Chapter 4 #2
“Your best friend who gets all the compliments.”
Rosemary shook her head, the long blonde strands flicking over her shoulder. “No. It’s not like that. I love my sister.”
“But?” He knew there was a but. Her downcast eyes and flushed cheeks were a dead giveaway.
“My sister is amazing.”
“But?”
She crinkled her nose. “Are you always this pushy?”
“Yes. And I’m not going to let you change the subject. What’s the but?”
She sighed, a huffy, irritated breath. Heat coiled low in his stomach. He knew she didn’t intend it to be, but the sound was soft and sexy.
“She tends to hover.”
He lifted a questioning eyebrow. “Hover?”
“I was sick when I was a teenager.”
She pushed at her silverware until each piece was perfectly straight, then repositioned her bread plate, water glass, and wineglass.
He waited. Undercover work had taught him the value of silence. Human nature inclined people to fill the void.
He ticked off the seconds. She lasted a lot longer than most. People generally felt the need to fill the silence after about five or ten seconds.
He counted to thirty-four before she released a slow breath and lifted her bright blue eyes with a stare so direct, he felt like she could see straight through him. She looked...pissed.
“I had cancer.”
“Cancer?”
There hadn’t been anything about cancer in the file.
He knew Kemper hadn’t used FBI resources to run a full background check on Rosemary to keep his side mission off their radar, so he shouldn’t be surprised that her medical history hadn’t made it into the file.
Still, he felt like he’d been hit by a Humvee.
And she backed up and ran him down all over again.
“Yes. A rare type of bone cancer. They found it when I was twelve. It came back when I was seventeen, and then it came back again a few years ago. I’m fully cured now, but it was pretty rough.
” She took a breath, then continued to force her words out through gritted teeth.
“My mom and Sage did everything they could to help me make the best of a hard situation. My sister was always protective, but after Mom died...things got a little nuts.”
“I’m sorry.” The words felt small, but he was too stunned to think of anything else to say.
“I don’t know why I told you that.” She went back to fiddling with her silverware. “I had a crazy day at work today, and you kept pushing about my sister.” She waved her hand toward the sparkling patio lights. “And it feels like we’re in another world here.”
He got it. He’d felt like he was in another world since the first moment he laid eyes on her.
“I know what you mean. It feels like we’re on our own little island out here. Now dare I ask what you meant by ‘a little nuts’?”
She arched a meticulously sculpted eyebrow. “Are you a professional interrogator?”
A laugh burst from his throat, popping the vestiges of the tension that had sprung up between them. “Something like that.”
Rosemary glanced around, perhaps absorbing the ambiance of the outdoor patio before returning her gaze to meet his. Her pink lips scrunched as she considered her next words.
“Nuts is my sister accusing my stepdad of killing our mom. Nuts is my stepdad threatening my sister and kicking us out of the house. Nuts is us going into hiding, and my sister working as a stripper to support us. Nuts is my cancer coming back, and Sage seducing the owner of a pharmaceutical company so he would give me the experimental medicine that cured me. So, yeah. Things got a little nuts.”
The water he’d just sipped caught in his throat. Hard coughs ripped through his chest, making his eyes water and his nose run. When he finally caught his breath, lowered the napkin he’d been hacking into, and met Rosemary’s gaze, her bright eyes sparkled like the Caribbean Sea at noon.
She was laughing at him.
The file had mentioned her mother was deceased, and her stepfather had been convicted of fraud, but hadn’t said anything about cancer, murder accusations, or seduction. Apparently, Kemper couldn’t even run a goddamn Google search.
“Are you serious?”
She nodded, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. She seemed to be enjoying seeing him dumbfounded.
“You said it like that on purpose to shock me,” he accused.
“You were peppering me with questions. Plus, you kept steering the conversation to me, and you’ve barely told me anything about yourself. I figured if I got all the scandalous stuff out hard and fast, maybe you’d get flustered enough to start talking about yourself.”
Now he was the one smiling.
“Your manipulation skills are terrible. If you lay out your plan like that, it’s not going to work.”
“Why would I want to manipulate you?”
The sincerity of her question was almost more shocking than her previous disclosure.
There weren’t many truly straight shooters in the world.
And the more she spoke, the more he believed that Rosemary was one of them.
Just like Phillipe had been. Not when they were undercover, of course, but in real life, Phillipe believed in honesty.
Real friends, real truth had been one of his many mottos.
If Rosemary was as good a person as she seemed, and this ruse ended up hurting her, Phillipe would find a way to haunt him for the rest of his goddamn life.