Evan nodded at me. “I’ll arrange to have your belongings delivered here tomorrow,” he said as he headed toward the door. “Good night, Josie.”

I wanted to follow Evan out and ask him about my flight home. Looking toward Xavier, I was about to tell him goodnight too.

“Josephine, please stay a moment?” He nodded at both his mother and Evan, and they left us alone.

Chapter Forty-Five

Xavier and I stared at each other in the dim light of the library sitting room. He seemed so far away, and so exhausted, harrowing lines of the panic he’d faced earlier today etched around his eyes and bracketing his mouth. In any other situation where someone so dear to me had been through what Xavier had been through, I’d have been up and in his arms to hold him and comfort him.

Screw it.

I seemed to fly across the room, giving in to a decision I hadn’t even known I’d made, and wrapped my arms around his torso.

He stumbled as he caught me.

Maybe if I held him tight enough, all those cracks and fissures in 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.”