“Told you it was a mistake,” Remi muttered.
Kristijan’s gaze flickered towards him, then settled back on London.
“Everything that was wrong last night you could explain. You explained the eating. You semi-explained it, at least. The body heat, though. You can’t explain that away.”
“Actually, there is one activity that does raise a vampire’s body heat,” Remi said.
She didn’t bother looking at him. She could tell from his tone what he would say. His tone and six years of putting up with his sarcasm. She kept her gaze on Kristijan. “You weren’t having sex with Remi when I kissed you,” she said flatly, ignoring the odd association of words and ideas in her statement.
Kristijan looked at Remi again.
“Who are you?” London demanded. “Why do you look so exactly like Kristijan?”
He hesitated. She could see that he was weighing up a decision and held her breath, waiting.
“Kristijan, don’t…” Remi warned.
Kristijan shook his head. He looked her squarely in the eye. “I am Kristijan,” he said flatly. “I’m just not the Kristijan you know.”
Remi cursed in French, one of his pithy expressions, his hand falling flatly on the arm of the chair, signifying his impatience and disappointment.
London stared at Kristijan, her heart thudding. “Not the same one?” she repeated. Her lips felt thick and uncooperative. “I don’t understand.”
“The Kristijan you know, the one you married, has been missing for weeks. I stepped in to cover while he was gone, as there are certain…projects that must be managed.”
London couldn’t help running her gaze over him. Yes, it was the same man and no, it wasn’t. It was the doubt, the yes-no possibilities that had given her the headache was currently suffering.
Now he was confirming that he wasn’t Kristijan…and yet he was.
She pushed the tips of her fingers against her temples. “I think my head might explode. How can you say I’m right and wrong in the same sentence? Are you, or are you not, Kristijan?”
“I am.” He held up his hand. “If it helps, call me Neven.”
“You hate your middle name.”
“Kristijan hated his middle name. I’ve got used to it. I told you, I’m not that Kristijan, not the one you know.”
“Sheesh,” Remi said, whistling the word out from between clenched teeth. He jumped to his feet, with one of his flexible, powerful movements, that always reminded London of how strong he was. She suspected that sometimes he did it deliberately just to make sure she remembered.
Now, though, he was just impatient. He spread a hand. “How much plainer does he have to make it? There are two timelines. This one,” he held out his hand. “And this one.” He spread his other hand and lifted it a little. “You and I are standing here in this timeline. This is the one where the Kristijan you married also belongs. This one over here,” and he hefted the first hand, “is where Neven came from.”
“Came from?” London breathed. She stared at Remi’s two hands as he brought them together.
“He jumped here. Now there are two Kristijans in this timeline and none in that one.” He held his hand out again, to indicate the first timeline.
“Actually, that timeline doesn’t even exist anymore,” Neven said.
“Timelines,” London repeated flatly. She looked at Kristijan to see the cruel light in his eyes that would tell her this was a prank, designed to make a fool of her, as so many of his jokes did.
“Kristijan told you he was a vampire and you believed that,” he said quietly. “Now, believe this. It’s easier to believe, if you have any understanding of physics at all.”
“The multiverse theory?” she said. Her voice sounded weak. “You’re telling me there are multiple universes? As Einstein predicted?”
“Exactly as he predicted,” Kristijan said. “Although we knew about them long before he did.”
“We?” She winced. She was making an adequate fool of herself by echoing everything he said, but really…it was so incredible!
“Time travelers,” he replied. “And a small group of vampires, too, for their long lives make serious time travelling possible.”
London realized she had sank back down on the chair. She was helpless to do more than stare at him. “This is some sort of…of long con, isn’t it? I’m not the target, only you need me to believe it. That’s why you wanted me to stay the two weeks. You need to fool someone else and if your own wife believes it—” She gasped as Remi’s hand gripped her wrist.
His other hand slid under her chin. When she tried to recoil backwards, the strong fingers caught her chin between them. He turned her head to look at him. His top lip lifted just a little and she saw the two long, razor sharp teeth glinting, projecting below the line of his normal teeth.
He was staring at her with eyes that were perfectly normal, human eyes, yet the light in them was not human.
“Believe us,” he whispered. The teeth retracted. “Vampires exist. So does time travel. This is not the Kristijan you knew.”
Kristijan—Neven—settled on the arm of the club sofa, the nearest chair to the wing chairs. He gripped the tucked and folded leather on either side of his hips. “Enough, Remi. I think you’ve made the point.”
Remi let go of her chin and sat back. “Just how much do you plan on telling her, anyway? You’ve opened the chest now.”
London squeezed her hands together. Her headache was getting worse. “If you are here, then where is Kristijan?”
The two of them exchanged a look.
“We don’t know,” Kristijan—Neven—said. Remi was right, it was easier to think of him as Neven, despite how much he looked like Kristijan. She reminded herself of the differences once again, rifling through them like a deck of cards in her mind; his kindness, his warmth, his consideration, his kiss….
“You weren’t hiding your fangs,” London said, as the realization clicked into place. “All those years, you were hiding your teeth from me and you would never really kiss me, only last night you did.”
Kristijan—Neven, she repeated to herself—looked almost embarrassed. “I didn’t kiss you at all.”
“You didn’t avoid my lips,” she insisted. “It’s completely different. You are different. You are not Kristijan.” Now she knew it for certain. The last piece of proof was in place, convincing her. “That means, then, that time travel is real…” she added slowly, listening to herself say it aloud. She pressed her hands to her face. “Oh my dear lord, it’s real!”
“Now you’ve done it,” Remi said dryly, to Kristijan. Neven.
“She has to know, anyway,” Neven replied calmly.
London dropped her hands. “Why must I know?” she demanded.
Neven met her gaze. “Because you are a time traveler, too.”
Chapter Thirteen
Remi was leaning back in the corner of the wingchair. He had his legs crossed, the upper foot swinging, as if he was bored out of his brain.
As London struggled to encompass Neven’s electrifying statement, his boot stopped movement like a pendulum and he leaned forward sharply. “She’s gone pale. Paler than usual,” he added dryly. “I think that was one massive statement too many for her.”
“Stop talking about me as if I’m not here,” London told him. Only, her voice was weak. She did feel faint.
“When did you last eat?” Neven asked. “Last night?”
“If you call that eating,” Remi said. He got to his feet. “It’s nearly noon. The two of you should eat an early lunch.”
London watched as Neven got to his feet. Of course, he must eat because he was as human as she was.
He stopped in front of her and held out his hand. “I imagine you have questions.”
She laughed. It came out wobbly. “A few thousand or so.” She ignored his extended hand and eased herself to her feet. She was shaky and slightly nauseous. Remi had pinned down her state neatly. She was sick with hunger.
Neven dropped his hand. “There is half of an omelet in the small fridge and I need coffee desperately.” He waited until she moved past him and headed for the arch into the dining room and the passage from there to the kitchen.
Remi moved ahead of both of them, striding fast.
“Does he have to come?” London asked.
“I want to hear,” Remi said over his shoulder. “I want to see your face as he explains the rest of it.”
She gritted her teeth together. Remi had implied that he had spent the night in Neven’s bed, when he had already known that Neven was not Kristijan. That meant he had tried to mislead her.
“As long as Neven tells me and not you,” London told Remi. “I don’t trust a single word that comes out of your mouth, anymore.”
He held his arm out straight, so the palm slapped against the swing door into the kitchen, pushing it open. He paused in the open doorway and half-turned to look over his shoulder at her. His single eye considered her. “Did you ever trust me?” he asked softly.
It was the quietness of his voice, the lack of sarcasm, that startled her. Instead of finding a barb to fling back at him, London found herself instead speaking the truth. “I tried,” she admitted. “You made it impossible.”
“Ah…” he said and stalked into the kitchen. He jumped up onto the massive counter and settled himself on it, as if her answer was of no consequence. He rubbed his hands together. “Next big fact,” he demanded of Neven.
Neven—and the use of his second name was coming easier to her each time she repeated it in her mind—Neven moved over to the small fridge and opened the door and reached inside, withdrawing a copper pan that held the remains of an omelet.
London went to the big range and switched on the oven, as he put the pan inside. She touched her belly as it rolled oddly. She wasn’t going to last until the omelet was warmed through.
“There might be biscuits or cake in the pantry,” Neven said, studying her face.
She nodded and went through the narrow door into the well-stocked pantry. It had always puzzled her why so much food was stored in there when the two people who lived in the house on a permanent basis did not eat.
Only, no one else knew that, so the cook and the other kitchen staff would dutifully bring in supplies. Had Kristijan thrown it all out?
She found some chocolate Digestive biscuits that were not too old and broke open the packet standing right there at the shelf and gobbled down two of them. At this point, she didn’t give a damn about sugar and calories.
Still holding the packet, she moved back out to the main kitchen. Neven was standing with his hip against the counter, on the opposite end to where Remi was sitting with his feet swinging again. Remi seemed to be getting extraordinary pleasure out of London’s shock.
“Did you two know each other before?” she asked curiously.
“No,” Neven said shortly. “He’s giving you a hard time. Remi didn’t know any more about time travel and alternative timelines than you, before I arrived yesterday.”
Remi scowled. “I knew it was a theory.”
“So is Father Christmas,” London told him, irritated. Must he always be first, be better, be the greatest?
“Vampires are theory to most people, too,” Neven added. “They all must remain theories. I still don’t know why Kristijan told you what he was. That’s not normal practice.”
London put the packet of Digestives on the counter, abruptly losing interest in them. “That’s easy. He told me because he knew it would hurt me.”
Neven drew in a breath. She could see his chest rise beneath the immaculate suit jacket. “Why would he want to hurt you?”
An invisible hand grabbed her throat and squeezed. Her eyes ached. London glanced at Remi. He was a blur in her vision. She was aware of him sitting on the corner of the counter, watching them talk. “Why don’t you ask him? He was there. Just as he is now.” She couldn’t halt the bitterness in her voice.
“Remi?” Neven asked.
“Not for all of it, I wasn’t.” Remi’s voice was neutral, lacking the usual sarcastic note.
London blinked, trying to disperse the building tears. She wouldn’t wipe at her eyes. That would be too big a signal. Remi had probably spotted the tears anyway. He never missed anything with his keen vampire sight. He had probably noted every centimeter of her horror and disillusionment, that day, too.
“What happened?” Neven asked. “It’s important that I know.”
“Why?” London asked, carefully not looking at him. She was surprised to hear Remi echo her word.
“I am trying to understand Kristijan, so I know how to act in front of those who must think I am him.”
“You already know how to do that,” Remi said. “Be a bastard. You’ll be fine.”
“How can you say that?” London asked him, stunned. “You were lovers.”
“And the sex was excellent,” Remi said in agreement. “That doesn’t mean I was blind to what he was.”
“As blind as I was?” she asked, her tone bitter. She glanced at Neven, who was watching both of them. “It took two years for me to figure out that the marriage wasn’t working. I hoped and looked for ways to fix things. And I was hoping for…well….” This wasn’t Kristijan, she reminded herself, even though Neven was his replica. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“The subject she’s avoiding is children,” Remi said.
“Yes, I wanted children!” London snapped. “Satisfied?” she shot at Remi.
“I’m just trying to help you step over the mountain of denial,” he said, his tone sunny.
She swallowed. Remi was right. She had dodged the truth for years. It was easier that way.
“Children,” Neven said slowly. “Did you think a child would fix things?”
She sighed. “I wanted to fix things so we could have children. I wouldn’t dream of bringing a child into the world inside a bad marriage. And I knew it was bad, as much as I tried to pretend otherwise.”
The day she had confronted Kristijan had not been any different from the ones before it. She had woken alone, the other side of the bed virtually untouched. She had moved through the day and the house, speaking to no one but the maid who brought her lunch on a tray.
It was the sheer repetition of the empty days that had built up enough weight to force her to act. London knew that no matter what he was doing, Kristijan would return to his office towards sunset. She had no idea what he did there. He had not encouraged her to learn about his business interests and had deflected her questions whenever she had asked him about them, assuring her it was all boring. Lucrative and boring. Day trading, generally.
On that day, London had dressed carefully and went through to the big office with its formal reception area. No one waited on the chairs. Voices sounded through the door.
She had raised her hand to knock, then hesitated, wondering if it was a good time to do this. She reminded herself that she was Kristijan’s wife. She was more entitled to interrupt than anyone in this house, including the odious Remi.
London knocked and pushed the door open. Kristijan was behind the desk, the big leather chair turned to face Remi, who was also behind the desk, sitting on one of the flat, uncomfortable chairs that Kristijan’s associates used when they were here. Remi was leaning forward, as if they had been speaking with their heads close together. He straightened up as she entered, a scowl forming.
Kristijan swiveled the chair around. “London. What are you doing here?”
Just that statement alone raised all sorts of questions in her mind, that she had been suppressing for two years. Why shouldn’t she be here? She was his wife. Shouldn’t he be pleased to see her? Wouldn’t a proper husband welcome the interruption?
Yet she had been afraid to even knock on the door.
London cleared her throat. “I would like ten minutes of your time, Kristijan. Alone, please.” She didn’t look at Remi.
Remi stood. “I’ll see to those arrang
ements.” He walked out of the room and shut the door.
Arrangements. The term was safely neutral and bland, describing nothing.
Kristijan just looked at her. He didn’t smile. He didn’t tell her to sit down. He didn’t suggest she move around the desk to sit next to him the way Remi had been, either.
Why had she never considered the implications of all the little details, before?
London rested her fingertips on the front edge of the desk. “We need to talk, Kristijan.” It was a cliché for a reason and she invoked it deliberately, to help her break open the subject. Kristijan was so good at evading such matters, after all.
He sat back, his black eyes steady. “About?” He wasn’t going to help her out at all.
“What else do people mean when they say they want to talk?” London demanded, a tiny bit of exasperation touching her. “We need to talk about us!”
Kristijan shook his head. “This isn’t a good time.” He picked up his pen and moved the chair closer to the desk once more.
Her tiny seed of frustration gave her courage she would not normally have had. “It’s never a good time. Now will have to do.”
His eyes widened just a little. She had surprised him. Then they narrowed. “Are you sure, London?” His voice was smooth as silk, sending a ripple up the back of her spine.
If she had not been so desperate, she would have buckled under that darkly rich intonation. She would have shied away, changed the subject as he wanted, then left. Perhaps, even apologized for disturbing him.
“I don’t understand what has happened to us,” London said. “I don’t know how to make things right. I want to, Kristijan, but first I need to know what is wrong. And there is something wrong, isn’t there? You can admit that much, can’t you?”
He considered her for a moment. “You live in luxury, London. You have a generous allowance. You’ve travelled the world in the last two years. What on earth could be wrong?”
“A decorated box is still just an empty box!” she cried. “You don’t talk to me anymore. We’ve made love twice in the last six months. Surely you don’t consider that normal?”
Kiss Across Worlds (Kiss Across Time Book 7) Page 14
