And for once she understood his animosity.
The defusing explanation didn’t come easily. Her throat didn’t want to let the words out. They were too revealing.
“I know I often interrupted the two of you. Please don’t judge me too harshly for that.” She had wanted so badly to catch Nic’s attention. Being in his presence had made her heart sing—not unlike right now, she thought in an uncomfortable aside, burning on a pyre of self-conscious embarrassment. “I wanted to hear your stories,” she excused, trying to downplay what a wicked pleasure it had been to eavesdrop on his rumbling voice. His analytical intelligence with such an underlying thirst for justice had drawn her irresistibly. Her fingers tangled together in front of her. “You were traveling the world while I couldn’t steal time to climb the Eiffel Tower in my own backyard. Don’t fault me for wanting to live your adventures.”
“Adventures? I was reporting on civil wars! Crimes against humanity! Those sorts of tales aren’t fit for a woman’s ears, let alone the child you were then. The only reason I brought them up with Olief was because he’d been there. He understood the line that has to be drawn between exposing the horrors and scaring the hell out of people. You can’t do that kind of work without unloading somewhere.”
Rowan was struck by more than his words. His eyes darkened and his expression flashed with a suffering that he quickly shuttered away. Her view of his work had always been that it was genuinely glamorous and important, not just appearing that way like her own. His face was splashed on magazine covers, wasn’t it? He was no stranger to being a still, compelling presence before a camera. He had accolades galore for his efforts.
There was a toll for bringing forth the stories that held an audience rapt, though. Perhaps she was horribly self-involved, since she’d never considered what sorts of anguish and cruelty he’d witnessed in getting those stories. He would have pushed himself because he was a man of ambition, but his opinion pieces revealed a man who wanted to restore peace and justice. That wasn’t work for the faint-hearted. If he was tough and closed off it was because he had to be in order to get what he wanted for the betterment of humanity.
Everything in her longed to surge forward and somehow offer comfort, but his body language—shoulders bunched, head turned to the side—shouted back off.
She stared down at bare feet that were icy despite the carpet she stood on.
“I always wondered why you were always so …” Aloof? Emotionless? Haunted? “Quiet.”
She rubbed her arms, trying to bring life back into herself when she felt chilled to the bone. Her heart ached for him. Of course he would have needed someone to help put all those terrible sights into perspective. She wanted to scroll back time and watch from afar, allowing him the healing he’d so obviously needed.
“I wish you’d said something,” she said weakly. “I wouldn’t have got in your way with Olief if I’d known how bad it was.”
“No?” he challenged, with another shot of that searing aggression.
“Of course not! I’m not so self-centered that I felt threatened by your having a relationship with your own father.”
“Then why did you set it up for him to see us on the beach and take a strip off me for it? That was a depth of bitchiness that exceeded even my low expectations of you, Ro.” His recrimination made her knees go weak.
The tiny thread of hope she’d found and clasped on to, the tentative belief that she was making headway with understanding Nic’s reserve and softening his judgment of her, snapped like a rubber band, not only stealing her optimism with a sharp sting, but launching her into an empty space where there was only hard landings.
“Olief saw that?” The one person who liked her exactly as she was had seen her inept plea to be noticed and the humiliating rejection that had followed. Rowan wanted to sink through the carpet and disappear. She dropped her cringing face into her hands.
“Oh, give it a rest. The awards committee isn’t in residence,” Nic bit out.
“I passed Olief on the path, but I didn’t think he’d seen us!” She only lifted her mortified face because she was determined to make him believe her. “Do you honestly think I’d want anyone to know I behaved so cheaply? I can hardly face you.”
“Then why did you do it?” His eyes were cold and measuring, unwilling to accept her protest at face value. “It better be good, Rowan, because he made me feel like a pervert, saying men like me had no business with a girl like you. What the hell does that mean? Men like me? Too old? Or simply not good enough? Forget finding common ground after that. We were barely speaking.”