Page 20 of Breathe
Kane settled back in his chair and counted on his fingers. “I’ve got four sisters. Cat’s the oldest, older than me. She’s married to Antonio. I have twin nephews.”
“Me too.” Lordy, how could she possibly have something in common with this man?
“How long before you could tell them apart?” She grimaced. “Yeah, I know, right?” he said. “Then Thea... She’s the one with the useless boyfriend. I just call him brother-in-law, because it’s quicker than worthless-piece-of-shit.” He cleared his throat, glanced over at the bar. “Anyway. Then Sam; she’s an archeologist. Wicked smart; wastes her time moving dirt from one place to another with tiny brushes. Then Megan. The caboose.” He smiled then, a clear, uncomplicated smile that showed how much he loved his baby sister. “She’s just finishing up college, then she’s going to come work for me.”
Four sisters. It explained why he was so comfortable around women. Perhaps it also explained why intelligent women like Lucía continued to work for him. Oh no. Don’t start liking him.
“Oh, and there’s Carl. I met him in college. I would say he’s my brother, but the way my sister Sam looks at him...”
“Bit dangerous, isn’t it? You having a brother?” She opened her eyes wide at him, wondering if he had any ability to laugh at himself. At that name.
He rolled his eyes and picked up his beer bottle. “Yeah, yeah. It’s K-a-n-e, not C-a-i-n. And it’s my grandmother’s maiden name, if you care. And Carl could and would kick my ass if he thought I needed it.” He took a drink. “Luckily for me, he lives in New York, so I don’t get to piss him off much.”
He sounded wistful. Maybe having a house full of women had disadvantages as well.
He frowned, losing himself for a moment in picking the label off his bottle. Then he shook himself and said, “Whoa, sorry. So tell me about your family.”
No, she supposed he wouldn’t want to give her a glimpse of how he really felt about anything. She recognized it, because she was fighting against the same thing.
She told him about her brother, Adam, and her parents, who she Skyped with religiously. And then she heard herself saying, “Mum asks me the same questions every week. ‘How’s work, how’s the flat, been anywhere nice, met any new friends? Met anyone English?’ Meaning a man. ’Cos God forbid I date a Yank.”
“Yeah, that would be awful,” he said, widening his eyes.
Would it, though?The thought came unbidden. Her cheeks threatened a blush. “Well, they’d rather I come home and marry...” She stopped dead at the image of Edward that charged into her mind. “Someone like them,” she finished, her throat a little tight. “Someone with the classic British stiff upper lip and all that, don’t you know.” Good, okay. She’d covered up that pause, hadn’t she?
He didn’t seem to have noticed. “Good thing none of that stiff upper lip thing rubbed off on you,” he said, deadpan.
She threw a piece of bread at him just as Joe came up to offer dessert. Ellen ordered the flourless chocolate cake. Kane just got coffee. “You can’t do that to me,” she protested.
“I told you, I—”
“Oh, come on,” she said, aware that she was almost begging, that she’d forgotten all about the cool, collected self she’d been determined to portray. “I’m not going to enjoy dessert if you’re over there sipping a measly cup of coffee.”
He grinned. “I don’t think I’ve ‘sipped’ anything in my life. And watching you eat chocolate cake sounds like a whole lot of fun.” Ellen blushed again; she was really going to have to do something about this constant reddening of her cheeks. Hadn’t somebody invented a pill? “But okay. I’ll have the cheesecake.”
When the waiter was gone, Kane fell silent again. It occurred to her that being flippant about her parents was not exactly tactful around someone who’d lost both of his. There she went again; any and all breeding she’d acquired simply evaporated around him.
“It must be hard,” he said finally. “Not being home. When do you go back?”
It was quite easy not to go home, in fact. Grateful for the change of subject, she said, “Thanksgiving. I have to get on with ordering my tickets.”
“I mean, when do you go back for good? When are you done with all the jobs in other countries?”
“Oh.” How long was long enough before she could go back and live in a world that included Edward? Her mother and his were still very good friends. He wasn’t married, she knew. When she saw him at the events she couldn’t avoid, he purposely came over, stood too close, loudly talked to his mother about Ellen being “the one who got away,” and then gave her such a predatory look that she shivered now. “Um, not for a while,” she said.
He hadn’t missed that shiver. He was watching her. Reading her. Apart from his fingers tapping the table (no longer having a fork to play with), he was very still.
Desperate to get out of the spotlight, she said the first thing that came into her head. “Why do you smoke?”
“How do you know I do?” he asked, surprised.
She indicated his tapping fingers. She almost said, “And I could smell them on you,” but even the idea of the smell of him shortened her breath. She couldn’t get the words out.
He looked at his hand as if he’d never seen it before. “Because apparently,” he said, “I’m more addicted to them than I thought.”
She got her breath back. “Yes, but why start in the first place? Haven’t you—” She broke off, and her face fell in horror.
“Had enough of fire?” Kane said with a wry smile.
