Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)(46)

“Something else, first.” I take his hand and lead him to the Rose Room, which is about the size of his own library.

He chuckles. “More roses?”

“Not this time. Just a coincidence.”

“Good because Benson might quit if he has to learn origami for paper roses.”

I laugh, weaving through the aisles. He is always next to me or behind me—never ahead. Unwilling to miss a speck of him, I start walking backward.

“Right here,” I say as we reach Aisle 738. I start rolling down the ladder but Aiden stops me.

“Do you need to reach something?”

“Yes. Up there, on the seventh shelf.”

He grips my hips, lifts me like Fleming’s remote control and rests me on his shoulder. “I like this better,” he says.

“That’s a place my arse has not been before.”

“With some luck, your arse will find another place to sit soon, Elisa.” He imitates my accent so perfectly that I stop reaching and gape at him. He is making no effort at all to hide the fact that he is peeking under my dress.

“Your Oxford accent is flawless!” I blurt out—almost like an accusation. Now I’m seriously consumed with his brain. “Have you lived in England?” What else makes sense?

“I have visited.”

“But how do you get the pronunciation so right? I’ve tried to speak with an American accent for the last four years!”

He laughs. “It most definitely has not worked, although you’ve adopted the jargon. Now, I can stay here all day, staring at your delectable legs and these rather fetching cotton knickers but I’d prefer to shred them in private. So, show me what you need to show me because there is only so much a man can tolerate.” He slides his hand under my dress, tracing his fingers upward.

“Okay, okay, here it is.” I reach for the familiar tome. He slides me down, my body flush with his.

“The Science of Poverty Eradication?” he reads, his eyebrows arching.

“I know, I know, technical titles but look.” I flip to page 845 and point. “This is what you helped me live today.”

He takes the book, his pupils zooming in on the text. His mouth opens into a perfect O.

“‘The Hunger Genome’, by Peter Andrew Snow and Elisa Cecilia Snow,” he reads slowly. “This is what you wrote when you were sixteen!”

I nod, unable to speak. He looks utterly engrossed, unlike Reagan’s yawn or Javier’s roll of the eyes, which are much more understandable reactions than this fascination. He starts flipping through the pages but I yank it from his hands.

“Oh, you don’t have to read it. I only wanted to show you because it meant a lot to me to meet Fleming today. Come, let’s go read more fun things.”

“More fun than ‘If there ever was a responsibility for humans—one which we should not pass along but accomplish—it is to eliminate that which will eliminate our offspring. Through the production of synthetic NPY/AGRP and POMC, we can embed in our DNA artificial sequences that not only satiate hunger but also extinguish it.’” He quotes the article without looking at it once.

I stare at him, gobsmacked, until a hand waving in front of my face brings me to my senses.

“How did you do that?” I blubber. “You just quoted straight from page 879 but there’s no way you could have read that far. Have you read this before?”

“No.”

I think back through my experiences with him and suddenly, it all clicks. “You have photographic memory, don’t you?”

He tilts his head side to side. “Not exactly.”

For a moment, it looks like he is not going to say more but then he frowns as he makes a decision. He runs his hand over the span of a shelf, looking at me.

“I have a version of eidetic memory, Elisa.”

What? “Are you serious? I thought eidetic memory was a myth,” I manage, remembering my cognitive psychology professor griping that people overuse the term total recall.

“True eidetic memory may well be a myth. Memory is not fully understood. That’s why I say I have a version of it.” He smiles kindly. He has obviously met skepticism before.

“Will you explain it to me? How does it work?” I marvel, wondering if he will let me scan his skull with Reed’s MRI machine so I can look inside.

“Well, it’s broader than photographic memory. I don’t remember only what I read and see, but also what I hear, taste, experience, feel—the full gamut of perception. Once I perceive something, every time I think of it, I will re-experience the same feelings and reactions with perfect clarity. It doesn’t apply just to emotional experiences, but also to mundane ones.” He chuckles, no doubt because my jaw has left and is running to the neuroscience section.

“This is how you knew I was the woman in the painting and Javier was the painter! You remembered even my throat and his paint stains, didn’t you?”

He smiles. “Yes. Those are the obvious parts. Sight. Sound. Centifolia’s smell. It’s why I can play the piano without looking. Why I can sound just like you or even Fleming.” He switches to perfect Mancunian accent. “Why I take no pictures or notes.”

“What about the nonobvious parts? Will you show me some more, please?” I beg shamelessly with a spawning terror that I just lost any hope of ever wanting another man.