Nora squealed with surprise when, upon entering the castle's dark and deserted Entry Hall with Eric, she found his hands closed around her waist, his arms lifting her up in the air as if she weighed nothing... and that he wasn't really drunk.

"Put me down!" she demanded, scowling down at him even as he said, "I'm so glad to finally see you again, I couldn't wait for this moment since Daniel mentioned you, I've been thinking about you for so long!"

"You are not drunk!" Nora accused him the moment he set her on her feet, taking a step away from him. "You... got Victoria drunk. Why?" she added, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. Why does it even matter? Just go home, her mind adviced her but her heart could not leave the boy still lurking in this strange man's eyes and actions, the boy who had been her first love, alone in the cold and dismal Entry Hall. Maybe he wasn't as drunk as he had pretended, but he had been drinking, and he was Martin's brother. She needed to make sure that he would find his way to Martin's flat.

She sighed. "Let me take you in, but then I want to go home."

"Let me walk with you home then, Nora, I haven't seen you in years, I want to talk to you," he said, taking her by the elbow, steering her towards the drawbridge.

"No. I don't want you to come with me. I don't want to talk to you tonight," she announced, shaking his hand off, wrapping her arms around her body, missing Martin, missing the promised night that would never happen now.

"Fine," he said, raising his hands in the air in mock surrender. "Come with me for a drink then, we can wait for my big brother together."

She could do with a drink, she mused, and she would have to talk to Eric sooner or later anyway; she had promised Martin. "All right. One drink, then you let me go home, alone," she bargained, the corners of her lips lifting in a hint of a smile. He hadn't changed, not on the inside. This was the Eric she remembered so well.

"Fine," he agreed easily, motioning for her to precede him in the direction of the brightly illuminated glass door of the hotel.

She let him help her out of her coat, waited for him to hand it over, together with his jacket, to a man standing by the door, then followed him across the large and almost empty reception interspersed with ancient looking armchairs and sofas towards the bar.

"I'll have a glass of white wine, thank you," she said to the young barman before Eric ordered the same.

They were the only customers at the moment, and it only took the barman seconds to bring the two large glasses of wine, only long enough for Nora to steal a glance at Eric. His black hair, which he used to keep short, was almost as long as his brother's now, making his resemblance of Martin more pronounced, just like his height and build. The most visible difference between the brothers were their eyes, Eric's were slightly darker, closer to brown than the mosaic of greens that composed Martin's mesmerising irises... Goodness she missed Martin, Nora thought, taking a long sip of her wine, impatient to finish her drink and go home. Where was he now? What was he doing? She took her phone from the pocket of her jeans and placed it on the shiny bar top where she could see it, remembering that Martin had promised to call her.

"You look gorgeous, Nora," Eric said, his eyes devouring her over the rim of his glass, setting her cheeks ablaze.

She would have given anything for these words, this look from him, once. "You are still the same," she muttered. She didn't really know what to talk about with him; the situation was awkward.

"You seem to have turned Victoria's life upside down. Poor girl, even though I told her more than once that Martin would never marry her, she refused to believe it until now," he mused, took a sip of his wine then went on. "She told me a couple of weeks ago that she felt Martin slipping through her fingers. That she had noticed a change in him and suspected he had met someone recently... She didn't think it was you only because she didn't know either of you back then when you and I dated, and he was so much in love with you."

Nora, who wasn't paying more than the necessary amount of superficial attention to his words which reached her ears muffled by her thoughts about Martin, now looked at him, mouth agape with surprise-- Did he really say what she heard? No, she must have misunderstood; she didn't even remember Martin from the past. But... all those things he remembered about her, all those... hints he would drop in their conversations unexpectedly...?

Eric's chuckle and the feel of his fingers under her chin, nudging her mouth closed, brought her back to reality.

"We didn't date, Eric, not really. You were never interested in anything that serious," she muttered, turning away from him, hiding her face in her glass.

"Aah, you're right. We were too young for anything serious back then. But I still remember our kisses."

Nora moved away from him, taking herself as far as her bar stool allowed. She remembered those kisses too; they were her first and remained the only ones she received for years after he vanished from her life, until she forced herself to stop dreaming about him and move on. She should tell him this, tell him how much she had loved him once, that she was in love with his brother now...

The thought about loving Martin, how simply she admitted it to herself, was still so new, she hadn't even told Martin yet. She couldn't tell this to Eric, it was too private, this feeling growing within her belonged to Martin and her.

Suddenly she realised that she didn't even feel anymore like telling him the rest, the part concerning him. It had felt so important before, to tell him how having fallen in love with him influenced her life, guided her choices in her previous relationships, and attributed to shaping her into who she was now. She had wished to tell him for so long, hoped to meet him again only to finally free herself of him entirely...

But not now, not anymore. No, she couldn't. For the first time ever, that unrequited first love did not feel so very important, for once it was irrelevant to what was happening in her life now. Ironically so, as she had fallen in love with the half-brother of the boy who had once wreaked havoc in her heart.

She closed her eyes briefly, suppressing both the groan and the giggle fighting their way to her lips. She needed time to think, she couldn't handle talking to Eric tonight. This night should have been so very different...

She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling Martin's absence as a physical thing, even as her phone rang.

"Martin," she breathed the moment the device touched her ear, closing her eyes when she felt Eric observing her.

"Nora," he muttered, and she could feel how much he regretted being on the other side of the line rather than next to her in his voice, feeling exactly the same way. "I'm sorry. I've never seen her so drunk. How's Eric?"

"Better than her," Nora said. "We are waiting for you in the bar. But if you think you have to stay with her, I'll make sure he's able to find your flat and go home," she added. If Victoria was really that drunk, leaving her alone now didn't seem like the wisest decision. But she would leave that to Martin to judge.

"I let Natalia go home. She couldn't stay the night. Lily is asleep..."

Nora sighed. "You must stay there then. You can't possibly leave Lily alone with her mother so drunk. Please, Martin. I'll take Eric to your flat and go home. I'll be around in the morning, I have two tours. And should I not see you in the castle, just come over whenever in the afternoon."

"I won't be around tomorrow, I never got to tell you. I'm taking Daniel to his grandparents. We are staying with them overnight."

Nora sighed again. "I miss you, Martin. I'll miss you both tomorrow. But you mustn't leave Lily now. I'll see you and Daniel on the twenty-fifth then, at Clelia's famous Christmas dinner," she said, trying to sound lighthearted. It wasn't easy. This wasn't fair. The night she had wished to happen so much had been stolen from her.

She heard him sigh at the other end. "Good night, Nora," he muttered finally, apparently not finding a better solution.

"Good night, Martin," she echoed, ending the conversation, pushing the phone into the pocket of her jeans, out of sight.

She finished her wine and then looked at Eric, who was still observing her intently. "I'm going home. Can you find your way to Martin's without my help? He won't be coming back tonight." Thanks to you, she thought.

"Of course I can. But why don't you stay, too? The place is big."

"Good night, Eric," she said, hopping off the stool, making her way towards the glass door; the man who had taken her coat before vanishing to retrieve it as he saw her move in his direction.

"So... are you two a thing now? Really?" Eric called after her, voice laced with incredulity as she exited into the night through the sliding doors.