Chapter Six #3
“That alone should have been enough to change my course, but I was a handful, wild, getting into all sorts of trouble with anyone I could find. Usually, my grandmother’s lectures were given at the table, so I was surprised one day when I found my grandmother waiting for me one last night as I sulked in the door.
She looked at me and said, ‘Your parents are not going to come no matter how much trouble you cause or don’t cause.
You cannot let this anger control you. You must control it or neither you nor your brother will have a future. ’”
The fear those words had triggered still sent a chill through him today, but he was too far into this story to stop here.
“I think she knew if she had told me my own future was doomed, I wouldn’t have listened. But my brother, the better twin, a smart, ambitious one—that I could and would destroy him? The idea filled me with a kind of fear I had never experienced before.”
Ann-Sophie frowned at him, as if she was missing something. “What do you mean by the better twin?”
“When I was younger, my parents told me this in countless ways. I was too loud, my tantrums were driving them crazy and dyslexia was just a badge of incompetence to them. I was a disappointment and made things hard for them. And if my memory serves correctly, there was some truth to that.”
He felt numb as he said these words, but when he caught a glimpse of the devastation in her expression, something twisted inside.
Her brow furrowed. “But most eight-year-olds cause their parents grief. I caused my mother plenty of heartache.”
Something flickered in her gaze and he was drawn back to her story.
“But wanting to know about one’s father is a natural thing,” he protested. “That’s not the same.”
She tilted her head to the side a little. “Isn’t wanting your parents’ attention natural, too?”
“Not in the way that I did it. Massimo, for example, managed to get through this without, for example, throwing a piece of priceless art at the wall, chosen specifically because my mother had just bought it.”
Ann-Sophie looked at him as if she wanted to disagree but held herself back. “So you went to your grandparents and had a good conversation and that fixed it?”
He wanted to tell her yes, but she had that skeptical look on her face, and he wanted to get through the conversation as quickly as he could. He wanted this to be finished.
“I found a more acceptable outlet for my emotions,” he said evenly.
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m curious to hear a teenage boy’s boundaries of acceptable.”
He laughed, despite all the heaviness he felt. “Teenage boys are not particularly known for acceptable boundaries, nor for their emotional awareness.”
The corners of her mouth lifted.
“It’s tempting to make something up just to shock you,” he said. “But you will probably be able to guess where I found my solution, considering that it is at the heart of my well-earned reputation.”
Her brow furrowed again for a moment, but then understanding seem to hit her. “Sex.”
He nodded, and she was quiet, as if this idea was sinking in.
He let her put together these pieces of him.
Part of him regretted telling her this, as she would likely soon understand her own unwitting role in this portrait.
But showing her these parts of himself was part of larger negotiations, he reminded himself.
Even if this conversation felt like something completely different.
Finally, she gave him a look that bordered on amusement. “So basically, in Nice I was part of a long-term self-styled therapy project to keep your emotions under control?”
He could smooth over the hint of bleakness in her voice and get her to laugh, and this could lead them to what his body was craving.
He could have brushed it off, telling himself he had imagined it, but something wouldn’t let him do it.
He told himself to follow his business instincts, that he was so close to getting what he wanted, but…
It would hurt her. And he couldn’t make himself do that.
So instead, he gave her a self-mocking smile. “It was supposed to be like an alternative to therapy. But it isn’t supposed to affect others, and with my well-earned reputation usually comes an understanding that there are limits to a fling with me.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t follow your exploits closely enough to get that message,” she said, the sharpness returning to her voice.
He shook his head impatiently. “That wasn’t the problem. Others have asked for more, and I have gently, smoothly, led them back to an appropriate understanding. But with you, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had a reaction and I have spent the last seven months trying to figure out why.”
Ann-Sophie blinked, as if this was the last thing she had expected him to say. Then her eyes narrowed, as if she didn’t believe him.
“It was why I blocked your number,” he added, his voice rising.
“It was why I never answered your message. It would have been so easy to slowly let you down the way I, frankly, have done to other women. But even on that last night, I knew if we had any further contact, it would make giving you up harder. So… I took precautions.”
“Because we never had a chance? You never imagined anything more with me?”
He knew the answer she wanted, but he couldn’t make himself give it to her. It would be a lie. “I have made sure never to imagine anything more with anyone.”
“I see.” Her voice was a whisper.
“Until now.”
The silence that hung between them felt uneasy, precarious.
He had just tipped his hand instead of playing his best card, and she could decide what to do with it.
And still, still, he felt the pull of her body, the longing that had been building since the moment he had seen her in front of her apartment building.
And he wanted her like nothing he had ever wanted in his life.
He wanted to soothe the riot of feelings that were threatening to take over, but he held himself still, his fingers tense with the effort of not pressing his lips to hers, losing himself in her, and letting all other thoughts disappear.
She lifted her hand and ran it over his cheek, and when he met her gaze, he could see the understanding was mixed with determination.
Did she think she could save him? Change him?
Did she think this scenario had a happy ending, where he would get over his past and they would live happily ever after?
If so, she was not the first to make the mistake.
It had happened enough times that he understood this as a warning sign.
He should back away, but at his core he was a deeply selfish man, and some things just would never change.
He knew this would create problems further down the road, but he reminded himself he had tried to do the right thing and it still had led him here.
So he gave in. He leaned into the lush temptation of her lips and kissed her.