“See you later, Mr. Hale,” Javier says, and follows Benson. I have a feeling he just gave us a moment alone.

I rise on my tiptoes to kiss Aiden expecting just a peck on the lips with Javier around. But his hands fist in my hair, and he kisses me once, hard. No extravagant dips or holds. Just a mouth-to-mouth kiss, like an exchange of air or a secret sign. And because of that, it leaves me equally breathless. I don’t want to leave him out here by himself when the rest of my world is inside. Hydrogen, 1.008—

“Have you reached magnesium yet?” he says.

How does he know? “No, just started your chemical namesake.”

“Toxic uranium?”

I pretend to smack his chest. “No! Helium. Nontoxic, rare on earth, and escapes easily.” I reach on my toes again and kiss his scar. “Don’t escape, Aiden.” I love you, I tell him with my eyes and run after Javier and Benson lest the words burst out on their own.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Spartan

Javier pauses at the double doors of the English Silver gallery. Salsa music floats from the inside. His eyes are deep, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Hey, before we go in, can we stop by Euro Art really quick?” Javier says, glancing at Benson.

“Sure,” I say but my insides are spinning like the salsa records. I know this will be about Aiden and I know that Javier speaks with the kinds of truth you cannot unhear.

I turn to Benson, almost wishing he needed help carrying the boxes. “Thank you so much, Benson. You’re a wizard.”

He blushes to his ears. “That’s my job title, Miss Snow.”

I laugh. “Give him a kiss from me.”

“That’s not in my job description, Miss Snow.” His lips are twitching in a smile.

“Not even on his cheek?”

He loses his stoic expression. “I’ll see what I can do, ma’am.”

I laugh and follow Javier down the hall to the European Art exhibit. For a while, we do not speak. Just his polished shoes and my new cream Louboutin heels ringing on the marble floor. The ancient eyes of muses follow us from their frames. I am suddenly envious of their security.

Javier stops in front of an 1805 painting by François Lebarbier. A Spartan Woman Giving a Shield to Her Son, the title card reads.

“Look at her face.” Javier breaks the silence, his fingers weaving through the air as though he is drawing her profile. I follow their motion, focusing on the chestnut-haired woman and her gaze at her son. Instantly, I think of Aiden’s mum, Stella.

“She is afraid,” he says. “Look at the dark shadow on her cheek. But she doesn’t show it. She’s smiling at him.”

I smile too, watching her curved, pale lips.

“Now, look at the Spartan.” Javier’s voice deepens, his finger tracing the warrior’s rippling shoulders. His back is to the viewer but his face is to Stella. Every muscle band from his rocklike calves to his hand gripping the sharp spear is ready for destruction.

“Totally deadly, yet he’s watching her with need, maybe because she has the shield that might save him.”

I stare at the warrior’s face without blinking. There is a childish craving on it, waiting for his mother to hoist the shield on his forearm.

Javier looks at me. “Do you think he will come home to her?”

At the question, tears singe my eyes but I cannot look away from the painting. “I don’t know,” I whisper. “Why are you showing me this?”

He puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face him. “Because I’m worried about you…you and Hale. See, he reminds me a bit of this warrior here. There is an anger about Hale—something is not right. For example, the way he looked at me just now, like he was going to rip my head off. But then you get near him and he looks at you with a desperate need like this Spartan here.”

“Why is that a bad thing?”

“Because with all that, he can’t even put aside a conference call to make time for you. He throws all this cash your way, buys all these presents, but he can’t even bother to take two floors to meet your family. That’s why it’s bad.”

My mouth dries and I look back at the Spartan warrior, his back strained with the weight of his armor. But Javier’s words have thickened the air. It sludges in my airways, unable to come either in or out.

“Sweetheart, what’s going on between you two, hmm? Last week, you said you weren’t seeing him again but it felt like there was more to the story. Then this week, he calls me, taking over this whole damn party.”

I force my lungs to inhale. This I can explain. “Well, I was upset because we had a misunderstanding. He wanted to distance me because he thought I deserved better. I thought he didn’t like me, and it all fell apart from there. But then he came over and explained. And now, here we are,” I say, blushing head to toe, the way I imagine I would have blushed if I admitted this to my dad.

“The part about him thinking you deserve better is what worries me.”

I shake my head. How can I explain that without betraying Aiden? “Most good men are biased against themselves. Sound familiar?”

He smiles. “A man knows himself better than anyone else, Isa. Anyway, so now what—he has declared himself and wants to be with you?”

This is the question. This is what I ask myself each night on those last blissful seconds of consciousness after being Aiden’s completely. Does Aiden really want to be with me? Not to save me, not to make love to me, but to really want me by his side?

“Well, no…not exactly. We’re just spending some time together.”

“Some time together?” I have managed break through Javier’s calm exterior. “Sweetheart, you may not have time! A whole team of lawyers is telling you that. And you want to spend it with someone who can’t even spare two hours to come to your party. Even if you had all the time in the world, that would not be okay.”

“It’s not like that,” I whisper but my stomach is churning so violently that I’m afraid I will vomit. “He’s a really good man.”

“If it’s not like that, then why do you look like you just overdosed on paint fumes?”

I look up at the deep wrinkles on his forehead despite his twenty-three years, wishing I could smooth them away. “What really worries you, Javier? What do you think is happening?”

He takes a deep breath. “Honestly, I have no clue. But I think he’s dangerous and I worry that he’s going to try to take you away from us.”

I don’t touch the dangerous part. “Take me from you? Javier, look at everything he did just so that we can be together and have a good time!”

“Yeah, but he’s not here! How soon before you have to choose between him or us? Even if you can stay?”

“He wants me to have all of you. He wants me to be happy. Why don’t you believe that?” I say with as much strength as I can muster. The problem is that he cannot be part of my life and I want him to be. I want it badly.

Javier looks at the painting, stabbing a finger at the Spartan. “Because I don’t know what’s going on in your picture. Is he with you because whatever you give him is like this shield over here? Or does he love you?”

My knees almost buckle at his questions. I never thought of Aiden’s feelings that way. That he is not really choosing to have me, he is just captive to his memory and addicted—as he said—to the calmness I give him. He wants to save me, yes. He wants me to have my own life because he is a good man. But when it comes to his desire for me, is that all it is—addiction, not love?

Javier pats my shoulder. “You love him,” he says. It’s not a question.

I look up at him. How does he know?

He smiles as he reads the question in my eyes. “You didn’t think I would notice? I see the lighter eyes, the shy, drunk smile you’ve never had before. Even your blush is different. And now you look like you’re about to faint.” He speaks softly, searching my face. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t want you to be like this woman here. Scared to death but even more afraid to show it. I’m here for you. All of us are.”