“Yes,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The cab driver was silent the entire way back, although when he drove up to the estate entrance he let out a low whistle between his teeth. I gave him a big tip and thanked him as best as I could in Hungarian. Eliot didn’t say a word as we entered the house, but when we reached the top of the stairs where we were to part ways, he paused.
“Brynn,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said, not knowing what he was apologizing for. Running away? Freaking out over the photographers?
“I don’t—I can’t explain…”
“It’s okay,” I repeated. “Really. You don’t have to.”
“This is my fault,” Eliot said. He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “All my fault. To bring you here, to take you out to this party. Brynn, it was a mistake.”
No. I didn’t know if I whispered the word, or if it was just my mind that was screaming it. This wasn’t a mistake. My first kiss, that I had thought so perfect, broken to pieces. I wanted to cry.
“Please, Brynn, I’m sorry.” He looked so forlorn, so unhappy. I wanted to take him in my arms and kiss him and hold him and tell him that everything would be alright. I wanted to caress his dark hair and smell his cologne. Instead I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to keep from shattering.
Eliot reached out and pressed his hand on my shoulder. It was not unkind, but now I wanted so much more from him.
“Forget this, please,” he said. “All of this.” His face was dark with sorrow, and I nodded. With those words he turned and left me in the dim corridor at the top of the stairs. I saw him turn into his study and look back, and my body ached to scream, to run forward to him, to do anything. Calmly I walked the few steps to the guest room and closed the door behind me. I sat on the edge of the huge canopied bed and watched the bedroom door, as though if I willed it hard enough the door would open and Eliot would be there, arms wide and ready for me.
Soon I undressed and got into bed. I clutched my pillow hard to my chest and tried not to let my sobs escape. Stupid, so stupid. I was a poor girl, and he was a prince. I scolded myself for all of my desires, telling myself not to think about him. For hours I lay there and listened for his step outside the door and cried, so many tears that I thought there would be no more for the morning, and I could escape back to the apartments, and perhaps leave altogether, leave Hungary, once I had visited my mother.#p#分页标题#e#
Forget this.
I might never be able to have Eliot take me in his arms again, but there was no way that I would ever forget that kiss.
The kiss, that’s what changes everything. In fairytales, that is. The prince kisses the princess, and suddenly she is awake after all these years, or brought back to life, or gets her voice back. Or the princess kisses the prince, and he is transformed from a hideous creature into a handsome man, waiting to dash her into his arms.
I had never been kissed before Eliot. In kindergarten a boy pressed his lips on my ear and nearly deafened me, and it was all downhill from there. I grew up in the most awkward way—sometimes pudgy, sometimes geeky, never popular. In high school, the most guys would do was gawk at my cleavage. One time in college—well, it was the last time I let myself be dragged to a party. I’d say my resume was lackluster in the romantic department, and that was being generous.
And then Eliot kissed me.
While it changed me in some ways, it wasn’t as dramatic as being woken up from a coma or transmogrified from a frog, and when he told me it was a mistake, I cursed myself for thinking that it could be anything more. In some ways, his kissing me made me even more withdrawn, self-conscious. I didn’t get my voice or life back; what I got was a crippling sense of unease whenever he walked by, knowing that we couldn’t be together. The kiss didn’t help with our secret. It just made it worse. Here, Brynn: here’s something you can’t have, something wonderful and beautiful and perfect that you can’t keep.
But it did something else, and maybe that’s the part that they talk about in fairy tales. It woke up a feeling inside of me, an emotion that I didn’t think I had. An emotion I didn’t know I was capable of having.
Desire. Fiery, erotic desire.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next day Eliot made me breakfast and told me that the landlady had arranged the apartments to be ready. He looked away when he told me, as though he was ashamed of sending me away. I called a cab and left, feeling like I was losing everything wonderful that I had ever known. Well, everything but one.
I hugged Lucky inside the cab. He sat peacefully, purring on my lap, as I rode away into the heart of Budapest dry-eyed. After last night, I knew that Eliot didn’t want me, and it tore me apart inside. The first man that I had ever truly desired, and the wall between us cemented shut. I shook the thoughts out of my head and tried to focus on the beautiful, snow-capped city that I would now be living in. I thought about the cemetery that my mother was buried in. I would have to make plans to visit there. Perhaps this afternoon, once I had settled into the apartments and had some time to breathe. I cursed Eliot for not having taken me there during my stay, then forgave him—he didn’t know, and he didn’t know how important it was to me. It was up to me to make that clear.