I laugh. “Okay, what am I afraid of? Not being able to take care of my family, and then I guess losing the people I love. My parents are gone, my gran, and someday Jane and Andrew will find partners and leave.” My throat prickles with emotion. “I mean, that’s what they need to do, but . . .” I pause, clarity settling in. “I’m afraid I’ll never have that.”
“Why?” he asks softly. “Kian is just a blip on your radar. There are good men who’ll worship you like the queen you are.”
My face heats. “‘Queen’? Seriously?”
He brushes his fingers down my cheek, and my heart stutters. “I’d treat you like a queen.”
My lashes flutter as my body heats. “Oh.”
“In all the best ways.” His voice deepens. “Darling.”
He’s totally pretending.
I roll my eyes. “Stop messing around. You’re trying to deflect from telling me what you’re most afraid of. You’re a chicken.”
“Noted.” He lifts his glass to me and takes a sip.
“Fine, let’s switch gears. What’s the first thing about me that you noticed the day at the motel?”
“Your tits.”
I sputter. “Figures. Couldn’t you have been a little more original?”
He smirks. “No, I mean, okay, yeah, you’ve got a nice rack, but I could tell one of your nipples was pierced. Your bathing suit was thin, and it poked out.”
I scoff. “I thought you’d be a better conversationalist.”
He huffs, but there’s a teasing look in his eyes. “Don’t give up on me. Tell me. What do you have on your nipple?” His eyes drift down my neck to my chest.
“You’ll never know.”
He chuckles. “Come on, don’t be mad. It’s not like I knew you were a spinster wannabe, did I? I didn’t have time to notice your brain because you hijacked me into your little intrigue, and there I was, pretending to be your prison boyfriend.”
“There was no intrigue. Fake Clint was a mastermind serial killer. I’m convinced.”
He laughs, and I nearly spit out a mouthful of champagne as I laugh with him.
“You’re funny.”
I bow my head. “Thank you, my king. I’ll be your queen, the one with the pierced nipple,” I declare, perhaps a little too loudly, since the older couple next to us send me a withering glance. “Oops.”
I glance down at the ring on my finger. “Tell me more about your mom. You said this was hers.”
His face softens. “She was several years younger than my dad. She taught music at a private academy, the same one where Brody teaches.”
“When did your parents divorce?” His description of them traveling the world sounded idyllic, but something went wrong somewhere.
“Technically, they were separated. My dad walked out when I was fifteen. Six months later, my mom died in a skiing accident. She went the wrong way on a trail and went off the mountain.” The thick muscles in his throat move as he toys with his glass. “Brody and I were with her. She was behind us on the slope and must have gone the wrong way.”
My heart clenches. “I’m sorry. That’s terrible.”
“She was an excellent skier. Sometimes I think maybe it happened because she was . . .” He trails off as the waiter comes by to take our order.
As soon as the waiter disappears, he says, “I’ve never told anyone that, besides Brody.”
“You think it wasn’t an accident?”
His eyes search mine. “It must have been—I mean, she’d never leave us on purpose. It’s just, sometimes my head gets caught up in wondering if she did something on impulse.”
I squeeze his hand. “The what-ifs in the world can drive us crazy.”
“Tell me how you met Kian?” I notice that his eyes darken as he mentions him.
“He came into Marcelle’s and asked me out. I told him no, but he kept coming back. I admired his persistence.”
“Do you still love him?” Gray eyes capture mine.
My forehead wrinkles.
He tips my chin up, searching me, trying to read me. “You don’t, do you? Still love him?”
“I care about him as a person, but he wasn’t good for me. Maybe if I cared enough, I’d try to get him help.”
He exhales.
“You don’t like my answer?”
“He needs to find his own help. You don’t need to be near him,” he says with fierce eyes.
“Tell me about this woman you can’t have. Who is she?”
He stiffens as his eyes scan the part of the room I can’t see, his face hardening for a moment as he seems to settle on something or someone. “Divina. I met her when I was twenty-two and a rookie playing in Seattle. We fell in love and were together for years. We were engaged.” He says the words in his robot voice, as if they mean nothing, but I hear the bitterness in his tone.
“What happened to break you up?”
His eyes go back to that certain corner of the restaurant, then come back to me. “We’d come to New York on holidays and during the off season, mostly to see Brody and sometimes my father and half brother, Holden. She got along well with them, especially Holden.” He exhales. “We came back to Seattle after spending a Christmas in New York. She’d been distant over the holidays, spending time with friends in Manhattan and sightseeing. It didn’t click until we got home, and I saw a text pop up on her phone from someone called H. He was begging her to come back to him. I scrolled through and saw where they’d been sexting for months. She’d sent him photos of herself nude. He sent dick pics. The usual sordid shit.” He takes a sip of his drink, anger tightening his eyes. “I pieced it together. Holden couldn’t take his eyes off her at Christmas. Turns out, she’d been fucking him behind my back for a while.”
“Double betrayal.”
His jaw pops. “Yeah. Exactly. She packed her bags and moved to Manhattan and married him six months later. Holden always wanted everything Brody and I had. He was jealous of us from day one, maybe because we got more of Dad. Holden was only five when our dad left his family and made one with my mom.”
“How long ago did they get married, Divina and Holden?”
“Three years ago.”
I nod. “And then you got traded to New York.” To be close to her?
“Not for the reason you think. Moving here was always the plan, so I could spend more time with Brody.”
I take in the vulnerable glint in his eyes. I’m not sure I believe him.
“And now you have to see her with him?”
He takes a drink of his drink. “Occasionally.”
What would that be like? To see the love of your life married to a sibling?
He leans in over the table. “Holden is a creature of habit. He comes to Borelli’s on Wednesdays.”
I stiffen. Ah, I see what tonight really is.
Graham wants to flaunt me in front of Holden.
The heat from his kisses, the way we’ve been opening up to each other, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s been leading up to him seeing his half brother.
A slow simmer heats in my chest.
This is just a game to him, a charade.
We’re a fake couple. Yet, I let myself get swept up in the date and forgot.
Don’t get close to him, Emmy. Just play the game like you promised.
Fortunately the server brings our food, and I look down at it, not wanting Graham to see the growing frustration on my face.
Chapter 15
GRAHAM