Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
IT WAS DARK WHEN Kate woke, and it was with that awful, groggy, disorientation she’d experienced with the jetlag of first arriving in America.
Her mouth was claggy and her head was woolly.
But the wool cleared as she blinked her eyes and they focused on the small, silver, expensive-looking clock Roman had on one of the bedside tables.
It was only early. Six in the evening. Wait, or the morning? She reached for her phone, checked the date. The evening. The same day as…
Oh, Lord.
Fragments of memories came jabbing at her.
The way she’d thrown back glass after glass of champagne, picked fights with Roman.
Loved fighting with him. The things they’d said.
I wish I’d never met you. Her heart splintered, because it wasn’t the first time she’d heard it.
A tear slid down her cheek, not because of him, per se, but because of all the homes she’d drifted through in her youth, looking for one to land in and for it to truly be a ‘home’, and never finding that.
They hadn’t all been cruel, but they’d all let her go.
Even the nice ones, who’d said they wished they could keep her.
A lump formed in her throat and she set her jaw defiantly, dashing angrily at her cheeks.
But there was more. Her woolly brain wouldn’t work with her, wouldn’t cooperate.
She pushed out of bed in frustration, forgetting momentarily that her ankle had regressed and crying out as shockwaves of pain arrowed through her.
“Damn it,” she said, moving gingerly towards the bathroom.
She closed the door behind herself and leaned against it, then flicked on the light.
It was overly bright and she squeezed her eyes shut again, opening them a few times to give herself time to adjust to the assault of light.
When she could bear it, she moved towards the vanity and looked in the mirror, surprised to see a relatively normal-looking face staring back at her.
She didn’t look as though she’d been dragged through a bush backwards.
Nonetheless, she felt like it. She ran warm water and cleaned away her makeup, patted her face dry, brushed her hair and pulled it over one shoulder, then hobbled into the wardrobe and changed into a pair of loose woollen pants and a clean sweater.
But as she prepared to leave the sanctuary of her room, and stood right by the door, a vision of Roman in that exact place came to her, his back taut, his shoulders squared. Of my sister’s death.
Grace, his sister, was dead.
And Kate hadn’t known. He hadn’t told her.
Tia had been surprised by that, as though it were the sort of thing he did tell people.
So why not her? And why did it feel like that mattered?
Why did she have a sixth sense that Grace’s death and Kate’s presence in his life were somehow inextricably linked.
It hit her like a karate chop, so she dropped her hand away from the door and pressed her weight against it instead, facing the bed, breath rushed. They were linked. It wasn’t in her imagination. He’d saved Kate, he’d been obsessed with saving her, in fact. Because he couldn’t save Grace.
This wasn’t really about her. It was some kind of balancing of the scales, Roman proving to himself that…that what? That he was good? Was he using Kate to make amends for Grace’s death?
She didn’t know the details of what had happened to his sister, but she did know Roman, and there was nothing that could have happened to Grace that he wouldn’t internalise as his fault. It was his saviour complex, writ large. It was his worst nightmare.
I don’t ever want to see you vulnerable and trusting, easy to take advantage of.
What a fool she was! Kate had taken those words and wrapped them up for safe-keeping, buried deep within the layers of her heart. Like they meant something when, in reality, he probably wasn’t even meaning her, so much as his sister.
Promise me that when you leave here, you’ll look after yourself.
She groaned audibly and then let out a yelp as the door pushed open, and she with it.
“Shit, sorry!” It was Tia’s voice that sounded. “Are you okay?”
She tried to get her wits about her, to push down the hurt, like she’d done so many times in the past. She tried to remind herself that it didn’t matter, because this whole thing between them was—per their contract—meaningless.
But he’d made her feel like there was more. Not love. Not time. Not a relationship. But a true connection and care.
It was all a lie.
“I’m fine,” she said, the words over-bright even to her own ears.
“I thought I’d check on you. You’ve been asleep hours.”
“Yeah, I must have needed it.”
Tia stepped deeper into the room until she was facing Kate.
“I’ve been scolded for topping up your glass so freely,” she said, then laughed, clearly not remotely bothered by a Roman-Hayes-scolding. “You’ve really gotten under his skin.” There was curiosity in the comment. Speculation.
Kate brushed it aside. “It’s because of Grace,” she said. “I should have realised there was more going on from the beginning.”
Tia held out an arm. “Do you need help walking?”
But Kate stayed where she was. Tia wasn’t denying it, and yet, she had more questions. “How did she die?”
Tia looked towards the open door, as if seeing that Roman wasn’t nearby. He wasn’t, but Tia stayed silent.
“I’m asking because it’s pretty obvious that he’s being so protective of me as some sort of penance for losing Grace. I think I deserve to know.”
“It’s no secret,” Tia said. “You could google it. Though we did a pretty good job keeping most of the details out of the papers.”
There it was again. The effortless use of we. A team. Not a couple but in some ways, something even more powerful: a pair. Drawn together by life, for decades and decades.
“It was an overdose. Grace was an addict.”
Kate’s eyes widened. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am.” Tia’s throat shifted in the soft light of the bedroom.
“Grace was…” she sighed heavily. “You had to meet her to understand. Where Roman is all doom and gloom, Grace was sunshine and light, radiant joy. Roman walks into a room and everyone stands to attention, because he commands it. Grace walked into a room and you felt as though everyone, everywhere, everything in the world, was going to be okay.”
Kate’s heart stretched at the description. “She sounds like an angel.”
“She was. Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t perfect. Nobody is. But her heart was so pure. She’d…made a choice to be like that, somewhere along the way. I think because Roman always protected her, always shielded her, she had the luxury to embrace goodness and warmth.”
“So he’s always been like this?”
“Yeah. You can’t really blame him.” Tia’s brows knitted together. “But I don’t want to get into trouble again by speaking out of turn,” she winked, showing she really didn’t care about getting into trouble. “Ready to face the world, sunshine?”
She frowned. There was so much more she wanted to know, but Tia was right.
It wasn’t really her place to divulge Roman and Grace’s life history to Kate.
Besides, she wanted to hear it from Roman.
No, she wanted to watch his face as he told her, to see what he felt.
She wanted to know…to know she meant something to him as herself, not just because of some guilt he carried over his sister’s death.
“Or do you need a little longer?”
“No, I’m good.” She scanned Tia’s immaculate face. “Tell me you haven’t been drinking all afternoon?”
Tia pouted. “You don’t approve?”
“No, it’s just…you seem…you’re just one of those perfect people, aren’t you?”
Tia’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“You’re immaculately put together, you never have a hair out of place, evidently you can drink like a sailor and not show any sign of it, you’re a phenomenal success, you’re beautiful, smart…”
“Hey, careful, Aussie girl. Keep going like this and I might be the one wanting to drag you to bed,” Tia said, then laughed.
“Come on.” She tucked Kate’s hand into her arm and helped her from the room, even though Kate had said she was fine.
Somehow, it was better to walk out like this, arm in arm with Tia, as though she were an extra piece of armour that Kate suddenly needed.
It was only when they stepped into the palatial living room that Kate registered what Tia had said.
I might be the one wanting to drag you to bed.
As though she knew how Roman felt, had seen the spark between them, the heat, and understood what it meant.
And didn’t seem to care.
She wasn’t jealous. Kate’s heart gave a little leap.
Roman was in the kitchen when they entered, and as soon as Kate’s foot connected with the carpet of the room, the air changed. Thickened and sparked. She felt her throat constrict and breathing grew difficult.
“How do you feel?”
“No preamble, huh?” she asked, her cheeks heating as self-consciousness assailed her. And yet she couldn’t look away. It was like his eyes held hers in a vice-like grip.
“Kate.” A command, just like Tia had said. Kate’s lips quirked.
“Fine.”
He nodded once, a muscle shifting quickly in the base of his jaw, as though he were clenching his mouth. “Come and eat.”
“We’re having toasted sandwiches,” Tia said, gently prodding Kate back into a walk. She winced as she forgot about her ankle and put her weight on it again, heard Roman’s sharp exhalation, felt his concern but this time, it left her cold, because she suspected it wasn’t really for her, after all.
All the preciousness he’d made her feel, the protectiveness she’d taken as an indication that she mattered, she now knew to be founded on someone else. Someone else he loved. Someone else that mattered. Her eyes dropped away. No, they tore away, as though even looking at him was a betrayal.