Chapter 7 Chapter 7: It's Tomorrow

Alexander stared at me as if I had just presented him with a problem he had no intention of surviving.

Rain continued streaming down the tall windows behind him, turning the city beyond the glass into a haze of scattered lights. The drink in his hand remained forgotten while his gaze traveled from my bare feet to the hem of his shirt resting against my thighs before finally returning to my face.

The clock on the wall read 12:03 a.m.

"You told me to ask you tomorrow," I reminded him.

His eyes closed briefly. "Cornelia..."

I smiled, even as a nervous flutter stirred in my stomach. "It's tomorrow."

"That is not what I meant..."

"Well..." I paused and crossed my arms over my chest. "You should have been more specific."

When his eyes opened again, there was no amusement in them. Something darker had replaced it.

Alexander placed his glass on the table with deliberate care. The soft click against the wood somehow sounded louder than the rain. He did not approach me.

That surprised me.

Hours ago, I had watched his restraint fracture beneath a single kiss. I had felt the way his hands tightened around my waist and heard the change in his breathing when I whispered Xander against his mouth.

Yet now that I had come downstairs willingly, dressed in nothing but one of his shirts, he remained across the room as though distance were the only thing keeping his control intact.

"Do you understand what you're asking me?" he finally said.

My smile faded. "Yes."

"You remembered fragments tonight."

"I know."

"You walked into this house and found a marriage you cannot remember. Your clothes are upstairs. Your photographs are on my walls. You slept in my bed for years, and tonight was the first time you saw any of it."

"I know that, too."

His jaw tightened. "I am not going to let you wake tomorrow and wonder whether you came to me because you were trying to become the woman in those photographs."

That stopped me.

For all Alexander's possessiveness, he had been frustratingly consistent about one thing. He wanted me to choose. Not the woman I had been.

Me.

I crossed the room slowly. His attention followed every step. When I stopped in front of him, barely a foot of space remained between us. "I'm not asking because of what I remember."

Alexander said nothing.

"I remember cherry blossoms. Your voice at the crash. A few seconds of us in that bedroom." I swallowed. "That isn't enough to tell me what our marriage was like. It isn't enough to tell me whether I'll remember everything tomorrow or ten years from now."

His expression shifted slightly at the last words.

"But I know what happened today." My fingers curled lightly against the hem of his shirt. "I know how I felt when you kissed me." His gaze dropped to my mouth. "I know I couldn't sleep because I kept thinking about you downstairs."

His breathing changed. Barely.

But I noticed.

"And I know I came looking for you because I wanted to."

"Cornelia..."

"I'm not trying to remember what she wanted." I moved closer until the front of his shirt brushed lightly against my body. "I'm telling you what I want now."

The silence that followed felt different from every other silence we had shared. Alexander looked at me as if he were searching for uncertainty and becoming increasingly disturbed by his inability to find it.

His hand lifted. For one second, I expected him to touch me. Instead, his fingers curled into his palm. "If you change your mind at any point—"

"Alexander."

His eyes darkened. "Cornelia."

"Take me upstairs."

Whatever fragile restraint had remained between us seemed to snap. His hand closed around my waist.

I barely had time to inhale before Alexander pulled me against him and kissed me. Nothing about this kiss resembled the careful one on the university terrace.

There was no testing, no hesitation, no cautious question hidden behind the pressure of his mouth. He kissed me like a man who had spent three weeks starving beside a table he refused to touch.

My hands immediately rose to his shoulders. His shirt bunched beneath my fingers as he backed me several steps until my hips met the edge of the table. The movement startled a breath from me.

Alexander stopped instantly. His forehead rested against mine while his hand remained warm against my waist. "Still sure?"

The question came roughly. I stared at him. This man had secretly placed cameras in my condominium. He knew my schedule. He knew what I drank, where I went, what frightened me, and apparently exactly how many shirts I had stolen during our marriage.

Yet right now, with desire written openly across his face, he was waiting for permission.

I slid my fingers into his hair. "Yes."

Alexander kissed me again. Heat rushed through me as his hand moved from my waist to the small of my back, drawing me closer. My body seemed to understand him faster than my mind could follow. I tilted my face without thinking, and his mouth adjusted immediately as though he had anticipated the movement.

That familiarity should have frightened me.

Instead, it made me want to discover how much more my body remembered.

When we finally separated, my breathing had become embarrassingly uneven. Alexander's was not much better. I glanced toward the staircase. "Are we going upstairs, or were you planning to keep interrogating me?"

A low sound escaped him that might have been a laugh if it had contained any actual humor. "You were always impatient."

"There you go again."

"What?"

"Comparing me to her."

His expression softened. "To you."

"The old me."

"There was never an old and new Cornelia to me." Something in the way he said it calmed me down. Alexander brushed his thumb along my cheek. "You lost memories. You did not become someone else."

I looked at him for several seconds before covering his hand with mine. "Then, let me decide what this version of me wants."

His gaze sharpened. "Dangerous sentence."

"Why?"

"Because you have no idea how badly I want to believe you."

I turned my face and pressed a small kiss against his palm. Alexander froze in place. Then, he took my hand and led me upstairs.

The bedroom looked different after midnight. Only one lamp remained on beside the bed, while rain traced silver lines across the dark windows. The sheets I had disturbed earlier were still folded back on my side.

Our side.

Alexander released my hand once we entered. The sudden distance confused me. He removed his watch and placed it on the nightstand, then loosened the remaining buttons at his wrists without looking at me.

"You're nervous," I said.

That finally made him glance over. "No."

"You absolutely are."

"I am attempting to exercise good judgment."

"At twelve fifteen in the morning?"

"An unfamiliar concept for both of us."

I laughed. The reaction stopped him again. For the second time that night, Alexander simply watched me laugh as though it were something precious enough to hurt.

The sight softened something inside me.

I walked toward him. "Can I ask you something?"

"You usually do whether I agree or not."

"Did you already know everything I liked?"

His expression became noticeably guarded. "When we were together?" I nodded. "Yes."

The answer made warmth rise under my skin.

"Then, this should be easy for you."

"No."

I frowned.

Alexander reached for me, settling his hands lightly at my hips. "I knew what you liked."

"What's the difference?"

His thumbs brushed once against the fabric of his shirt covering me. "Tonight, you tell me." My heartbeat stumbled. He lowered his head until his mouth hovered near mine but did not close the distance. "I don't want you wondering tomorrow whether I touched you because I remembered a version of you that you couldn't." His voice dropped. "You want something, you tell me."

"And if I don't know what I want?"

"Then, we find out."

Together.

He did not say the word.

He did not need to.

I touched the knot of his tie, slowly working it loose as Alexander watched my fingers. "You're staring again," I pointed out.

"I warned you about wearing my shirts."

"I thought you liked them."

"I do."

"Then, what's the problem?"

His eyes lifted to mine. "The problem is that I remember exactly what usually happened after you wore one to bed."

Heat rushed immediately into my cheeks. Apparently, my former self had left me several humiliating surprises tonight. I pulled his tie free and let it fall onto the floor between us. 

Alexander's gaze followed it briefly. Then returned to me. "Was that your attempt at seduction?"

"I'm eighteen in my head. Give me some credit."

For the first time, he actually laughed. The sound was quiet and unexpectedly warm, transforming his face enough that I understood why the woman in our photographs had looked at him the way she did.

I wanted to hear it again. Instead, I placed my hands against his chest. His amusement disappeared. "Teach me," I whispered.

His whole body froze beneath my hands. "Cornelia..."

"Not what I used to want." I rose onto my toes, brushing my mouth lightly against his. "What I want now."

His hands tightened around my hips.

I kissed him again, slowly this time. Without memory deciding anything for me.

Alexander let me control it for several seconds before his restraint began slipping beneath my hands. His fingers slid under the loose hem of the shirt, just enough for the warmth of his palms to graze my skin.

I inhaled sharply. He stopped. "Here?" I understood immediately what he was asking.

My answer came without hesitation. "Yes."

Something fierce and almost reverent entered his expression. Alexander lowered his forehead against mine. "Last chance to tell me to behave."

A smile tugged at my mouth. "You've spent three weeks stalking your own wife."

His thumb moved slowly against my waist. "I think that opportunity passed a long time ago."

"Then, stop pretending."

His eyes darkened. This time, when Alexander kissed me, there was no restraint left to mistake for hesitation.

And for the first time since waking in the hospital, I stopped wondering what Judith Cornelia Devereux would have chosen.

I already knew what I wanted.

Him.