To rephrase, a man.
His hair’s too long to be trendy. His muscles are too stunning to be gym-grown. He’s new in town; that much is clear. The rugged edges haven’t been primped out of him yet. But here he is, so enormous that he’s ducking to step free from the cabinet.
But none of this can be right either. No way has he just materialized from the thin air inside that thing.
My brain must be more tired than I think. The logical explanation is right here in front of me, after all. Somehow, in some insane way, he’s gotten in from the balcony and was hiding in the corner, just waiting—
To do what?
“Oh God,” I rasp—already confronted by that answer from the gaze that locks on me. His irises are as rich as a Godiva sampler, except with twenty-four carat gold stirred in. But not the liquid dessert kind. The flecks that glint beneath his ungodly thick eyelashes…they’ve been extracted from the hardest stone. They’re attentive and ruthless, not missing an inch of any move I make.
Of course they are. Because he’s a criminal.
Which means I should be screaming. At the least, using my blade to back him off long enough to grab my phone and run for the bathroom. Behind that locked door, I’ll at least be able to punch the emergency button and give someone enough information to—
But I’m not doing any of that. Because apparently, I’m an idiot.
I just continue to let this gorgeous Gigantor hold me in his stealthy thrall. I keep standing here, unmoving, as he shuffles another step closer. I quiver, which makes my blade noticeably wobble, encouraging him to scrape forward by another inch.
Wait. He’s shuffling? And scraping?
Against all my better instincts, I glance down. Sure enough, the man isn’t wearing shoes. On a March night. In New York City.
So maybe he didn’t sneak in here to burglarize the apartment. Maybe he’s just after a little warmth and comfort.
And maybe you’re a little insane.
The rebuke reverberates through my mind in Drue’s voice. At once I spit back, “Just roll a giant one and take a drag, okay? Kindness is more on-trend than Docs, okay?”
Gigantor’s mighty brow turns into a bunch of furrows. “You want me to drag rolls where? Pourquoi, my love?”
I join him in the realm of deep furrows. “Ermmm…I…uhhh…” Have no idea what to say to him now. My rudimentary French extends to a decent translation of his query, but all my brain can generate is a question for his question. “My love?” Ohhh, no. Buddy…I think we need to talk…
“If you need a physician, I can make haste to find one,” he murmurs, coming closer. God help me, he’s definitely no longer scuffling about it. He reaches over, grabbing both my wrists—startling me into dropping the weapon that never really was one. “What do you need, ma magie? Name it and it is yours.”
If I had another switchblade—or, say, an AK47—the thing would be joining its predecessor on the floor. His words… His words. They’re so forceful yet fervent…
They’re so French.
The observation collides on top of others. Too many others.
Like the fact that he’s shirtless and barefoot yet wearing pants crafted from a lush vintage silk in a decadent caramel shade.
Like the fact that those pants aren’t pants at all—but breeches. Seriously authentic breeches.
Like the fact that I shoot my stare back up to the breathtaking grandeur of his face, finally plugging it in to the real reason why I haven’t even tried to race across the room and summon NYPD’s finest on his ass.
Like the fact that I’m not concentrating on his backside right now. Instead, I’m gawking at his face.
I’m remembering that face.
From a whole, crazy year ago.
From when it stared back at me from the wall of a private portrait gallery inside Château De Leon. It belonged to the subject of the painting mounted next to Maximillian’s. I should know. I studied the thing for long minutes as Allie stood next to me, trying to accept the truth that the man who’d popped out of the wardrobe in her bedroom wasn’t a lunatic stripper-actor but a nobleman named Maximillian De Leon. A hero who’d traversed time itself to get to her.
The realization does everything and nothing for me.
And neither do the words that it compels out of me, in pieces of stuttering shock. “Holy…shit. You… You’re…Bastien De Leon.”
CHAPTER FOUR
BASTIEN
I laugh, but the eruption is forced. My scowl feels even more foreign, something that belongs nowhere near my face with her scent in my senses, her skin beneath my touch, her pulse beating so steadily with mine.
Her heart…beating again.
Her life, so full and brilliant again.
For which I must be grateful, even if she still regards me as naught more than a stranger.
“Oui, ma chérie,” I murmur. “It is me. You know that.”
But does she?
The woman before me now is…different. Not in the apparent ways, like her lush titian curls, lightly freckled nose, and elegant body. It is the way she presents all of that. She seems more fearless about the words from her lips and the wit of her mind instead of the allure of her beauty.
Why does it all baffle me so? This is everything I have been striving for with her! The self-confidence I have been fighting to instill in her for nearly a year. It is all as radiant on her as I anticipated, except that none of it feels exactly…right. Not yet. That should come as no surprise either. The price we have paid for this to manifest…
I scowl and heave those thoughts to the back of my mind. She keeps gawking as if I am the one who has defeated death. No. Worse. She regards me like a complete stranger.
Mon dieu. Perhaps I am.
What if she journeyed beyond the veils, only to pay a price of her own for the return? The currency of her memories. But not all of them. She knows who I am but not who I am.
“Wh-Why are you here?”
Something inside me deflates. The bursting cloud of the hope that she was adopting a coy pretense about her bewilderment. But I see the truth now, etched across her whole face. She is not playing.
Which means I cannot do the same about winning back her recall. I have to combat her odd fugue with something more powerful. The potency of my truth. The power of my love.
“I think you already know that, little lily.”
She looks ready to vomit and laugh within the same three seconds. “Just indulge me, Desperado.”
Not an inaccuracy. I still am on the edge of desperation, though I sense that is not her meaning. I push aside the confusion to assert, “Search yourself deeply, ma magie. You know I am here…because of you.”
A sizable swallow takes over the column of her neck. “Unreal,” she mutters. “This isn’t…it just can’t be…”
“No!” I push past so many things that validate her assertion—the opulence of our new surroundings, the odd sounds from outside, her sudden preference for English instead of French—and grip her tighter. “It can be. You must believe that! I did, even when Kavia ordered me to do the same. You know that I was thinking she had jumped off into the loon lagoon, yes? But I wanted to believe her, chérie. I wanted to believe that somehow, she would lead me back to you…”