Chapter 5 #2
I don’t turn around. “Yes.”
Seconds pass. Stone clears his throat, then exhales a long, noisy breath.
I whirl. “I’m happy with my choices.”
He pauses with his fingers shoved in his hair. “Okay.”
“No, you don’t understand.” I point at him with the spoon I was using to stir in the honey. “The way you talked about me out there. You didn’t even have to mention me.”
Stone gives a single brow twitch.
“I’m sure it surprised you to see me like this, dressed in scrubs and tending to your mother, but I’m fine where I’m at. I didn’t have to go to culinary school or pursue endless wads of cash or gain the love of the nation. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t dissect my life choices.”
Slowly, Stone removes his hand from the top of his head. “I apologize. My social filter isn’t at its best. I’ve just found out my mother has cancer.”
“ How ?” I throw my hands up, flinging warmed, sticky honey onto his suit jacket and shirt. “Fuck. Shit. Sorry.”
I swipe a hand towel from the oven’s handle and rush to dab the mess off his chest.
Digging my teeth into my lips, I swipe at the glob but only make it worse.
I’m stopped by a gentle pressure on my wrists.
His touch sends a scatter of goose bumps across my bare forearms, made more apparent as his minty exhales hit the top of my head.
This close, I can smell his cologne—probably an insanely pricey one that only multi-millionaires can afford. But because it’s him , and he has those eyes , it’s a smell unique to this man, and this man only.
“Noa,” he prompts.
I refuse to look up. I can’t. Not this close. Not when he’s touching me, and his skin is as warm through his clothes as his tan, and his hard body is what I’ve been missing for all these years.
“What’s this shirt cost?” I ask, staring at the white fabric stretching across his chest. His nipples pierce through the thin material.
I’m not sure this was the better spot to focus my attention on.
“Has to be a month’s salary,” I add, with a hitch in my voice.
“It’s fine. I’ll have it laundered.”
He releases my wrists but takes his time moving away, his breath tingling the baby hairs across my forehead and making me wish he’d blow that sweetness over my lips before he kissed them.
I recoil and turn away. Not him. What’s wrong with me?
“What did you mean?” he asks. His voice is low with extra butter churned in, and I’m thankful he doesn’t see me close my eyes in pained remembrance at the sound.
“Hmm?” I pretend deep focus on fixing Mrs. Stalinski’s tea. It’s usually done in half this time. I blame Stone’s presence for mixing me up and making me stupid.
“You asked me how , after I told you I didn’t know about Ma.”
I pick up the mug and the tumbler of whiskey I’d poured for him, handing it to Stone as I spin.
He takes it with genuine surprise.
“I figured you’d need it. Like you said, you didn’t know she was sick.”
Stone parts his lips to say something, but I interject, “Which I’m having trouble believing.”
With deliberate calm, Stone puts the tumbler on the countertop. “You think I’ve deliberately ignored my sick mother?” Stone’s gaze turns colder than I expected, and the small of my back hits the counter with a distinct thud .
He puts his hands on either side of my hips, bracing himself against the laminate as he leans in, his expression hardened with suppressed anger. “Is that how you remember me? How you think of me now? A cold-hearted bastard?”
“You’ve—changed. I don’t know you anymore.” Hating myself for stuttering under his shadow, I inject steel into my voice to continue. “But what does a small-town nurse like me know? California keeps you busy.”
Deep frown lines replace his dimples, a contradiction if I’ve ever seen one. Only nice people should have dimples. Ones that smile and use them all the time.
He doesn’t.
Stone says, “Just as you’ve asked me not to judge your choices in life, I’d ask you to extend the same courtesy to me.”
He’s right, but I refuse to acknowledge his point. “She tells me you talk to her every week. Even if she didn’t outright admit it, didn’t you hear it in her voice? Couldn’t you catch her in any lies?”
Stone bares his teeth at the same time he blinks hard. “I fucking wish I did.”
I search his face, taking the time to unearth the truth, since I don’t plan on being this close to him again.
It hurts too damned much.
Stone doesn’t break our stare.Nor does he blink again.
“I thought I’d given her the life she wanted,” he says.
“I bought her this house, hired a designer to come out and decorate it with her, made sure she didn’t have to work another day in her life even though she refused to stop teaching.
When we talked a few months ago and she told me she was leaving her job, I thought she was retiring.
I was happy for her. I believed the lies—the ones meant to protect me, to keep me away, to prevent me from seeing her slow decay. ”
He slams his palms against the countertop on either side of me. I wince, but keep his gaze.
“I believed my mother when she told me she was doing all right. And believe me, Noa, I’ll be carrying that guilt with me for the rest of mine.”
My lips part. I resist the urge to run a finger down the sharp angle of his jawline. “You’re here now. You’re not too late.”
He angles his head, his expression reforming into his new name. “Is that why you think I’m here?”
I have the sudden, confusing urge to rub the tension from between his brows. “You must’ve sensed something to have come home after all these years. That’s not for nothing.”
Stone’s hardened expression doesn’t change until it splits into a too-wide, maniacal smile. Then he laughs. Long and hard, rumbling and harsh, like it hurts him.
“Stone?” I ask.
He pushes off the counter, freeing me. Stone shakes his head. “Your instincts were right about me. I’m a cold-hearted bastard. I didn’t come back for her.”
My brows tighten as I watch him finish his whiskey in one gulp, then pluck his mother’s mug out of my hand.
“Have a good night, Noa. You’re dismissed,” he says, then turns into the hall.