Chapter 17 #3
“I need to do my due diligence before writing a check. Make sure your hospital aligns with my values.”
“Your values?” I scoffed. “You propositioned another man’s wife. What morals could you possibly be concerned about?”
Kai didn’t react, though I knew he was ticked off.
I had become attuned to his moods ever since the honeymoon.
I felt a shiver move through me when he leaned forward.
The distance across the small table collapsed in a way that did something unwelcome to my pulse.
It was such a traitorously involuntary reaction that I pressed my shoulders flat against my chair.
The extra inch between us made no difference at all.
He was close enough that I could see the faint line of his jaw, the particular way his eyes went still when he was serious. Once more, I felt incredibly hot.
“If you knew me, you’d know exactly which values I had given up to make this work.” All previous hints of playfulness vanished as bitterness took hold of his voice.
“But I don’t know you,” I whispered, my rebuttal slightly subdued.
“And whose fault is that?”
Mine? But Kai was a closed book. He reminded me of a high-power fuckboy business tycoon who never showed an ounce of vulnerability.
Men like him wanted traditional wives at home while they messed around on the side.
Kai saw me and wanted to do as he pleased.
The fact that I was married was irrelevant.
There was no point in engaging people like him in conversation because they never revealed anything substantial.
“As if you’d reveal anything real about yourself,” I muttered under my breath.
“How would you know? You’ve never asked me anything,” he pointed out.
The waitress arrived with the sparkling lemonade and Arnold Palmer. The tension at the table was so thick that even she felt it. She gave us a tight smile and quickly left to fetch our appetizers.
Kai and I picked at the food silently. It was difficult to enjoy the mouthwatering dishes.
His earlier rebuke festered in my mind like an annoying splinter.
I racked my memory and couldn’t recall any instances when I’d asked about his life since the twins’ birthday dinner, not even as a half-hearted attempt at small talk.
I’d assumed he wouldn’t tell me and left it at that.
Experimentally, as though testing a theory in a lab, I blurted, “Tell me about your childhood?” I chewed on a cheese-stuffed mushroom and didn’t make eye contact.
He grabbed his drink off the table. “What do you want to know?”
I shrugged. “What were your parents like?”
Kai watched me over the rim of his Arnold Palmer.
When he didn’t speak, I realized he had taunted me with the getting-to-know-him offer.
Of course it was an empty promise. Kai wasn’t the type of man to let anyone in, no matter the liberties he took with them.
He broke the family I loved but couldn’t part with basic information about himself. Stupid me for trying.
I shook my head. “Let me guess. Poor little rich boy with mommy and daddy issues.” There was more heat to my voice than I’d intended.
Mostly because I felt humiliated for falling for his trap.
“Did they ditch you constantly? Did you grow up eating dinner alone just like me? That must’ve left you with a deep fear of commitment because the people you loved always disappointed you.
” Perhaps I was projecting my own fears, but I was on a roll and couldn’t stop.
“You’d rather marry someone else’s wife than find one yourself, because then you don’t ever have to fully commit.
What was it that you told Stefan? Business is stressful enough without factoring in other people’s feelings,” I parroted Kai’s words that Stefan had repeated to me.
“If you need to leave for Africa, you can’t be bothered with fighting your wife, and you wouldn’t have to if there was someone else to pick up the pieces. ”
My chest was heaving by the time the vile words were out. I had no idea why I was triggered by his simple refusal to share. Perhaps because it seemed Kai knew everything about me but thought so little of me that I wasn’t allowed to know anything about him.
He lowered his glass. His eyes were blank, giving nothing away. The waitress dropped off our pizza, which he ate very little of, while my appetite was completely gone. I still picked up a slice just to have something to do with my hands.
“My mother was a doctor,” he said suddenly.
“She owned a fertility clinic. My father owned his own law firm.” Instead of touching the pizza, he speared a cheese-stuffed mushroom with his fork.
“They kept a brutal work pace but made time for me. They were good parents and did their best to give me everything. But if you want me to rate their parenting skills, I’ll give them and my childhood a nine out of ten. ”
It dawned on me then that he kept referring to his parents in the past tense. “They were good parents—”
“They’re dead.”