Hidden Paradise

chapter SEVENTEEN



Rob

He’d told Di some of it, but not everything. Now words tumbled out of him. He found himself pacing, waving his arms, his fists clenched. At one point, he had to walk away from her and lean his heated face against a pillar, afraid he would cry. He swore a lot, which embarrassed him—after all, Mrs. Connolly was older than him and a teacher and it didn’t seem right, and why was he so angry here and now?

Finally, he stumbled to a stop, leaning against a pillar and looking out over the lake. There was a rainbow—Christ, what a cliché—in a steel-gray sky, and the swans floated out onto the water, snaking their necks around. He stopped talking.

“That sucks,” she said, and it was so unexpected he wanted to laugh. But he was still afraid of crying and it seemed that a laugh might very well go the wrong way and end up with him bawling his eyes out like Graham.

“So you haven’t heard from your mom at all?”

“No. We don’t know where she is.”

“Shit,” she said. Another surprise. “No other family? How about grandparents?”

“She was the one who kept in touch with everyone, because most of them don’t like my dad. So we didn’t see much of them. And she took the address book with her.”

She snorted. “I don’t much like the sound of your dad.”

“He’s not that bad. I mean, he’s a stupid wanker, but he’s my dad.”

She came over to him and laid her hand on his sleeve. “If I may step out of line here, Rob, you do realize that just because they’re your parents doesn’t mean they’ll never f*ck up. It sounds to me like she left her husband, not her children.”

“But she did leave us,” he said, sounding like Graham at his whiniest.

“Yeah. It sucks. But what makes me really mad, Rob, is your dad manipulating you and trying to get you to drop your place at Cambridge. Don’t do it. You obviously love your brother a lot and that’s admirable, but don’t sacrifice yourself for him. It won’t help anyone in the long run. Think he’ll care in ten years’ time? He won’t. But you will.”

“But—” Wow, she looked great when she was worked up and wet, with her dress sticking to her and her hair going all wild around her face. He promptly forgot what he was going to say.

“I see kids going to college for all the wrong reasons,” she said. “I get to grade their shitty papers. I’d hate to see a smart, nice kid like you screw up.”

“You think I’m nice,” he said. He was coming to the boil again, but in a different way this time. “I’m not nice, Lou. Not if you knew what I was thinking.” He was about to do something that was not at all smart and was definitely not the action of a kid.

Her eyes seemed to go wide and she swallowed hard. “And what’s that?”

He pushed her against one of the columns and bent his head to hers; her breasts and the hard ridges of her corset pushed into his chest, and she gave a small gasp of surprise. He swooped his mouth onto her open lips—they were soft and sweet—and her body seemed to change, becoming more pliant, yielding to him, inviting him. He cupped her face with his hand, her skin smooth and delicate against his palm, her pulse beating against his fingertips.

She made a sound he couldn’t really interpret but one of her hands latched on to his arse, pulling him against her. If she’d had any doubt how randy he was before, she knew now, with his hard-on pressed between them, driving against her.

Her tongue slithered against his, explored his lips, and then her head tipped back to allow him to suck and nibble at the pale skin of her throat and shoulders.

She pushed him away as his hands curled around her breasts, laughing. “You’re absolutely right. You’re not nice. Nice young men don’t kiss like that.”