"Kim Wilkins - The Autumn Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilkins Kim)

protected him from the barrage of media scrutiny, while Christine had suffered the full weight of the
world's glare.

"I'm surprised you could collect yourself to find a pen, under the circumstances," he continued. "It must
have been traumatic."

Oh, yes. Her father crushed to death; her mother decapitated. Christine smiled a tight smile; time to finish
this conversation. "If you phone at the end of the week, we should be able to give you an estimated due
date for that book. It's a rare import, so it could take a number of months."

He hesitated. Clearly, he had a lot of other questions. Chief among them might be why the heir to the
Starlight fortune was working as a shop assistant in an English-language bookshop in Berlin.

"All right, then," the man said. "I'll see you when I come to pick it up."

Christine nodded, silently vowing to make sure she was out back checking invoices when he returned.

He headed for the door, his footsteps light and carefree, and not weighed down with thirteen years of
chronic pain, thirteen years of nightmares about tunnels and blood, thirteen years of resigned suffering. A
brittle anger rose on her lips.

"By the way," she called.

He turned.

"I didn't have a pen," she said.

"Pardon?"

Had he forgotten already? Was that how much her misery meant to anybody else? "In the car, after the
accident," she said. "You were right, I was too traumatized to find a pen."

His face took on a puzzled aspect. "Then howтАж ?"

Christine held up her right index finger. "My mother's blood," she said. "Have a nice day."

***
Gray. Black. Brown. No matter which way Christine surveyed it, this painting of Jude's looked like every
other painting he had ever done. "It's beautiful, darling."

He lifted her hair and kissed the back of her neck. She pondered the colors, Jude's colors of choice as
long as she'd known him. She often wondered if his preferences bore any relation to the reasons he was
attracted to her. Jude was alternative art's pinup boy, with a wicked smile, a tangle of blond hair, and
sparkling dark eyes. Christine, by contrast, knew she was profoundly forgettable. She was thin but not
sleek, pale but not luminous, her brown hair was thick but not shiny; and with her button eyes, flat
cheeks, and snub nose she possessed not even the distinction of ugliness.

No matter how hard she tried to be good-natured and generous and kind, Christine knew that she was
cursed with invisibility.