"No," she said to Valerius. "I missed your question, sorry."
"Otto wanted to know if you like mushrooms."
"I'm totally ambivalent to them."
Valerius cast an amused look at her before he relayed the information to Otto. After he finished ordering their dinner, he put the phone back in his pocket. "Are you all right?"
No, she wasn't. The images and words of Zarek and Ash tumbled through her mind.
And she wanted to know who to believe.
"Where's your solarium?"
There was no missing the wave of apprehension that went through Valerius. "My what?"
"Your solarium. You do have one here, right?"
"I... uh, yes, I have one."
At least he didn't lie about it. "Can I see it?"
He went rigid. "Why?"
"I like solariums. They're nice rooms." Tabitha headed out of the library toward the other side of the house. "Would it be this way?"
"No," Valerius said as he followed her. "I still don't see why you'd want-"
"Humor me. Just for a sec, okay?"
Valerius debated. Something wasn't right with Tabitha, he could sense it. And yet he couldn't hide from the past; and for some reason he didn't understand, he didn't want to hide anything from her.
Inclining his head to her regally, he took a backward step toward the stairs. "If you'll follow me."
He led her up the stairs to the room beside his bedroom where the door was sealed with a keypad.
Tabitha watched him key in the code. The lock clicked. Valerius took a deep breath before he swung it wide.
Tabitha's heart shrank as she saw the statue in the middle of the solarium of a beautiful young woman. There was an eternal flame burning beside it
She looked up at Valerius, who refused to meet her eyes while he stared at the floor.
"So this is why you were freaking out about the lamp oil. You must really have loved her."
Valerius looked up at the statue as Tabitha's words rang in his ears. As always Agrippina's face stared out into nothingness. Blank. Cold.
Unfeeling.
His chest ached from the harsh reality of the past and his own particular stupidity of trying to hang on to something good from his human life.
"Honestly, I didn't even know her," he said quietly. "I most likely never spoke more than a handful of words to her during her lifetime and yet if I could have had a woman to love me, I would have been grateful for it to have been her."
Tabitha was stunned by his confession. "I don't understand. Why do you take care of a statue of a woman you didn't know?"
"I'm pathetic." He gave a bitter laugh. "No, actually I'm too pathetic for even the average pathetic. I take care of her statue because I wasn't able to take care of her." His anger and pain reached out to her and seized her heart.
"What are you talking about?"
His entire body rigid, he stared off to the side of the room. "Do you want the truth of me, Tabitha? Really?"