CHAPTER 152

ALEXANDER

I was the only one in the cool darkness of the room when I groaned awake, the room blurring in my vision as I stretched, my eyes resting on the low flame in the stone hearth.

“Dar?” I groaned, running my hands through the warm crease where her body was supposed to be.

I struggled to my feet, taking a deep breath as the whirl of emotions raced to meet up with me.

Where had she gone off to? I turned in a slow arc, taking in the marbled white and black modern aesthetic of the room, the silk gold walls, and the high dias of the king-sized canopy bed with climbing plants idling on the bedside.

“Darlene? Babe?” I called, tracing my hand over the gold glass of the breakfast cart that had been wheeled into a corner of the room, shouldering into the hallway instead, the rubber soles of my shoes squelching wetly on the tiled floors.

The draft of coolness that had nothing to do with the overhead conditioning swept over me as I looked over the black stair banisters to the empty living