I arch my eyebrows, incapable of hiding my surprise. “Are you serious?”
“Very serious.”
“You’d do that, just because you want to know why I’m here?”
He hesitates. His knees brush my legs as they tighten around me, holding me close. “I want to know, yes. But . . . mostly I want you to trust me, because your trust matters to me.”
My heart’s pounding. I bite my lip so I won’t smile in pleasure at the warmth his words suffuse through me. Tipping my head, I peer down at him and notice his tie’s loose and crooked. Gently, I straighten the knot, then tighten it a little. “I came home because I wanted to fix things,” I tell his necktie, still fiddling with it, simply to avoid his eyes. “Because if Jules got away, she could have a place to heal, and if Jules was away, Bea and Jamie could be together without worrying about how it might affect her. If I left Scotland and came here, all of that was possible.”
His hands go still on me. “You came home . . . for them.”
I smile wryly and meet his gaze. “Yes, Christopher. Hard to believe I could pull my head out of my ass long enough to show up for my family?”
“I wasn’t thinking that.” He bites his lip, his grip firm on my waist. “I just wondered . . . is there another reason you came, one that was just for you?”
It’s so tempting to tell him everything, when he holds me this way, when he looks at me like this—Because I was tired and sore and broke and lonely. Because this life I’ve been living that used to fix all my problems started feeling like the source of them. Because it felt so good to feel needed, and even better, knowing I could help.
But I’ve given him more than I ever thought I would, in what I’ve already confessed. That’s enough vulnerability for one day.
“I have my reasons for me, too,” I hedge. Sliding my hands off his shoulders, down his arms, I take my first step back until he reluctantly lets go, his hands landing heavily on his thighs. “But those . . .”
“You’re not ready to tell me,” he says.
“Girl’s gotta have some secrets.” I lift the camera and force myself to focus on its mechanics, my eyes on Christopher not as someone who’s touched me tenderly and offered an olive branch of trust, but as my subject, contained safely in its frame.
He stares straight at me, jaw clenched, his eyes two glowing embers that burn through the barrier I’ve tried to put between us. “I can wait,” he says. “Until you are. Ready, that is.”
I lower the camera for a moment and search his eyes. “And what if I told you that you might be waiting a long time, Petruchio?”
His eyes hold mine. “I’d tell you, I’m a patient man, Katerina.”
I clutch my camera like a shield and bring it between us, capturing frame after frame, reminding myself why I came here today in my feminist red power suit, armed with my best camera, my fiercest boots, ready to take charge—not get myself emotionally twisted up and melt into a puddle of lusty goo.
But as I snap photo after photo, as I look into those warm amber eyes locked on me, sure and steady, all I can think about are those photos on his desk, the handkerchief in his drawer, his gentle touch, his eyes searching mine, his voice, low and steady, revealing kindness, promising patience.
I can wait.
I have more than enough photos of him, but I keep my camera up, firmly between us, hiding the fact that Christopher’s managed something I stopped hoping he would a long time ago: to put a smile on my face.
? TWENTY ?
Christopher
“Turn that frown upside down.” Nick smiles from where he leans a shoulder against the threshold of my office.
I stop swaying in my chair, pinning him with a flat, weary look. “And why should I do that?”
“Because you are clearly making some progress with the ballbuster—”
“Don’t call her that.”
Nick lifts his hands. “Okay. My bad.”
I scrub my face. “Sorry I snapped. I’m tired.”
“So go home. Get some sleep.”
I laugh emptily. Spoken like someone who can simply lay down their head and sleep, whose head pounding with pain doesn’t wrench them awake half the time, whose nightmares don’t keep them up the other half. “Yeah.”
Slowly, I ease out of my chair and reach for my coat. “Walking to the train? I’ll join you.”
“Oh. Uh . . .” He wiggles a finger in his ear, Nick’s nervous tell.
“Uh, what?” I ask, slipping on my coat.