Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
“WAIT. YOU DID TWO and a half years of a law degree and you’re okay with it?”
Kate shifted in her seat. “There’s not much point feeling otherwise, right?”
Tia spluttered air between her lips.
Kate laughed, sipped her champagne and felt Roman stiffen at her side. She tilted him a challenging glance and took another sip, noticed the way his hands gripped his knee and bit back another chortle. “I take it you don’t agree?”
“I mean, no. I don’t mean to be rude but that’s a lot of work to put in and have nothing to show for it.”
“I don’t have ‘nothing to show for it’,” Kate disagreed. “I learned a heap.”
“Like how to read contracts?” Roman’s question throbbed towards her, loaded with curiosity. As though he had his own barrage of questions. For later. Only later made the hair on her arms stand on end with heated anticipation.
“First year,” she agreed, flicking a smile in his direction. His eyes held hers and the smile died, smouldering into ash. Her lips parted on a small rush of air. She turned back to Tia.
“But Kate—you don’t talk like someone who comes from money. You struggled through uni, right?”
“Tia, this isn’t your concern.”
“I’m just saying,” Tia continued regardless. “You must have known that once you graduated, your earning potential would increase exponentially. Surely that was worth fighting for?”
“I did fight,” Kate said quietly. “I fought every day from the moment I arrived. I survived on baked beans and my roommates’ leftovers for weeks on end. I didn’t go out, I didn’t drink, I didn’t see a goddamn movie. I fought for two and a half years, and then, I just couldn’t fight anymore.”
“But—”
“Tia,” Roman’s voice was no longer subtly warning. It was a command, tense with emotion.
Kate looked from one to the other, felt something between them that seemed to pre-date her.
They argued, she gathered, not infrequently.
Like siblings? Or passionate lovers? She quelled that thought.
Roman had said things weren’t like that between them, and she believed him. He had no reason to lie.
But Kate had come to despise conflict. She’d known too much of it in her various foster homes and it filled her with an icy sense of dread, and a pervasive feeling of powerlessness, because she couldn’t always control what came next.
And yet, she didn’t mind arguing with Roman, she realised.
In fact, she liked it. She relished it. She never felt unsafe or afraid, just… excited.
“You know what we need,” she murmured. “Music.” She jerked to standing, limping across the room to where Roman had a multimedia tablet hooked up to discreet speakers throughout the penthouse.
She’d seen him use it before and found it easy enough to scroll through the playlists.
She was aware of Tia and Roman talking behind her in hushed tones, and didn’t turn around.
She sipped her champagne, selected a playlist somewhat at random and hit the start button.
Lily Allen filled the apartment, her debut album, full of attitude and spark, it was exactly what Kate felt like in that moment.
She turned to the others with a smile on her face but it dropped when she saw their expressions.
They were both looking at her as though she’d strangled a kitten.
“What?” she said, looking down quickly at her clothes, her nightmare morphing into being naked in front of a classroom.
“It was her favourite,” Tia said, and Roman closed his eyes.
“Whose favourite?” Kate asked, wondering if the champagne had dulled her senses in some vital way.
“Grace’s.”
“Your sister’s?” Kate prompted.
Roman’s Adam’s apple shifted before he answered. “Yes.”
“But not anymore?” Kate made her way back to the sofa, wondering if a safer choice might have been next to Tia rather than Roman.
Tia’s lips floundered, her features showing confusion. She turned to Roman. “She doesn’t know.”
Tia stopped walking, then winced as pain shot up her leg from her sprained ankle. “Know what?”
But Roman had seen it. He stood quickly. “You’re limping.”
“Yeah. I walked a bit today. My ankle hurts.” If it weren’t for three glasses of champagne, she might not have answered quite so baldly. Given his protectiveness of her, it was entirely predictable that he’d be annoyed with her choices. As it turned out, with good reason. “What don’t I know?”
“For fuck’s sake, sit down, Kate. You’re meant to be getting better while you’re here, not worse.”
“I’m not worse, and what aren’t you telling me?”
Tia was watching closely, eyes going from one to the other.
“You weren’t limping this morning.”
“Roman,” Tia said, so they both turned to look at her. “Why haven’t you told her?”
Kate couldn’t look away from him, the way his jaw was clenched. Her mind was all fuzzy, like fog had settled atop her brain, but two words broke through it. Not today. Why not today? What had Garrett meant?
“We just met,” he said, and it was strange to hear Roman sounding almost defensive. Not quite, because this was Roman Hayes and Kate couldn’t imagine him apologising to anyone. But there was a tone of surrender in his voice.
It didn’t matter that he’d spoken softly though. The words still cut through Kate like a knife in butter.
We just met. AKA why would I tell her?
“Guys, I think I’m done,” she said, suddenly feeling pulled in a thousand different directions. “I—need to lie down. I’m tired.”
“Amateur,” Tia said, light-hearted once more. “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“I’m not one for day drinking,” she said, not meeting Roman’s eyes. But before Kate could leave, Roman turned to Tia.
“Would you give us a minute?”
“I’ll give you ten,” Tia said, standing with all the ease of someone who was used to day drinking. I’ve got some calls to make.”
“To clients?” Roman asked, evidently sharing the same concerns Kate had—that Tia shouldn’t be doing business after drinking God knew how much.
“Nope. Not those kinds of calls.” She winked in a way that was utterly perfect, taking Kate’s breath away for how effortlessly beautiful the other woman was.
Graceful and sophisticated whilst also appearing sparkling and fun.
How was it possible that Roman wasn’t involved with her?
A kernel of jealousy nestled inside Kate and the alcohol had weakened her usual abilities to dispel it.
Once Tia had left the room, disappearing towards Roman’s office down the other end of the penthouse, Kate put her hand on her hip.
“Sit down, Kate.”
She arched her brows. “What’s the magic word?”
“Now.”
She crossed her arms and winced.
“For fuck’s sake. Fine then, please.”
“Better,” she pouted, but stayed where she was. “You sure you don’t want to carry me, tough guy?” She knew she was tipsy. Or drunk. But she couldn’t help poking the big bear in front of her.
“That’s only the beginning of what I want to do to you right now, believe me,” he muttered, but he stepped forward and scooped her up against his chest, his eyes levelled straight ahead as he strode not towards the sofas but deeper into the penthouse, through the wide corridor with the high ceiling and into her bedroom.
Not her bedroom, she reminded her foggy brain.
The guest bedroom. She didn’t have a bedroom. Not here, not anywhere.
“I can walk.”
“You’ve walked too much today. You just said so.” Had she? Not exactly, she suspected, but her brain was too addled. She cursed Tia then for plying her with champagne.
“Why are you angry at me?”
He flicked her a glance then grunted as he stalked towards the bed. But he didn’t put her down; he dropped his gaze to hers and stared at her as though something in her eyes would have everything make sense.
“That’s not an answer,” she responded, waspishly.
“I’m not angry at you.”
“But you are angry.”
“I’m—why does it matter?”
“Is that how you want to play this? Just shutting me down whenever I ask a question?”
“What question do you want to ask? Am I mad because you left the apartment against my express—”
“Instructions?” she interrupted with disbelief.
“Request,” he retorted, then moved to place her on the bed, propping her so she was sitting up, before straightening the leg with the sore ankle. She ignored how his sudden tenderness affected her, and focused on their acerbic words instead.
“Am I mad because you pounded back champagne with Tia even though you clearly can’t keep up?”
She snorted then. “Hey, I can handle my liquor.”
“All appearances to the contrary,” he rejected.
“I told you, I don’t day drink,” she muttered.
“Evidently.”
“So?” She crossed her arms belligerently, staring at him with fulsome anger. “Is that a problem? Does that piss you off so much you had to bring me in here all holier than thou? What exactly is the problem?”
“The problem is—”
“Yeah?”
“The problem is—”
“I’m listening.”
He dragged his hand through his hair then stalked across the room, standing for a full ten seconds with his hands braced on his hips. “The problem is that I don’t want to see you like this.”
Rejection surged through her, as sharp as any blade she’d ever known. She felt instantly wrong, as though she didn’t belong in his beautiful apartment with his beautiful friend.
“I don’t ever want to see you vulnerable and trusting, easy to take advantage of.”
Her heart hammered; she felt as though she were missing something important but couldn’t take hold of it.
Was that because for one of the first times in her life she felt valued and wanted?
Seen and needed? He moved back to her, sat on the edge.
“Promise me that when you leave here, you’ll look after yourself. ”
“I only went out for a walk,” she said. “To explore a little. I wasn’t—”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “After our contract date, will you be careful?”
Her heart seemed to wither into nothing, like the spent skin of an aged fruit. “Oh. I…I wasn’t drinking that night.”
He swore. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not blaming you.”
“Aren’t you?”