to pretend otherwise.
But that didn’t make him expendable, dismissible.
