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“I’d love to come.”
Kal tried to tell himself he wasn’t pleased to hear it. He succeeded not at all.
He was such a moron.
Kal understood that Rosemary had lost some part of herself in her marriage and motherhood, that she was trying to get it back. Still, only two kinds of people climbed Everest. His mom had climbed it seven times. She was the walking wounded, fucked up from all the years she’d been married to a man who hit her and threatened her and manipulated her. Merlin died, maybe Mom killed him, maybe not—and what did she do but head straight up the mountain?
She did it over and over again. It was a penance.
Rosemary came along, and she wanted to tell Yangchen Beckett’s story the right way. Open up a vein, make the world take notice of the woman who was strong enough to climb Everest but hadn’t been strong enough to keep her husband from ruining her life. What did that make Rosemary? She was the walking wounded or she was a megalomaniac.
Just because Kal liked her didn’t make her not a megalomaniac. It just meant he liked megalomania. He’d met a lot of people obsessed with their own power. On the whole, they were some charismatic motherfuckers.
“What time is it now?” she asked.
“Four-thirty.”
“That leaves us with two and a half hours of rubbish time.”
“Rubbish time?”
“Rubbish time, garbage time, you know—those slices of time you don’t quite know what to do with, but you’re stuck with them. Twenty minutes, or forty-five, or whatever amount of time isn’t long enough to really focus and get anything done, but too long to just throw away. I renovated a manor home on rubbish time, not to mention volunteered for charities, earned an advanced degree, started a career writing pieces for different journals and magazines, built up a press file—”
“What’s your advanced degree?”
“Oh. I did more than one, actually. One in interior design, one in historical preservation, and then a couple certificate programs, project management and marketing. I have the kind of brain that doesn’t do well with idleness. I used to have a friend who said I reinvented myself every three years, like clockwork.” Rosemary frowned. “I’m glad we’re not friends anymore. She kept saying it, and it drove me mad.”
“Yeah?”
“The way I see it, I’ve never reinvented myself. I’ve only ever been me. It’s the circumstances of my life, my marriage, being a mother, that forced me to make all of these compromises.”
“Because of rubbish time.”
“I’ve never reinvented who I am. I’ve simply pursued whatever I could, whichever slice of myself was available to me, when I’ve had the opportunity. This woman sees Rosemary who is interested in interior design one day and historical preservation the next, and then climbing mountains, as though a woman can’t be interested in more than one thing at a time.”
The way she frowned as she lectured him—he didn’t want to take her home to his mom. He wanted to take her somewhere quiet, and private, with a soft mattress and room service.
“Hey, Kal?”
“Hmm?” It would be enjoyable to peel that tight suit skirt off her, unbutton that uptight blouse one button at a time, kiss his way down her stomach…
“Kal.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I need to speak with your mother tonight about my idea for the book.”
“Okay.”
“But first I need something else to wear. I propose we separate for a few hours.”
“You don’t want to take me shopping?”
“I have no use for men when I’m shopping.” He could think of a few uses for himself. “I only have a few hours, and it’s going to take me twenty minutes to get my feet back into these shoes. You head on to wherever you go when you’re not with me. I’ll text you later.” She extracted her phone from her jacket pocket.
“I actually do have stuff to do.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Sure.”
