Page 118 of Castleton Hearts Boxed Set

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t you want the biggest dessert you can have?” I asked.

“Exactly,” she said, picking up the phone to talk to room service and put in the order.

* * *

The desserts came, and yes, they were small, but so pretty, I almost didn’t want to touch them.

Almost.

“I think this one has marzipan in it,” Natalie said, pointing to one little confection that had a pink sugared flower on the top like a little hat.

“What’s marzipan?” I asked. Linley would know. I was pretty sure she’d made it before.

“Almond paste,” Natalie said. “It’s not bad. Go for it.”

I took my fork and cut into it, not expecting it to be so pale inside.

The marzipan was different than I expected. Thicker and sweeter, somehow.

“Not bad. Go for it.” I tried the next dessert, which turned out to just be extremely fancy chocolate cake with white chocolate shards on top.

Since we were sharing the desserts, we were both sitting on Natalie’s bed, the plates between us.

“Just two more days,” she said. “Do you still regret coming?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I poked at the third dessert, a lemon-flavored thing that was lighter than air.

“I guess not,” I finally said. “But the trip isn’t over. There’s still plenty of time for regrets.”

Natalie frowned.

“I don’t want you to regret coming to get me,” she said, in a soft voice. “You really saved my ass.”

I had. I really had. And I was probably going to be rubbing it in her face for a while.

“I mostly did it for the money,” I said, and her frown deepened.

“Right,” she said, putting her fork down.

“I did think about you,” I said. “In the past few years. I thought about you. What you were doing. If you found other friends.”

She kept looking down at the three dessert plates.

“I had other friends, but none of them were you.”

She looked up and our eyes locked and I felt my heart stop beating for a second.

Her face was very close to mine.

“Are you happy? About coming back?” I asked.

“I’m getting more used to the idea,” she breathed.

Was it hot in here? I needed to turn the air on.

I stumbled off the bed and landed right on my ass on the floor.

“Are you okay?” Natalie asked, peering over the edge of the bed.

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