At Any Price(77)

But there were few personal touches that gave any clue about who he was, except for the desk. I moved to it, my eyes sliding over its shiny surface. There were pictures of his Uncle Peter with an arm around both of his cousins, Britt with her two adorable boys. There was a picture of Adam and the kids at Disneyland standing beside Mickey Mouse. I smiled at each photo, relieved to have found even small clues to the person underneath the persona that he showed the world, even me. I noticed no pictures of his parents and given what I knew of his situation growing up, I wasn’t surprised. But the last picture in the row gave me pause. It was a snapshot in a 4 x 6 frame and I picked it up, studying the two children in it.

The color was faded but the younger child, a dark-haired boy, was obviously Adam. He had teeth missing but was grinning wildly nevertheless. He had his arm around the neck of an older girl, this one honey-blond with green eyes. She looked to be in her preteen years. She glanced at the camera sidelong, as if irritated at having her picture taken, but her arm was wrapped tightly around Adam. She was lovely and I guessed that this must be Sabrina, his sister.

While I studied the photo, I felt a presence behind me before I even heard a thing. I spun and faced Adam. When he saw the picture I was holding, his expression sobered.

“She was a pretty girl,” I said lamely.

His threw a furtive glance at me, then laid the laptop hooked under his arm onto the desk, avoiding my gaze. I had guessed right. “Yes,” was all he said.

“You don’t look very much alike.”

“We had different fathers.”

I looked down at the picture again and replaced it gently. “I’m sorry for your loss. You loved her a lot.”

He took a deep breath, still staring at the picture. “Yes. I loved her more than anyone else on the planet.”

I approached him and wrapped my arms around his torso. “She was very lucky, then. To have your love.”

Adam didn’t move, didn’t respond to my show of affection. I glanced up and he was still staring fixedly at that faded photograph. “That’s the only picture I have of her and yet in my memory, I can’t remember what she looked like then. Or later, before she died.”

“How old was she?”

“Twenty.”

“And you were…?”

“Thirteen. Happened just around the time I came back to California.”

Despite the fact that he had neglected to respond to me, I released one of my hands to caress his back. “I would have loved to have had a sister, even if for a short time.”

His mouth set and he seemed to finally grow aware of me, looking down. “I would have rather not had a sister than to have had one and watch her die the way she did.”

I pulled away from him and sat down on the edge of the bed. He watched me for a moment, his face all tense planes and rigid angles. I patted the space beside me.

He glanced at it but didn’t move.

So I asked him the unasked question. Because I sensed that despite his reluctant demeanor, he wanted to talk about it.

“How did she die?”

His eyes fluttered closed and open again. “Overdose.”

Addiction. There was that family theme again. He’d once mentioned to me that he feared it more than anything else, that he firmly believed in the genetics of addiction. It seemed his beliefs had ample basis in the personal lives of the people closest to him.

“I’m sorry,” I said, completely at a loss to say anything else.

“Don’t be. It’s been thirteen years. I tried to save her once and she refused to let me,” he shrugged but it was an affectation rather than a show of indifference. He was pretending a nonchalance that he didn’t feel.

“No matter how hard we try, some things will always remain out of our control,” I said.

“I can’t accept that.”

Of course he couldn’t. That was a huge part of what made him him. But maybe that was the crux of his problem, too.

“Maybe you should.”

He ran a hand through his hair and looked at me. “Emilia, it’s getting late.”

I took a deep breath, aware that he was trying to blow me off. It was late, but I wasn’t going to let him off that easily.

“You’re right. It’s too late to work.”

He quirked a sad smile. “It’s never too late—”

I shot a significant look at the laptop sitting on the desk. “If I leave, you are taking that to bed with you. So which is it, that or me?”

His watched me with hooded eyes but remained silent. He was actually considering choosing the laptop over me! Heat rose in my face. “Okay. I see how it is.” I was getting too close. I was making him uncomfortable, so now he was getting rid of me to work on his computer. I wondered if he took that damn thing to bed with him every night. Maybe he habitually kicked whatever fuck buddy he had at the time to the curb after sex and ran back to his laptop.