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“I need to get this dress finished.”
“I know you do, do you want me to leave you alone?” He questioned and slowly ran his nose up the side of her cheek. She sighed heavily and closed her eyes.
“No,” she whispered.
“Good, because despite what you said to me earlier, I’m going nowhere and I want you to know, I’m here for you.”
Her free hand came down from the table and she placed it on his arm around her waist and squeezed, her eyes were still lazily fixed into the distance, “Do you believe that the things that happen in our younger years affect our future decisions?” She suddenly asked.
Nuzzling into her neck he let a small smile form. He wanted her to talk, to open up to him about what happened that day but he needed it to be of her own doing and without him forcing her, he thought hard before responding. “Yes, I do. I grew up as an only child, it was lonely a lot of the time and I envied all my friends who had siblings. I made a decision when I was younger that when I had children, I’d want more than one.”
“Do you have any children?”
He let out a chuckle. “No, not yet. One day though.”
She absentmindedly began to trace patterns on his bare arm with her finger. “One day,” she whispered.
“How many would you like?” He asked.
Her hand on his arm came to a sudden standstill and he felt her body tense at his question. He was about to change the subject when she began moving her hand across his arm again, “I’d be happy with however many the big man upstairs graced me with,” she replied as she shifted in her seat.
Kai loosened his hold on her waist when she turned to finally look at him. “Have you ever had a serious relationship?”
Shrugging his shoulders, he sighed. “One. I thought she would be the one I would grow old with, but it seemed she didn’t feel the same way.”
“Tell me about her.”
She watched his face contort into a grimace, “You want me to sit here and tell you about her?”
“Why not? You know about Casper, isn’t this what you do when you get to know someone?”
“Okay. I met her when I was twenty, she was a regular at Baxter’s, we hit it off and we started dating. We were together for eighteen months. She was a student nurse in a children’s hospital and worked long shifts, so finding time between her shifts and mine became an arduous task but we managed it, I swapped my shifts around and began working when she did so we could spend more time together,” he stopped talking and cleared his throat as he entwined his fingers in hers.
“Carry on, Kai.”
“Uhm, the day we were due to sign for the lease on our apartment, she didn’t turn up, when I went looking for her at work she hadn’t been in for several weeks, she was signed off sick and I knew nothing about it. When I finally tracked her down four days later, I found out she was married with a child.”
“What?” Myla asked with a strangled gasp.
“I know. She hid it so well, I had no clue. I went through so many emotions in those following weeks, betrayal, hurt, humiliation, anger. You name it, I went through it,” he said quietly and looked away from her.
Wrapping her arms around his neck she squeezed him tightly, “She didn’t deserve you, Kai.”
Returning her loving gesture, he decided to face the situation. “So, we both have that in common, you with Casper and Darcy, and me with Camilla. We both know what it’s like to suffer heartache and betrayal.”
“Yes,” she whispered into his ear.
“When I came here and found you, you were strumming your finger on top of the sewing machine. I’ve not seen you do that before, what was that about?”
He felt her body tense up and her breathing slowed. He winced and mentally kicked himself for being so forthright. “I was?” She asked, with surprise in her voice.
He pulled back from her hold and locked his eyes with hers. Brushing some stray strands of hair from her face, he let his hand drop to her chin and held it. “You didn’t realize you were doing it?”
Moistening her lips, she reverberated them against each other and blew out a deep breath. “No. God, I’ve not done that in years,” she said with a sigh.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He pressed, searching in her eyes for some kind of indication that she was either going to open up to him or shut herself down.
“I developed it when I was fifteen, it made me feel calm when things became too much for me to deal with, you know, emotions and that.”
