Page 35 of West End Earl
“Like you, I see a friend. A survivor. A woman who will make something of herself through sheer stubbornness. And I see color.” Cal couldn’t help smiling, because there was no better way to describe her. “You brighten every room you enter. When the light catches on your hair, I see shades of red and gold I didn’t know existed.”
“I hate my hair.”
“No interrupting, Puppy,” he chided, taking shameless advantage of how close she stood to kiss her temple. One short curl brushed his nose, while another stood straight up. “I appreciate that you’re honest in everything you can be. Even with hard topics like my sister’s bad decisions. Put an épée in your hands, and you’ll beat me nine times out of ten, and for some reason I find that incredibly attractive. And I can’t stop staring at your lips. They dominate your face and inspire thoughts I never expected to have about you.” Her gaze settled on his mouth, which he took as an encouraging sign when her lips were a scant inch away. “Yes, I think about kissing you. It’s a recent development, I admit, but once the idea entered my head, I’ve thought of little else. Does my vision sound like how you’d describe yourself?”
“Not really, no.”
“But do you stand by what you said about me?”
“Of course. Everything I said is true.”
“Is it? Perhaps I see myself differently. Perhaps I see my looks as a burden, not an asset.” That piece of honesty stung. “If I choose to believe you, to accept your words, they become true forus.” Cal waited a beat to see if she followed what he said. “If you choose to believe me when I say I desire you, it becomes real forus. And then, the math—as you put it—works fine. In fact, it means we’re equals. Friends with a mutual attraction, albeit under unusual circumstances.”
She finally looked him in the eye, and for the briefest of seconds her face lit, a smile twitching at her lips. But that lasted only an instant before Ophelia seemed to catch herself. Shaking her head, she stepped away. “In no version of reality are you and I equals.”
It felt like a rejection, hitting him sharp enough to steal his breath. Although he opened his mouth to call out, he waited when she paused with her hand on the door. She glanced over her shoulder, and with heartbreaking vulnerability, he saw everything play across her face—the desire and the fear waging war within her.
She’d been hiding for over a decade, and the street where she’d lived wasn’t safe anymore. All those words he’d wanted to say died on a sigh. Asking her to handle all of that, plus his feelings for her—out of nowhere—wasn’t fair.
He might want to save her, but that didn’t automatically mean she needed saving.
The bedroom door closed, leaving him alone again.
Chapter Eleven
Creeping out in the middle of the night like a thief would have been a better idea. Phee took another sip of coffee and tried to ignore the tension in the breakfast room. The sunny-yellow striped wallpaper acted as a cheerfully ironic backdrop to their uncomfortable silence.
Cal set his cup aside with a clatter that jarred her from her thoughts. With a jerk of his head, he sent the servants from the room. Wooden doors clicked shut, leaving them alone, two seats apart, with a pot of coffee between them on the table and a whole lot of unfinished business hanging in the air. “So, this is awkward.”
After their talk in his bedroom, she’d lain awake staring at that canopy, mulling over something he’d said.You’re honest in everything you can be.That was how he saw her, and God knew that was how she wanted to live her life. He already knew she was a woman and that Milton wanted her dead. Telling him her story didn’t necessarily mean confessing details about Adam’s death. Those were her demons to wrestle, not his.
Taking a steadying breath, she gathered her courage. “My brother, Adam, called me Phee.”
He took a moment before replying. “Good, so we are going to talk about it. And where is Adam these days?”
“The same place he’s been for the last eleven years. In a graveyard in Northumberland, six feet under a headstone with my name on it.”
Cal paused midswipe while spreading butter on his toast. “Let’s start at the beginning, if you don’t mind. Walk me through it. I want to help, but I need to know what you’re dealing with.”
Pouring another round of coffee into their cups kept her busy long enough to find the beginning in her mind. The coffee urn wobbled, but she managed to get every drop into the cups and not on the table’s glossy finish. Small victory, that.
“Adam and I were orphans. My family tree is scraggly, and Mother’s oldest brother was the only relative who could take us. Milton is a businessman, so I assume my parents thought their fortune would be in capable hands until we inherited.”
“The bit about coming into your money at twenty-five is the truth, then.”
“I tell the truth when I can.” She nibbled on a toast point. “Milton didn’t want children and hated taking on someone else’s. We were an inconvenience. At least, that’s what he told us over and over, but I think he enjoyed having easy targets. He’s not a pleasant man.” A kind understatement. “As soon as we turned thirteen, Milton sent Adam to school and arranged a marriage for me to a geriatric business associate.”
Cal placed the knife and toast on his plate with carefully measured movements that hinted at his emotions. He got very precise when trying to maintain his composure. It was something she’d seen often with his father and sister, but never directed at her. Sure enough, the betraying twitch of his left eye showed his inner struggle. “Thirteen? Is that even legal?”
“Shockingly, yes. In protest, I hacked all my hair off, dressed in my brother’s clothes, and bolted. Didn’t get far before Milton caught up with me. When Adam came home a few days later for a school break, we managed to sneak out to the pond. We were planning to run away together, you see, and were figuring out the details of how to go about it. The pond wasourplace. That was the day Adam drowned.”
Because she’d been fussing and acting like a brat. A bite of breakfast stuck in her throat. With a shaky hand, she lifted her cup once more to wash down the food and guilt.
Adam had attempted to tease her out of her mood, and she’d swatted his chest. Not hard. But hard enough to unbalance him. She’d tried to grab his hand but missed, and over he went.
There were rocks in the shallows. Boulders that could, and did, split a head open.
The coffee turned bitter in her mouth, and she nearly spit it out.
