“You didn’t come down for breakfast.”
“I overslept,” Kane said, a believable excuse, except Kane never slept in late.
“I can call one the servants to fetch you some breakfast,” Darius looked at his watch. “We have ten minutes to spare.”
“No,” Kane said quickly. The last thing he needed was to be confronted by the woman who knew his secret. Not until he found out what exactly his uncle knew. “I can eat in my office. I have so much paperwork to get through. Let’s get an early start.”
“Keen. I like that,” Darius said, but the look his uncle gave him made it clear he thought something was up. And as they left the house, he lowered his voice and asked Kane, “You didn’t sneak a woman into the house last night did you, Kane?”
“No. Why do you think that?” Kane asked. His uncle accepted Kane’s need for female company, but hated him bringing them here, that was what hotel rooms were for.
“I heard you up and about early this morning. I wondered if you were sneaking a woman out?” Darius opened the car and they got in. “You know I prefer it if you keep your one-night stands away from the house.”
“It wasn’t a woman. Unless you count the moon.” He said it lightly, as if it were a joke, but his uncle didn’t laugh. Darius just looked at him, with such intensity that Kane wanted to let all his secrets spill out one after another. He used it on his clients when he wanted to discover if they were hiding anything. Kane had never appreciated how effective it was until now.
“The moon is as intoxicating as any woman.” Darius watched Kane’s face carefully; they were still on the estate, following the drive out towards the road. And Kane wanted to turn and watch the scene around them, to drag his eyes away from Darius, but he was caught, held prisoner, as if caught in the headlamps of a speeding car at night.
“I have met many women more intoxicating,” Kane quipped. Why had he not noticed this about his uncle before? Sitting here, with Darius’s eyes boring into him, Kane felt naive, as if a different, more complex, world existed outside of the one he knew, outside of the world he had been brought up in. Darius was a predator. A sudden realisation hit Kane. He had never been told anything more about his family, other than that his mother and father were dead.
Was that even true? As they turned onto the road, Darius switched his attention back to the car, and the feeling passed. All Darius said was, “To some there is nothing more intoxicating than the moon. Until they meet the right woman, and when that happens a life, a love you never knew was possible, opens up to you.” He turned once, flashing his bright, charismatic smile at Kane. “At least that’s what I am told. But if it’s true, I’ve never found her.”
“Is that why you live alone?” Kane asked. “Because you have never found the right woman?”
“Yes. I realised a long time ago I would never find her here,” he said absently.
“You mean this side of the border?” The question formed in his mind and left his mouth before he had time to stop it. His uncle kept his eyes firmly on the road, but his fingers around the steering wheel gripped it so tightly, the whites of his knuckles showed.
“You should be careful, Kane. You don’t know where this will lead,” Darius said calmly, his voice belying the tension in his body.
“Who were my parents?” Kane asked. “And what happened to them? You never did tell me.”
“Why all the questions?” Darius asked, his voice light, the tension in his body still there, but he was trying to shield Kane from the truth. Or was he simply trying to hide his own part in what had happened to Kane’s parents?
“Because I’ve never thought to ask them before.”
“Until now,” Darius looked across to Kane. “Does this have anything to do with the moon?”
“You tell me,” said Kane.
“I will. But not now. Not here. Tonight. After dinner. Meet me in the boat house. Then I will tell you everything.” They had reached the tall building that housed the Reinier Corporation. Darius pulled up and waited for Kane to get out.
“You aren’t going into the office?” Kane asked. His uncle was at his desk six days a week, sometimes seven. Kane knew for sure that he had appointments scheduled all day today, so why was he leaving? A sense of dread crept through Kane. What had he unleashed?
“I’ll call my PA and reschedule. Can you get yourself home?”
“You’ll be gone all day?” Kane asked, feeling even more worried.
“Yes. I have some business that I have been putting off. But I’ve run out of time.” The expression on his uncle’s face was one of uttermost sadness.