Chapter 14 #2
Roman watched as she took the swab and followed Garrett’s instructions, then replaced the swab.
“I’ll get a rush on the results.”
“Thank you so much, Garrett. I really appreciate it.”
“It’s no problem,” he said. “As for your visa, you’ve been granted a temporary extension while your case is reviewed.”
Kate sat up straighter. “That sounds…I don’t know. Like I still might get thrown out at any minute?”
“Not before I work out what’s happening with your father,” Garrett assured her.
“The immigration courts are backed up right now, it’ll take at least a month before someone gets to your case.
Given your situation, it’s the best we could arrange.
Even Roman’s name can only do so much with this sort of thing. ”
“Yeah, of course,” Kate said, but Roman’s gut twisted sharply.
He felt it again, then. The sense of Kate, stepping onto a plane, flying away from him.
He knew she came from the west of Brisbane, that she’d moved to Brisbane for university, and that was it.
At the end of all this, he would have no way of contacting her, short of asking Garrett for her details, which he refused to do.
“I really appreciate it.” She stood then and Roman’s air whooshed out of him at the sight of her body, her breasts, her hips, her.
Everything about her was so achingly…right.
He ignored the word.
Ignored the feeling, turned to Garrett. “Anything else?”
He wanted to be alone with Kate again. Needed to be alone.
“No, all good. I’ll be in touch shortly.”
Roman nodded once, wondering what the leads were, knowing that he would ordinarily have pushed for that information. But nothing was ordinary about this situation. Once Garrett had left, he turned to face Kate. “That sounds like good news?”
She lifted one shoulder. “We’ll see.”
Guarded and cautious. He understood that. He’d recognised this trait in her before, an aversion to optimism, and he understood it well.
“I mean, the fact I can be here longer is good,” she said, frowning slightly.
He ignored the way his whole body reverberated in agreement. “How long do you think you’ll stay?”
“I have no idea. Long enough to find something definitive out about my father? And I wouldn’t mind doing some touristy stuff,” she added, a weak smile on her face.
“Like what?” he asked, because it was easier to focus on that than anything heavier—like her departure.
“Oh gosh, I’ve hardly done anything,” she admitted.
“I mean, I’ve walked the streets, but I’ve been so in my head, and stressed, I hardly appreciated the buildings.
I want to see the Library, and Carrie Bradshaw’s front step, and the Friends building, and I’d love to see a Broadway show—I don’t care which—even if I’m up in the nosebleed seats with an obstructed view,” she said, smiling in a way that pulled at every single piece of his stitching.
He sipped his wine. She kept listing tourist sights, but Roman had stopped listening.
His eyes were on her lips and in the back of his mind, he was trying to work out just quite how he’d live, knowing they were on the other side of the world to him, and always would be.
“What’s this?” Kate asked, the next evening, when Roman walked into her bedroom holding a large, good quality paper bag.
“Have a look.” He placed the bag down at her side and Kate reached in to remove, first, a tissue paper wrapped piece of clothing.
She sent him a look of confusion as she unstuck the boutique’s branding and peeled back the paper to reveal an incredibly beautiful dress, a dark green with lacy cap sleeves and then a silk body.
“It’s…beautiful,” she answered, honestly, holding the fabric up to herself and imagining how glorious it would be to wear.
“Keep going.”
She threw him another quizzical glance but did as he said, her fingers finding a box now—shoe size. She opened the lid and saw a beautiful pair of heels with a red leather sole, the brand famous the world over. “Roman,” she hissed. “What’s happened?”
“Keep going,” he insisted.
Her fingers trembled a little now as they dipped back into the bag, this time, removing a smaller box, black velvet, with Cartier written across the top in silver writing.
She’d never really been given anything before.
Maybe by her mum, as a little girl, but she couldn’t really remember that.
Not in any of her foster homes. Her birthday had become a date to dread, because her memories were so antithetical, compared to most people’s.
It wasn’t her birthday, but that didn’t matter.
Roman had bought these things for her, even though she knew she couldn’t accept such a generous gift as jewellery.
“I can’t,” she said reluctantly, handing it towards him without opening it.
“You can,” he insisted, crossing his hands over his chest.
Kate shook her head, confusion bubbling through her. She didn’t need to live in this rarefied world to know that whatever was in the box would have cost more than her airfare to America.
She opened it with fingers that shook slightly and gasped at the sight of a pair of earrings—a teardrop emerald in the centre of a circle of sparkling white diamonds. They were the perfect match to the dress. “Roman,” she whispered, staring up at him. “No way.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Kate,” he said, sternly, reminding her of the man she’d first met, who’d ordered rather than asked.
He’d softened a little, in the last week.
He was still Roman, but he’d allowed her more and more to be his equal in every way.
But in this moment, there was no argument.
“Either you keep them, or I throw them in the bin. It’s your call. ”
“You wouldn’t!”
“I would.”
She held his gaze for as long as she could manage, before her heart threatened to burst from her breast. “Thank you,” she said, finally. “But you really shouldn’t have.”
“It’s no big deal. Keep going.” Her heart plummeted. He was right. Of course this was no big deal to Roman, even when it meant the world to Kate. Her throat felt thick suddenly, emotions bursting through her. She struggled not only to contain them but to conceal them as well.
Her touch was more clinical now, as she removed a small designer bag, the most supple leather she’d ever felt. “Stunning,” she admired, aware that all the pleasure had gone out of the moment.
Another dip into the bag and she felt a perfume—yet another brand name she’d seen in boutique windows but never dreamed of owning.
She spritzed it in the air and closed her eyes, as a wonderful cloud of vanilla and gardenia seemed to carry her away.
“I love it,” she admitted. It smelled somehow luxurious, but it was more than that.
It smelled like care, even when it was probably just a case of him having selected a brand that women liked.
Maybe this was a normal thing for him? A way to end his relationships?
Oh, God, she thought, stricken. That’s what this was. A parting gift. She’d refused to let him give her money, and so he’d bought her gifts that she could sell, if she needed to. It was Roman’s way of getting his way! It was his way of ensuring she’d be fine once she left here.
“The last thing is a gift for me.”
She blinked up at him, disoriented, trying to focus. She reached back in the bag, removed yet another tissue paper packet—this one very small—and unfolded it to reveal a thong, lace and silk, just a scrap of material.
“I want to think of you wearing that all night,” he said, bringing his body over hers and carelessly brushing her gifts aside. “And when we get home, I’m going to slide them off you and make love to you while you’re still wearing that dress. It’s all I’ll be thinking of, Kate.”
His hands moved to her singlet top, lifting it over her head and tossing it to the floor, as his head dipped and his lips found her breasts, driving rational thought from her mind, driving everything from her except the insatiable, ever-present need for Roman Hayes.
It was later, when the cyclone of need had dissipated and Kate was lying in the bed, staring at the ceiling, that she turned to Roman and said, “What did you mean, before?”
He propped up onto his elbow, eyes dropping lower to surf over her naked body. He reached out and put a hand on her hip with easy possessiveness.
“When?”
“You said you wanted to think of me in those, all night,” she gestured towards the end of the bed, where the panties had presumably fallen.
“Ah.”
“Where are you suggesting we go?” She was careful to phrase it like that, rather than a foregone conclusion.
“It’s a surprise.”
Of course it was. Maybe this was also part of the Roman Hayes ‘end of relationship’ pattern. She tried not to feel as though they were walking a path he’d taken many times. She tried not to think of the women who’d come before her with their NDAs and designer gifts.
“When do we leave?” She smiled, over-brightly.