Page 102 of Juliet & Her Romeos

Identical.

How did Ambrose remember?

Without looking at him, I grab at another note and then another.

Juliet is the sun…

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo…

A pair of star-crossed lovers…

Thus with this kiss I die…

Every note that Ambrose sent to me is written on these decorations.

“You didn’t forget,” I whisper.

You didn’t forget me, I wish that I could add but I’m frightened to.

Ambrose’s warm arms encircle me, and he pulls me onto his lap. I can feel the strength of his hard legs beneath me and his hot breath against my neck.

“I haven’t forgotten anything about you.” When Ambrose soothes me with his pheromones, I relax against him. Hell, how have I lived without my Alpha’s pheromones? Every instinct inside is screaming at me to bare my neck and accept his bite. “A day didn’t pass that I wasn’t thinking about you.”

“But you weren’t here.”

“I couldn’t be.” Ambrose twists me in his lap to face him.

He’s unexpectedly serious. He’s as unyielding as a warrior emperor before battle.

Unmovable.

I steel myself.

“Where have you been?” I demand.

“England.”

“I know that. I mean, why?”

“Mom sent me there.”

“Why did you obey her?”

“She’s my Head Alpha. A Traditional. I was eighteen. If I didn’t obey, I’d have been imprisoned in the Alpha Center.”

“But you stayed there all this—"

“I didn’t have a choice.”

I huff out a breath.

I’m wrong.

Ambrose isn’t only an emperor: he’s a marble sculpture of one.

Am I being paranoid, or is he being vague on purpose?

He’s the intense, talks in short sentences or barked orders style Alpha but even so, this is ridiculous.