“When?”
“W-when I was a kid, perhaps? Honestly, I don’t remember.”
“Why do I sense that is not true?”
She turned toward him now, her face tilted up, her lips curving into a barely-there smile. He wondered what it would feel like to sip gently from that mouth, to just alight there without needing to slake his thirst.
Would he resist tracing lower, piercing the white skin at her throat?
Her next words broke through his fantasy. “I choose not to remember certain things.”
“Why is that?”
“Because they are not worth remembering.”
Oliver barked a laugh. “Congratulations, if you can so easily forget.”
“It’s not easy. I work at forgetting,” she said softly. “What about you, sir?”
“Oliver,” he corrected.
“Very well,but tomorrow I will address you as sir again.”
“If you must,” he acquiesced.
Her eyes widened in feigned shock. “It would be highly unprofessional to call you by your first name at work.”
“Let’s lay professionalism aside for tonight,Clare,” he said pointedly, loving the sound of her name, the hard C and the soft R rolling off his tongue. So very like her.
Hard and soft.
Dark and light.
“Okay then, Oliver-for-tonight-only,” she teased. “What things do you wish to forget?” Her question pierced him, as if she saw past his façade to the darkness within.
He composed his features. “Speaking of such things would open the door to remembering them, which would defeat the purpose of forgetting, would it not?”
“Very true.”
“Suffice it to say, I have worked through the memories. They are long gone.” A lie, but she would never know.
“As in, centuries gone?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you trying to gauge my age?”
“Maybe…”
He snorted. “You wouldn’t be the first. I think there was a poll that went round the bureau one year. Guess Hale’s age and he will buy a round of drinks on Friday night.”
“Did anyone succeed?”
“Nope. Hence, I never bought them drinks.”
“May I try?”
“Why not—since the drinks are free tonight.”
“Okay.” She tapped a finger on her lips thoughtfully. “Four hundred years old.”
