Chapter 22 #2
She didn’t say anything. I thought I could hear my own heartbeat in the silence. The idea had seemed like a stroke of genius at the time, but now it felt like a mistake to not have asked Kate before.
She moved, stopping right in front of me. She smelled of lavender bath bubbles. The scent would, from now on, forever remind me of Kate. Although we hadn’t known each other for long, the circumstances of our meeting had permanently etched her into my memory.
“I don’t know what to say,” she murmured.
“Are you angry at me?”
“Angry?” The furrow in her brow deepened. “No, grateful.”
I exhaled in relief. “Really?”
“Really!” she confirmed, and I could hear her smile. “Do you know how many people you can help with that money? How many shelters could be built? How much food you could buy? Or clothes for the winter? Just ten pounds a day would change my life. And there are so many ten pounds in twenty million.”
There were tears in her eyes. Tears of joy. Shit. I hadn’t expected this.
She tried to blink the tears away, but one escaped and tracked its way down her cheek.
Before it could fall to the ground, I caught it with my thumb.
Without thinking, I had reached out and touched Kate.
Her breath caught as my cool finger brushed her warm skin.
For a brief moment, the world seemed to stop.
Her expression was sombre, but I could also see her gratitude.
And there was more. Another feeling, one that made me withdraw my hand.
I stuffed it hastily into my hoodie pocket before I could do anything silly, like pull her towards me.
I cleared my throat. “Come on, I want to show you something.” I walked to a seemingly random spot in the hall and pointed at the floor. “Do you see that?”
Kate stopped next to me, her shoulder brushing against my arm. The touch was fleeting but electric. “Do you mean that scratch?”
“Yes. That was me. I fell off my bike,” I answered, trying to forget the touch as fast as I could.
“You rode your bike in here?”
“Yes, all the time. Bike. Skateboard. Rollerblades. Our parents technically forbade Logan and me to do any of it, but there’s so much space here, and it was the perfect place to race around when it was dark and cold outside,” I explained.
“I like this hall because it’s so grand and impressive, but also because it reminds me of my childhood and all the mischief we got up to.
We used to hide here from our parents, until the staff told on us. ”
“It sounds like you had a good time here,” Kate said. Her eyes shone, despite the fact that her brown irises were so dark that even the chandelier light seemed to get lost in them. “You talk a lot about Logan.”
“Do I?” I said, surprised. I hadn’t noticed it, and I didn’t usually talk about him. My parents didn’t like it when I mentioned him, and Ethan and Logan were practically strangers to each other who coincidentally shared DNA.
“Yes. Far more than you talk about the rest of your family anyway.”
“Probably because he’s the only one I really know,” I confessed, and sat down next to the scratch on the ground.
My dad had ordered for it to be sanded down and polished a few times over the years, but it was too deep, and it had never fully gone away.
“My mum has always been very reserved. She’s used to being a trophy wife and leaves all the talking to my dad.
He, on the other hand, has always worked a lot.
That’s what he says anyway. It’s possible he was just too busy with other women to spend time with his sons.
Logan and I were alone a lot—we were best friends.
We are best friends, even if the last years have been a little difficult. ”
Kate sat down next to me. “Why were they difficult?”
“Logan and I went to the same boarding school in Crawley, but our parents sent him to France unexpectedly when he was thirteen. From then on, he was only home for the holidays. I still don’t know why they did that. After he graduated, he broke off contact with the family.”
“But not with you?” Kate pressed.
I shook my head and ran my finger along the scratch.
“No. We wrote to each other a lot, especially in his first few weeks in France. He was pretty lonely. But at some point, he made friends, and then we stopped speaking so often. Looking back, I wish I’d stuck up for Logan, or that I’d gone with him. ”
Kate placed a hand on my knee. I could feel its warmth even through my jeans. “You were practically a child yourself. What could you have done? It was your parents’ decision, not yours, and Logan knows it.”
I avoided her eyes. I didn’t feel like I deserved her pity.
“Perhaps, but it ruined a lot in our relationship. When Logan came back to London, I was already studying at Oxford, and then I started working for the hotel while he was pretty busy getting his own thing off the ground. We still get on well, but it’s not like before.
Whatever inspired our parents to send Logan to France is still a wedge between us.
It’s like he’s the black sheep and I’m the golden child of the family. ”
“That doesn’t sound fair.”
“It isn’t.” I sighed. “Logan doesn’t deserve it.”
“Neither do you,” Kate interrupted, her hand pressing more firmly against my knee.
I looked up, drawn into her dark eyes as completely as the chandelier light had been.
How could something so dark radiate such warmth?
“It must be exhausting, having to carry the weight of your parents’ expectations. ”
“I got used to it.” Have you really? mocked a voice in my head, but I ignored it. “Still, sometimes I wish Logan were here to help me out, especially with all the shit that’s going on right now.”
“Couldn’t you get him to come back? Now that you run the hotel?”
I snorted. “Oh, believe me, I’ve tried, but he doesn’t want to.
And I get it. The hotel isn’t Logan’s home like it is mine, and his restaurant is doing really well.
He’s even considering opening another location with his business partner,” I said, full of pride for what my brother had accomplished—he had managed to build his own little empire.
As much as I wanted him by my side, I didn’t want him to sacrifice any of that for the hotel, especially after the way our parents had treated him.
Even if that meant I had to put out all the fires single-handedly.
But I’d take care of that tomorrow.
This evening belonged to me and Kate.