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‘All right, you were how old? Fifteen?’
‘Yes—did I mention I also had a very good fake ID, that I forged myself?’
He chuckled. ‘Okay, you were fifteen and a little British girl.’ He rubbed his jaw as if he were giving the question serious consideration. The glow died. ‘Tell me it wasn’t a puppy on your ankle, or something cute like that?’
‘Pur-lease,’ she said, insulted at the suggestion she would be so crass—and predictable. ‘I was a rebel. I had the words “Kiss my Arse” branded on my left bum cheek and framed with a heart,’ she announced, stupidly proud of the vulgar tattoo for the first time in thirteen years when he threw his head back and roared with laughter.
‘Tess,’ he said, when his amusement had finally died down enough for him to string together a coherent sentence. ‘That’s priceless.’ The glow of lust became a glow of admiration and her heartbeat stumbled to a halt. ‘What the hell were you thinking having that removed?’
‘It was ugly.’
‘On your butt?’ he teased. ‘I doubt that.’ He turned her hand over in his, pressed his thumb into the palm and caressed. ‘Do you have any idea how much I would have enjoyed obeying that command?’
Heat flared. Yeah, she had a very good idea. She tugged her hand out of his, the simple stroke of his thumb making the thought of how much they could both enjoy him obeying that command—in a car, on a layby on Highway One—way too vivid.
‘You’re too late, Graystone,’ she declared, determined to make light of the incendiary sparks fizzing through her nerve endings. ‘My arse-kicking days are over.’
‘Don’t be so sure about that,’ he said, but he laughed, lightening the mood. ‘So what did your old man do? Don’t tell me he found out about the tattoo?’
The remark doused the sizzles. And Tess felt the silly sting of tears as she looked out across the ocean. The sun had dipped in the sky, giving the line of the horizon a shimmer of orange.
‘Hey?’ Firm fingers gripped her chin, and tugged her gaze back to his. ‘What is it? What happened?’
‘You know what’s really ironic,’ she began. ‘Up until about twenty minutes ago, I would have given you this long sob story about how my dad had been a complete bastard about it and kicked me out of the house.’
‘He kicked you out of the house? Over a tattoo? You’re kidding?’ The outrage in Nate’s voice should have been soothing. Hadn’t she always enjoyed bad-mouthing her dad to anyone who would listen as a teenager? And believed he had pretty much deserved her disdain all through her twenties?
But it wasn’t soothing any more. It just made her feel more selfish and immature. She’d thought she’d got on with her life, but had she really? If she’d always blamed her father for something that was at least as much her fault as his?
‘It wasn’t just the tattoo. It was everything. All the things I said and did. All the things I didn’t say and didn’t do. I was angry with him for not “being there” for me when Mum died,’ she said, doing air-quotes round the meaningless phrase. ‘He used to lock himself in his study for hours, but I could hear him crying through the door and it terrified me. I was scared I was losing him too and so I started acting out, to get his attention. God!’ She blinked furiously, refusing to shed a single tear. She’d shed enough tears of self-pity to fill an ocean already. ‘You know what’s the worst bit? He tried for years to repair our relationship after he’d sent me to live with my aunt. And I absolutely refused to even meet him halfway.’ She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap, too ashamed to meet Nate’s gaze. ‘And I kept on punishing him until he died.’
Nate tucked a finger under her chin. The sympathy in his eyes had a single tear coursing down her cheek. ‘You were a kid, Tess.’ He brushed the tear away with his thumb. ‘Everything seems black and white when you’re young. You make dumb decisions, do dumb things, especially when bad stuff happens.’ His lips curved up in a rueful smile. ‘Like going for a joyride in your father’s Porsche and shouting obscenities at a police officer who’s trying to stop you killing yourself because the man you’re really mad at isn’t there.’ The tender kiss he placed on her lips had her breath shuddering out. ‘It doesn’t make you a bad person.’
She let her lips curve too, and allowed herself to take the comfort he offered.
She didn’t really deserve it, she knew that. It had never been as bad for her as it had been for him. And while she’d been young when she’d done the stupidest things, she’d allowed that stupidity to taint the rest of her life up to today. Because she’d never really taken responsibility for the mistakes she’d made. But she could change that now, even if she could never go back and give her father one last hug. She could stop seeing people in black and white. And stop believing that the only person she could rely on was herself.
She took a deep breath, blew it out slowly. And felt better for it. More in control and less manic. It had only taken twenty-seven years, she thought wryly, but the reckless little tart had finally become a grown woman.
‘Thanks, Nate,’ she said.
He smiled, the action making those pure blue eyes glitter. Her thighs melted as her pulse pounded.
Okay, make that a grown woman suffering from a serious sexual obsession.
‘You’re a pretty good listener yourself,’ she added.
He blinked, looking momentarily stunned by the praise, then nodded and said: ‘Are we good to go now?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she replied, shocked not only by the sudden change from soft back to rigid. But also the shuttered look in his eyes.
He shifted into drive, glanced over his shoulder to check for traffic, then pulled back out onto the highway without another word.
What had she said? And what had just happened to the man who had kissed her so tenderly... And understood her distress? The air conditioner purred as the road wound back towards the city, but the chill in the air had nothing to do with it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘AND he’s definitely not available?’ Tess asked, trying not to snarl down the phone to Nate’s mature and far too reasonable PA Jenny. After all, the woman had become a close personal friend... Or at least it felt that way, the amount of times they’d spoken to each other over the phone in the last three weeks.
