Page 33 of Crimson Love

“See?” I add. “You need to eat.”

She shakes her head. “Where are we going to go? The only thing open is The Greenhouse. I’m not walking in there looking like this. I don’t even want to go to the Combover looking like this. That might actually be worse. Everyone will talk about me.”

When I push off the desk, I stand straight and realize I don’t feel it in my gut like before. Today is the first day in years that I’ve had something else to occupy my brain, and my body is more normal than it’s been in years. It feels fucking good. “My sister is engaged to Devon. Pretty sure I can do whatever I want around here. I promise you won’t see anyone other than me.”

She finally gives in and pushes her chair away from the desk. She slips her bare feet back into her spiked heels and pulls at the tie in her hair.

I feel it in my dick when she combs her fingers through it as she tries to tame the mess.

“I’m holding you to that. If I see guests or any locals, I’ll die.”

I hold my arm out low for her to go first. “It’s only you and me, Lennon. I’ll make sure of it.”

She crosses her arms to hug herself around the middle and moves through the door.

“Wait,” I call when I glance at her desk. “You forgot your cell.”

Her gaze darts to the phone that’s screen down on the desk. She doesn’t look at me when she shakes her head. “I don’t need it. It’s dead, and there’s no one I want to hear from anyway.”

She turns to make her way down the long hall toward the lobby. I close her office door and follow. The only thing that diverts my attention from the fact she’s not attached to her cell is the fact I’m still worried she might try to escape me.

Lennon

I rest a hip against the stainless-steel island that stands in the middle of the kitchen of the Winslet Café. I’ve been here many times, but not when it’s closed.

Jett makes himself at home like it’s his own personal kitchen.

I pick up my glass of water and take a sip. “Do you raid the kitchen after hours often?”

He doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “Only when I can convince Harlow that she doesn’t need to babysit me. I’m not used to having family, let alone a sister.”

I watch him finish chopping onions and mincing garlic before he tosses it into a skillet on the gas range. “I don’t know Harlow well, but she seems great. She’s been so sweet to me. The employees all talk about how she doesn’t act anything like a spoiled heiress. In fact, they say you’d never know.”

Jett shrugs and drizzles olive oil over the onions. “She’s the first billionaire in my contacts, so I have no one to compare her to, but I agree. It’s a relief. I’d think she was more interested in how I’m taking care of her kidney than me but that’s not the case. Don’t ask me how I know—I just do. I can feel it.”

“I’m happy for you. Family can be...” I let that thought trail off, because there’s no way I’m tiptoeing anywhere close to the subject of family.

He angles his gaze to me with a hiked brow. “What can family be?”

I shake my head and change the subject. “What are you making? And do you always cook?”

“Do you always deflect?”

“I guess I’m hungrier than I thought I was.”

He disappears into the commercial refrigerator that’s the size of a walk-in closet and returns with a package wrapped in butcher paper. “Can it get more boring than chicken? It’s that or halibut, and I don’t know how to cook halibut.”

I lean forward and rest my forearms on the stainless steel. “I don’t remember the last time someone cooked for me other than Felicity. It’s impossible to be boring when it comes to me. I’m simple.”

His gaze hangs on me a moment before the chicken lands on the counter with a thud. He continues to talk as he unwraps it. “Some of the fun side effects of PKD are hypertension and aneurysms. Talk about your life coming to a halt and worrying about shit most men don’t have to worry about until they’re far into their downhill. I went from eating whatever was available in the mess hall to watching my cholesterol and fat intake. I went from a beer lover to boring in two-point-four seconds. My picture is next to boring in the dictionary, unless you’re my doctors. There’s nothing boring about me in their eyes.”

The skillet sizzles when he throws in two handfuls of grape tomatoes. Garlic and onion fill my senses and flood my heart with memories I’ve buried. Visiting them is beyond painful.

I push those out of my mind and focus on him. “Your kidney disease ... is it genetic or did you draw the short straw?”

He shrugs as if we might as well be talking about the weather rather than a life-and-death disease. “It’s not genetic. We did the testing when Harlow went through the screening process to be my donor.”

“Hmm,” I mutter and pick up my drink again. “So many short straws in life. I’m sorry you got stuck with that one.”