Chapter 6 Chapter 6: Devereux Household

Rain followed us all the way from Auremont.

It streaked across the windows of Alexander's car, blurring the city lights into long ribbons of gold and white while I sat beside him with my handbag clutched against my lap. Neither of us spoke much during the drive.

I had expected Alexander Laurent Devereux to live somewhere enormous and intimidating, perhaps a mansion hidden behind iron gates with enough empty rooms to make every footstep echo.

Instead, the car stopped before an elegant three-story townhouse tucked into a quiet private street lined with old trees and black lampposts.

The building was expensive. That much was obvious.

But it looked lived in.

Warm light glowed behind the windows. Despite the rain, flower boxes were placed under the first-floor windows, and ivy grew up one side of the pale stone exterior.

Alexander unlocked the front door and stepped aside. "You first."

I hesitated before crossing the threshold. But nothing prepared me for the feeling that followed.

A pair of women's shoes sat beside Alexander's polished black ones near the entrance.

Mine.

I knew they were mine before I even looked closely.

A cream-colored coat hung beside his dark overcoat. An umbrella with a curved wooden handle rested in the stand beneath them, its fabric patterned with tiny yellow flowers.

I touched the sleeve of the coat. "You kept this?"

Alexander closed the door behind us. "You left it there."

Three weeks ago.

He hadn't moved it.

I walked farther inside.

The house was luxurious without feeling staged. Books filled the shelves lining one wall of the living room, several with folded corners and handwritten notes peeking between their pages. A knitted blanket had been thrown carelessly over one end of the sofa.

A photograph sat beside a lamp.

I picked it up.

Alexander and I were sitting inside what appeared to be a small restaurant. There was nothing formal about it. My hair was tied messily above my head, and I was laughing so hard my eyes had nearly disappeared. Alexander wasn't looking at the camera. He was looking at me.

"What happened here?"

He glanced at the photograph. "You challenged me to eat something far spicier than either of us could tolerate."

"Who won?"

"Neither of us. You cried."

I stared at him.

"From laughing," he added.

I couldn't help but smile. 

The kitchen revealed even more.

Two mugs remained beside the coffee machine.

One was plain black.

The other was white with the words NOT BEFORE COFFEE printed across it.

I pointed toward it. "Mine?"

"You bought it specifically because I called it ridiculous."

"That sounds like something I would do."

"It was."

The certainty in his voice sent another strange ache through me. This wasn't merely a house containing photographs of a marriage I couldn't remember.

I was everywhere.

My perfume sat half-empty on a table near the staircase. A book lay facedown beside the sofa with a receipt marking the page. A hair tie circled the handle of one cabinet for reasons neither of us could probably explain.

Alexander hadn't preserved a museum. He had simply stopped changing the home after I disappeared from it.

I turned toward him. "You really didn't move anything."

"No."

"Why?"

His expression barely changed. "Because you were coming home."

The answer landed somewhere painfully deep. I looked away first. I was still examining the photograph when Alexander's voice came from behind me.

"Have you eaten?"

I looked over my shoulder. He had removed his coat and was loosening his tie as he walked toward the kitchen.

I thought back over the day.

Coffee I had never touched.

A sandwich between classes that I had abandoned after three bites.

Then, Alexander had kissed me against a terrace wall, someone had photographed us, and a stranger had broken into my condominium.

Apparently, food had become a low priority.

"Not really."

His brows drew together. "Cornelia."

"What?"

"You used to forget meals whenever you were upset."

"I don't remember that."

"I do."

Before I could object to the familiar answer, Alexander rolled his sleeves toward his elbows and opened the refrigerator.

I followed him. "What are you doing?"

"Making dinner."

"You cook?"

He looked mildly offended. "Why does everyone find that surprising?"

"Because you look like someone who pays other people to boil water."

His mouth curved. "I'll try not to take that personally."

The refrigerator was stocked far more normally than I expected. Alexander removed several ingredients and placed them on the counter before pausing. His hand hovered above one of them. Then, he looked at me.

"What?" I asked, blinking.

"I was about to make your usual."

I leaned against the counter. "What was my usual?"

His expression softened. "The meal you demanded whenever you had a terrible day."

"Which was?"

He told me, but instead of immediately beginning, he waited.

The hesitation caught my attention. "Why did you stop?"

"Because knowing what you used to want doesn't mean I get to decide what you want now."

For some reason, that simple sentence affected me more than it should have. Only hours earlier, he had admitted to tracking my phone, surrounding me with security, and installing hidden cameras inside my condominium.

Yet here he stood asking permission over dinner.

I looked at the ingredients spread across the counter. "Make it."

Alexander's brows lifted slightly. 

"I want to know whether I still like it."

Something warm entered his expression. "All right."

I sat at the kitchen island while he cooked.

There was something strangely intimate about watching Alexander Devereux move around a kitchen. Without his coat and with his sleeves pushed up, he looked less like the intimidating man Uncle Richard had spent weeks warning me about and more like someone I might actually have shared ordinary evenings with.

He knew where everything belonged without looking.

So did I.

When he asked where the pepper was, I pointed toward the cabinet beside the stove instinctively.

Both of us froze.

I stared at my own hand. "How did I know that?"

Alexander glanced toward the cabinet before looking back at me. "You organized the kitchen."

Apparently, my body remembered cupboards too.

Dinner was ready shortly afterward. We sat across from one another at a small table beside the windows while rain continued tapping against the glass.

I took my first bite.

Alexander watched me far too carefully.

I chewed. Then took another.

His mouth curved.

"What?"

"You still like it."

"Don't look so pleased with yourself."

"I'm not."

"You absolutely are."

"I've had a difficult three weeks. Allow me this."

A laugh escaped before I could stop it.

Alexander became still.

The reaction made my smile disappear.

"What?"

He stared at me for several seconds before lowering his gaze toward his plate. "Nothing."

"Alexander."

His fingers tightened slightly around his fork. "I haven't heard you laugh in three weeks."

The quiet confession settled between us. Suddenly, the dinner table no longer felt unfamiliar. Neither did the man sitting across from me. And that frightened me almost as much as everything else I had discovered that day.

After we finished eating, Alexander collected our plates despite my offer to help.

"You can interrogate me tomorrow," he said as he carried them toward the sink. "Tonight, you need sleep."

"I thought I was sleeping here."

He paused. "You are."

"Then, show me where."

Something almost wary entered his expression before his eyes moved toward the staircase. He eventually led me upstairs, where a wide hallway stretched between several closed doors. "You can use whichever guest room you prefer," he said.

I frowned. "Guest room?"

His hand remained on one of the doorknobs. "Yes."

"Where did I sleep before?"

Alexander slowly released the handle. His gaze moved toward the closed door at the opposite end of the hallway. "With me."

Heat crept into my face. "Oh."

"You asked."

"I know."

I stared at the door. Then, started toward it.

"Cornelia..."

"What?"

"That's not a guest room."

"I know that."

I opened the door before he could stop me.

The bedroom was larger than I expected, though strangely intimate. Rain tapped against tall windows overlooking the city, while muted lamps cast a soft glow across dark wooden furniture and an enormous bed occupying the center of the room.

Our bed.

The thought appeared before I could prevent it.

My chest tightened. Then, there was a photograph from our wedding stood on one nightstand. His watch rested on the other.

My side.

His side.

I wandered toward the bathroom.

My cosmetics remained arranged beside his shaving products. A pale silk robe hung behind the door.

I touched it carefully. "This is mine, too?"

"Yes."

I opened one drawer.

Then, immediately wished I hadn't.

Lace.

Very little lace.

Black, wine red, ivory, and several pieces of clothing that eighteen-year-old me would have died of embarrassment merely imagining herself wearing.

I slowly lifted one particularly questionable item between two fingers. "Those are mine?"

Behind me, Alexander became suspiciously quiet. I looked over my shoulder.

He was staring very deliberately at the ceiling. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Unfortunately?"

His jaw tightened. "Cornelia, close the drawer."

My embarrassment immediately transformed into amusement. "Why?"

"Because I'd like to survive tonight."

I looked down at the lingerie again. Apparently, twenty-eight-year-old Judith Cornelia Devereux had been significantly braver than I remembered being.

I returned it to the drawer. Mostly out of mercy.

Another drawer contained sleepwear, although half of it appeared suspiciously masculine. I pulled out a white button-down shirt.

"Why is this in my drawer?"

"Because you stole it."

"There are four."

"You were a repeat offender."

I held the shirt against myself. "You never took them back?"

"You usually weren't wearing enough underneath them for me to complain."

My mouth fell open.

Alexander finally looked at me. The corner of his mouth lifted.

"You're lying..." I slightly squinted my eyes.

"I'm really not."

Twenty-eight-year-old me was becoming increasingly difficult to comprehend.

"I need something to sleep in."

"Your clothes are still here."

"Those clothes belong to a woman I don't remember being."

His expression softened.

I looked at the shirt again. "This feels easier."

Alexander's gaze lingered on it for half a second too long before he turned toward the door. "I'll wait outside."

When I emerged from the bathroom several minutes later, the shirt reached halfway down my thighs. I had rolled the sleeves to my elbows and left several buttons undone at the collar because fastening it completely somehow felt stranger.

Alexander had returned with a glass of water. He stopped walking.

I glanced down at myself. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You're staring."

His grip tightened around the glass. "I'm trying very hard not to." Heat crawled up my neck. He placed the water on the nightstand with unnecessary concentration. "I'll show you the guest room."

"No."

Alexander looked at me.

"I want to sleep here."

"No." The immediate refusal offended me.

"It was my bedroom, too." I placed my hands on the either side of my hips.

"It still is."

"Then, why can't I sleep here?"

His jaw flexed. "Because you kissed me once today, Cornelia, and I have spent the last six hours thinking about doing it again."

My irritation disappeared. Alexander exhaled slowly and looked away.

"So, you don't trust yourself?"

"I trust myself perfectly."

"That doesn't sound convincing."

"It wasn't intended to."

Curiosity overcame common sense. I walked closer.

Alexander watched every step. My fingers found the loosened knot of his tie.

"Did we sleep together every night?"

"Cornelia..."

"That wasn't an answer."

"Yes."

I lightly pulled the tie. "Did I always wear your shirts?"

"Often enough that I eventually stopped asking where they went."

"Did you like it?"

His gaze traveled slowly from my bare legs to the open collar of the shirt before meeting my eyes again. "You already know the answer."

My heartbeat quickened. I should have stepped away. Instead, my hand slid from his tie toward the scar crossing his palm.

The moment my fingers touched it, pressure struck behind my eyes.

The bedroom blurred. For half a second, I saw the same bed underneath moonlight.

Alexander above me.

My hands around his face.

His mouth moving against mine while laughter escaped between kisses.

Then, pain sliced through my temple.

I swayed, and Alexander caught me immediately.

"Cornelia."

Before I realized it, I was perched on the edge of the bed with Alexander kneeling between my knees, his hands firmly resting on my waist. "Look at me," he said softly with a hint of concern.

I opened my eyes. His face was inches from mine. "I'm fine."

"You're not."

"It was another memory."

His expression sharpened. "What did you see?"

I hesitated.

Us.

Here.

Doing something I suddenly didn't possess the courage to describe.

My fingers rose instead, brushing along his cheek. Alexander froze. "How did I kiss you?"

His hands tightened slightly around my waist. "You should stop asking questions you aren't ready to have answered."

"Show me."

"Cornelia." His jaw tightened.

I brushed my thumb over his lower lip. "Show me."

Whatever remained of his restraint broke.

Alexander kissed me.

There was nothing cautious about it this time.

His hand slid into my hair while the other pulled me toward the edge of the mattress, fitting my body against his. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders instinctively, opening beneath his kiss as though some buried part of me had been waiting for exactly this.

Heat spread through me when his mouth moved from mine toward my jaw.

My fingers tightened in his hair. "Xander..."

Alexander stopped. His forehead dropped against mine, both of us breathing too hard. "If you want me tomorrow," he murmured, "ask me again."

I blinked. "Why tomorrow?"

"Because tonight you walked into a house full of memories you don't have." His thumb brushed slowly over my waist. "I won't let you confuse wanting answers with wanting me."

"What if I already know the difference?"

His eyes darkened. "Then, you'll still know tomorrow." He stood before I could argue and walked out of the bedroom.

I hated how much that frustrated me.

I slept in our bed anyway.

Or tried to.

By midnight, I had spent nearly an hour staring at the ceiling while rain whispered against the windows. Eventually, I gave up.

Barefoot and still wearing Alexander's shirt, I went downstairs. He stood near the living room windows with his sleeves rolled to his elbows, a glass resting loosely in one hand as he watched the rain.

No cigarette.

He turned when he heard me. His gaze dropped to the shirt. Then to my bare legs. Then very deliberately returned to my face.

I glanced toward the clock on the wall.

12:03 a.m.

"You told me to ask you tomorrow."

Alexander closed his eyes briefly. "Cornelia..." I could almost picture him running his hand down his handsome face.

I smiled. "It's tomorrow."