Page 76 of Stars May Burn

I’d kissed her. I had actually kissed her. Was I mad? What had I been thinking?

“Kasten?”

I startled and tipped over my glass of red wine. I swore and grabbed the tablecloth from a side table to mop it up before it could make the ink run on my documents, not caring that I knocked a pile of books to the floor in the process.

Callum looked over my shoulder, squinting at the one sentence I’d managed to write in the last hour. If he said one word…

“Are you all right, Kasten?”

“I’m fine. I’m…I’m just a bit distracted.”

The irritating man dragged up a chair to my desk. “Do tell.”

I scowled at him.

He spread his hand across my unfinished work. “I mean it is clearly quite a serious distraction. Does it have anything to do with why Sophie has been so happy this afternoon? She’s practically dancing around the castle, and though I know she was impressed by my workshop yesterday, I suspect this has more to do with you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Did she say anything?”

Callum shrugged.

I sighed. “I told her she could go to the king’s ball.”

Callum straightened in surprise. “You did?”

“And…I may have kissed her.”

For the first time since I had known him, Callum was speechless.

“We’re having dinner together again,” I added.

Callum rubbed his eyes. “Who are you and what did you do with General Kasten?”

I ignored him and cradled my head in my hands over my desk.

Callum seemed deep in thought for a moment, and I wondered if he was going to have some useful advice for once. “What was it like? The kiss?”

I considered throwing him out the window.

Callum must have seen something in my eyes because he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I mean, one minute you won’t even talk to her. The next, you’re kissing? Have you finally realized she’s your wife?”

I sat back. “Callum, she was forced into this marriage. People have been unkind to her in the past—her late husband almost certainly included. I only want to kiss her if she wants to kiss me. And I’m still finding that hard to believe. I hardly have any redeeming qualities except for my abilities to kill and to survive. Hardly husband material.”

Callum was grinning from ear to ear. “But she wanted to kiss you today?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know. She seemed to.”

Callum chuckled. “And now you’re having dinner routinely with your wife?”

I spread open my hands. “I’m going to completely ruin it before it becomes routine. What do I even talk about with her? Last time we ended up discussing the dissection of corpses. I want to be…more appropriate and interesting this time. But there isn’t an area of my life that isn’t violent, depressing, or distasteful.”

Callum rolled his eyes and filled his own glass with wine. “She’s been trained in conversation. Let her lead.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want her trained conversation. I don’t want meaningless small talk or her to be focusing the conversation on me to try to please me. I want to find out about her.”

Callum shrugged. “Just ask her about her plants. That should keep her going for at least several hours. You can just nod along.” He smirked.

I gave him a sour look. “Anyway, surely you’re missing the most important thing I said? I agreed to let her go to the ball. I’ll have to take her into the pit of vipers.”

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