The numbers meant nothing to me. I studied them for a while in the car, applying a few common codes I knew. No answer appeared, though I wasn’t entirely surprised. Codes and complex mathematics weren’t exactly Adrian’s style. But then, why had he left the note? Obviously, he assumed I could decipher it.
I held the note far away from me, hoping something visual would reveal itself. It did. As I looked at the numbers again, I saw a natural break in the middle of them, in a format that looked familiar. I entered the two sets of numbers into the latitude and longitude screen of my GPS. A moment later, it turned up an address in Malibu. Southern California. Was that a coincidence?
Without even thinking twice, I pulled out of the train station’s parking lot and headed toward the coast. It was entirely possible I was about to waste two and a half hours (five, if you counted the round trip), but I didn’t think so. There are no coincidences.
It felt like the longest drive of my life. My hands tightly clenched the wheel the entire time. I was eager yet terrified. When I was only a few miles from the address, I began to see signs for the Getty Villa. For a few seconds, I was confused. The Getty Center was a very famous museum, but it was closer to Los Angeles. I didn’t understand the connection or why I had ended up in Malibu. Nonetheless, I dutifully followed the directions and ended up in the Villa’s guest parking lot.
When I reached the entrance, I received my answers. The Villa was a sister museum to the Getty Center, one that specialized in ancient Greek and Roman art. In fact, a good part of the Getty Villa was set up like some ancient temple, complete with pillars surrounding courtyards filled with gardens, fountains, and statues. Admission was free but required a reservation. Things were slow today, and I quickly rectified the problem by making an online reservation on my phone.
When I stepped inside, I nearly forgot why I was there—but only for a heartbeat. The museum was a dream come true for a lover of classics like me. Room after room focusing on the ancient world. Jewelry, statues, clothes . . . it was as if I’d entered a time machine. The scholar in me longed to study and read about each exhibit in detail. The rest of me, with a racing heart and barely contained excitement, only briefly stopped in each room, just long enough to search and move on.
After looking in almost all the interior areas, I stepped into the outer peristyle. My breath caught. It was a huge outdoor garden built around a pool that had to be at least two hundred feet long. Statues and fountains dotted the pool’s surface, and the whole space was surrounded in gorgeously manicured trees and other plants. The sun, warm despite the December day, shone down on everything, and the air hummed with birdsong, splashing water, and soft conversation. Tourists milled around, stopping to admire the sights or take pictures. None of them mattered, though—not when I finally found the person I was looking for.
He sat at the opposite end of the garden from where I’d entered, on the pool’s far edge. His back was to me, but I would have known him anywhere. I approached with trepidation, still churning with that odd mix of fear and eagerness. The closer I got, the more detailed his features became. The tall, lean body. The chestnut glints that the sun brought out in his dark hair. When I finally reached the pool’s end, I came to a stop just behind him, not daring to go farther.
“Sage,” he said, without looking up. “Figured you’d be south of the border by now.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said. “You never would’ve given me the note or come all the way out here. You knew I wouldn’t leave.”
He looked up at me at last, squinting in the bright sun. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t leave. I hoped you wouldn’t leave. Jill and I debated it forever. What’d you think of my sweet use of latitude and longitude? Pretty brilliant, huh?”
“Genius,” I said, trying to hold back my smile. Some of my fear faded. We were back in familiar, easy territory again. Just Adrian and me. “You took a risk I’d know what those numbers meant. You could’ve been sitting out here all day.”
“Nah.” Adrian stood up and took a step toward me. “You’re a smart girl. I knew you’d figure it out.”
“Not that smart.” The closer he came, the more my heart began to race again. “It took me a long time to figure some things out.” I gestured around us. “And how is it possible that you knew this place existed, but I didn’t?”
His fingertips traced the edge of my cheek, and suddenly, the warmth of the sunshine felt like nothing compared to the heat of that touch. “It was easy,” he said, holding me in his gaze. “I had to start my search somewhere, so I typed ‘ancient Rome’ and ‘California’ into my phone. This was like the first hit.”
“What search?” I asked.
He smiled. “The search for some place more romantic than Pies and Stuff.”
Adrian tipped my face up toward his and kissed me. Like always, the world around me stopped moving. No, the world became Adrian, only Adrian. Kissing him was as mind-blowing as ever, full of that same passion and need I had never believed I’d feel. But today, there was even more to it. I no longer had any doubt about whether this was wrong or right. It was a culmination of a long journey . . . or maybe the beginning of one.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. I didn’t care that we were out in public. I didn’t care that he was Moroi. All that mattered was that he was Adrian, my Adrian. My match. My partner in crime, in the long battle I’d just signed on for to right the wrongs in the Alchemist and Moroi worlds. Maybe Marcus was right that I’d also signed myself up for disaster, but I didn’t care. In that moment, it seemed that as long as Adrian and I were together, there was no challenge too great for us.
I don’t know how long we stood there kissing. Like I said, the world around me was gone. Time had stopped. I was awash in the feel of Adrian’s body against mine, in his scent, and in the taste of his lips. That was all that mattered right now, and I found myself thinking of our unfinished business in the dream.
When we finally broke the kiss—much too soon, as far as I was concerned—we still stayed locked in an embrace. The sound of giggling caused me to glance to the side, where two small children were laughing and pointing at us. Seeing me watching them, they scurried away. I turned back to Adrian, wanting to melt away with happiness as I looked up into his eyes.
“This is a lot better than loving from afar,” I told him.
He brushed some hair from my face and gazed into my eyes. “What changed your mind? I mean, I knew you’d never be able to stay away from me, but I won’t lie . . . you had me scared there for a little while.”
I leaned against his chest. “It was a combination of things, really. Some surprisingly good advice from Jill. One of Wolfe’s charming anecdotes—I have to tell you about his kitchen, by the way. Plus, I kept thinking about when we were on the table.”
Adrian shifted just enough so that we could look at each other again. It was one of those rare moments where he was completely floored. “Let me get this straight. The future of our relationship hinged on advice from a fifteen-year-old girl, a probably untrue story from a one-eyed Chihuahua trainer, and me unromantically—yet skillfully—kissing you on top of silverware and china?”
“Yup,” I said after a few moments of thought.
“That’s all it took, huh? And here I thought winning you over was going to be hard.” He grew serious again and pressed a light kiss to my forehead. “What happens now?”