his heart would heal back up. I sniffed his shirt. The scent of him, tired, warm skin, only a hint left of his woodsy aroma swam through my limbs like a drug.
Beneath my arms, his muscles were tense and hard and I longed to slip my hands under his shirt.
It took a moment to realize how stiff his body was, and then he was setting me away from him.
The loss of him was like a chill wind.
He opened his mouth, then closed it and swallowed heavily, his eyes flicking away for a moment.
A rock dropped in my stomach. “Um,” I began, “I’m so very relieved Dauphine is home. Glad you are both home. I know you’re tired.” Not knowing what to do with my arms, I folded them across my chest. “We can talk tomorrow. You need to sleep.”
And I wish I could curl around you in your bed, I mentally added, or you would curl around me and take whatever comfort you need.
He nodded, mute.
The loud sound of ticking filled the silence, and my eyes sought out the antique clock sitting on a bookcase filled with hardback books. He didn’t make a move to leave so I sat back down stiffly, my hands pressed between my knees.
He turned, the low light playing with the planes of his face highlighting his exhaustion.
I didn’t want to be another problem he had to solve before he slept tonight.
“Xavier.”
He scrubbed his hand down his face, and then his looming form skirted the coffee table and came toward me.
Sitting back, I leaned away to look up at his face.
“I know you need my apology,” he said, lowering on to the coffee table in front of me, legs spread.
I nodded. “I do.”
“And you are angry.”
“I was. And I was hurt.” I licked my lips to find moisture, and my eyes stung with the remembered ache of his distrust.
“I’m sorry, Josephine. You will never know how much. I am normally better at controlling myself, but of course I have never faced a nightmare like someone taking my daughter.”
“Of course, I know that,” I said. I wasn’t a parent, but even I had felt the horror of learning Dauphine was missing. With that as the touchstone emotion of the day, it now had me feeling silly for being hurt. But then the accusing words he’d hurled at me echoed in my memory, making me annoyed for letting him off the hook. “Even though I understand.” I paused, trying to find the right words. “You found it so easy to blame me. Even knowing how much I love Dauphine. Even after what you and I shared. Why?”
He drew his bottom lip between his teeth. “Evan had told me about Morosto … then when I saw the card … I, took a jump, what is the expression?”
“Jumped to conclusions?”
“Oui. C’est ça. Jumped to conclusions.”
“That doesn’t tell me why you thought I was capable of something so horrific.”
His eyes stared into mine, weary. Conflicted. Fighting, and tired of fighting. He reached his hand up and pinched a strand of my hair that had fallen out of its braid, rubbing it between his fingers.
“I want to hold you,” I admitted, and I thought my chin might be wobbling. “Comfort you. I wish you’d looked to me for help instead of pushing me away. It’s all right to need someone, Xavier.”
He blinked slowly, looking into my eyes and searching my face but didn’t respond.
And my words now felt silly and far too vulnerable bouncing off his silence. “It’s late,” I said, swallowing his silent rejection. “You should go and be with your daughter in case she wakes up.”
He let go of my hair and rubbed the back of his neck as if to ease an ache. He took a shallow breath, then stopped. Words seemed on the tip of his tongue.
“What?” I asked.
“This thing between us … je sais pas … it was … I am not … I do not want you to go, but I cannot ask you to stay.”
My hopeful heart leapt at his words. Though I hated how weak that made me, especially after his lackluster apology.
“I do not want to use Dauphine to try to ask you to stay,” he went on. “She will miss you very much. The first question she had for me was where you were. And I hoped you would be here.” His head bowed. “But I would have understood if you left after the reaction I had. After what I said. I’ll