Identity Crisis(54)

For a second she struggled to bring her gaze to his, but then he found himself once again scrutinized by her. ‘Have you had romance? Did you have it with Stacie?’

‘Of course I’ve had romance, Kendra, and yes, I had it with Stacie. Kendra, haven’t you had romance?’

She ignored his question. ‘Then why are you alone?’

It felt almost as though she had slapped him again, and the sting of it went way deeper than his face. But he took sharp breath and held her there. ‘It didn’t work out well for me. At least not yet.’ The smile he managed felt fake. ‘But I’m hopeful. I couldn’t write what I do if I weren’t. And you –’ He smoothed the hair away from her face and pulled her wet hands tighter against his chest. ‘Jesus, woman, I’d think your life would be full of romance.’

The smile she offered this time was tinged with sadness, or at least, that’s how he saw it. ‘I have sex, Garrett. I don’t have romance or love. It’s safer that way.’

‘Kendra, I can’t believe –’

‘You know –’ She gently pushed him away and extricated herself from his embrace. ‘I think I’ll take a rain check on that shower if you don’t mind. I saw a nice big bathtub in the upstairs bathroom. My flat only has a shower. Would you mind if I have a wallow?’ Before he could respond, she laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I need some time to think and plan our next move, and let’s face it, Garrett –’ she gave him a salacious raking with her eyes ‘– you’re very distracting.’

She left him standing at the kitchen sink, aching with an ache he’d never felt before, one that was sharply defined in the space inside him, and shaped very much like Kendra Davis.

There were lavender and geranium aromatherapy bubbles in the cupboard in the guest bathroom. Kendra wondered if they belonged to one of Garrett’s romances that hadn’t worked out. It surprised her to feel the pang of jealousy at the thought. It wasn’t that someone else might have had sex with Garrett on the kitchen floor in the middle of preparing a meal; after all, the man had been married to Stacie at one time. What she was really jealous of was that Garrett had had romantic relationships, that Garrett had taken the wild risk of marrying the woman he was crazy about. She was jealous that Garrett had somehow felt it was worth the pain to try again when the marriage fell apart. That was a bravery she couldn’t understand. ‘More like a stupidity,’ she whispered beneath her breath. But then he hadn’t had her parents, had he? No doubt his views on romance would have been very different if he had.

She squeezed a generous amount of bubbles into the tub and turned on the water, stepping out of her rumpled clothes, inhaling deeply the pungent scent Garrett had left on her body, in her body, and the scent that was her body’s hungry response to him. She was glad she hadn’t bathed it away too soon. His body fit hers so well, and God, did he know how to make that fit work for her. She shook her head, not wanting to think about that right now as she stepped into the hot summer scent of the tub and settled into the rising foam. She should have never had sex with him. No matter what he said, they both knew he was Tess Delaney. And Tess Delaney made her feel things she’d never felt before, made her ache more deeply than she thought possible, made her fantasies wild and uncontrolled, and sex was only a part of it.

They were stupid, teenage fantasies, she scolded herself. And at the end of the day, it wasn’t Tess Delaney who had made her feel all those things; it was Garrett Thorne, the man downstairs cleaning up in the kitchen, the man she couldn’t get enough of. The man she should ultimately be running away from. She was beginning to suspect he was far more dangerous than any of the ghosts from her past could ever be. What the hell had she gotten herself into? She’d learned her lesson long ago. She’d learned by example, and her parents were the very best example as to what a lie it was, the fantasy of romance and happy ever after, what a lie it was that giving up control of your heart to anyone else could ever lead to anything but pain.

She turned off the water and sank to her neck into the bubbles, eyes closed, relaxing, drifting, remembering the beginning of the end of her illusions about happy ever after, about romance. The memory came unbidden, something she hadn’t allowed it to do in a long time. She remembered because it was just before her 11th birthday.

It was the crash that woke her up that night, and the sound of something shattering. At first she thought she’d only dreamed it, but then she heard her father’s voice, and she held her breath to listen.