18. Conrad #4
“You know,” I admitted, “for a long time after Jade died, I thought surviving was the best we were ever going to do.”
Winnie stayed quiet, letting me continue.
“I kept everybody fed. Kept schedules moving. Made sure homework got done eventually. But it always felt…” I searched for the right word. “Thin.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were grieving, too.”
“I know. But they’re kids.” I rubbed tiredness from my face. “I think I kept convincing myself I was sacrificing for them by working so much. Providing stability. Security. Whatever corporate excuse I needed that week.”
I looked toward the dark hallway upstairs. “I think part of me believed if I stopped moving for too long, the grief would catch me.”
Winnie’s fingers tightened slightly around her mug. “I understand that.”
The way she said it made me look at her differently.
There were moments with Winnie where I could feel the edges of something vast beneath the surface.
Experienced in a way that didn’t match other parts of her.
Sometimes, she spoke about loneliness or grief with this strange intimacy that made it sound less theoretical and more lived-in.
“What about you?”
Her eyes flicked up. “What about me?”
“You always listen to everybody else.” I shrugged slightly. “I don’t think you talk about yourself very much.”
A faint smile touched her mouth. “That’s because I’m mysterious.”
I waited.
Eventually she sighed softly into her tea. “I spent a long time alone.”
The honesty of it settled between us.
“By choice?” I asked.
“Partially.”
“And the other part?”
She looked out the window. “Sometimes life makes your choices smaller than you’d like.”
Without thinking, I reached across the counter and rested my hand lightly over hers.
She stilled immediately. Her skin was cool beneath my fingers.
“You aren’t alone anymore,” I said.
Her eyes lifted slowly to mine and the air between us finally gave up pretending this wasn’t happening. The kitchen felt smaller all at once.
Winnie’s thumb brushed faintly against the side of my hand. “You make it very difficult,” she murmured.
“For you to be alone?”
She shook her head. “For me to remember what’s sensible.”
My heart kicked hard against my ribs. I stepped around the counter before I could talk myself out of it.
Winnie watched me approach with that impossible look in her eyes that always made me feel like she was holding herself back from something enormous.
I stopped directly in front of her. Close enough to smell tea and jasmine and the faint trace of night air lingering in her hair. Taking the mug from her, I set it on the counter.
“You know,” I said softly, “you keep saying things like that, then acting surprised when I kiss you.”
A small breath escaped her. “You shouldn’t.”
“Too late.” My hand found her waist. Her fingers curled into the front of my shirt almost immediately.
And then I kissed her. Soft this time. Slow. Not desperate like the other day. Just warm and deliberate and terrifyingly tender.
Her mouth parted beneath mine, and she slid one hand up my chest. I felt her melt into me, and my entire body reacted before my brain could catch up.
God, I wanted her. Not only physically anymore, though absolutely that too.
I wanted this. The closeness. The ease. The way she fit beside me like she’d always belonged there.
When I deepened the kiss, Winnie made a soft, broken sound into my mouth that nearly destroyed what little remained of my self-control. I touched her cheek gently, and she leaned into it instinctively.
Then suddenly, she pulled back abruptly enough that I blinked in confusion. She stepped away, breathing unevenly, one hand pressed against her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Did I?—”
“No.” She closed her eyes briefly before looking back at me. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just—there are things you don’t know about me.”
Something in her expression made my stomach tighten. I frowned slightly. “Then tell me.”
God, I meant it too. Whatever it was, I wanted to know. I mentally prepared myself for the possibilities—a past relationship, enormous debt, trauma, some bizarre secret second family hidden in New Jersey. I didn’t even care.
Winnie looked at me like she wanted to speak. I could see the conflict moving across her face.
“Dad?” Bianca’s sleepy call drifted faintly from upstairs.
Everything broke at once. Winnie retreated a few more steps, her composure snapping back into place so quickly it almost felt unreal.
“I should go,” she said quickly.
“What? Winnie?—”
“Bianca needs you.”
She grabbed her sunglasses from the counter.
I followed her toward the foyer. “Winnie.”
She turned at the door. For one second she looked almost unbearably vulnerable. Like she was standing at the edge of something she desperately wanted and was equally terrified of.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
Her eyes searched mine. Then Bianca called again upstairs, more distressed this time.
Winnie opened the door quickly. “Goodnight, Conrad.”
Before I could stop her, she was gone.
I stared at her retreating back, then headed upstairs to Bianca’s room, my heart still pounding from the kiss. Somewhere beneath all of that was a growing certainty that Winnie Carrington was hiding something enormous from me.
I already knew I was going to love her anyway.