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“Yeah.”
“Why here?”
She smiled nostalgically. “I wanted to be near my dad. He’s only about a mile away. I can walk to him when I want to. Plus, this is where I grew up.”
“And you’ve never wanted to spread your wings? To live somewhere new and different?”
“Not really.” She wrinkled her nose in a way that Caradoc found distractingly youthful. “I mean, sure, the idea of travelling is appealing, but this is my home. I have too much here to just abandon it.”
“Such as?”
“Friends,” she shrugged. “History. The entire fabric of my life is here. Where I went to school, where I had my first kiss, where I learned karate, where I learned to drive.” She lifted a few of the envelopes off the hallstand as they passed, leaving any that weren’t urgent for attention at a later date.
“I’ve never felt that way about anywhere.”
“I can tell,” she teased, pulling the door inwards. “I mean, I can’t imagine it, though. You grew up in New York, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“And you still live there.”
His grimace was unintentional. “My New York is vastly different to the city I grew up in, believe me.”
“How?” And suddenly she wished they were in a candlelit restaurant rather than the decidedly utilitarian stairwell of her apartment.
Caradoc didn’t know how to answer, but he knew he’d been about to. Seraphina had an unnerving habit of removing all of his reserve, and all it took was a look from those clear green eyes and a simple question.
“You’ll see,” he said finally. “Come on. You said we wouldn’t be long.”
“Right, sorry,” she mumbled, feeling like an inconvenience suddenly. “Caradoc,” she shifted her weight to the other foot and let the cold, cold afternoon slap her with a welcome dose of reality. “I don’t have to come, you know. If you’re having second thoughts …”
His laugh was a sound of rich disbelief. “Because I don’t want to talk about all the ways my life now differs to my childhood?”
“Yeah,” she shook her head. “No. I don’t know. I mean, at Bagleyhurst this kind of made a weird sort of sense. But now that we’re back here, I don’t know. I mean, your real life is waiting for you.”
He narrowed his eyes speculatively. “I asked you to come with me.”
“And I’m saying that you don’t have to go through with it. You don’t owe me anything.”
His temper was fraying. “Jesus, Finn, do I seem like the kind of guy who doesn’t know what he wants?”
She bit down on her lower lip but didn’t speak.
“Do I seem like a guy who would put up with someone’s company just because I didn’t want to come off as rude?”
“No,” she said finally.
“Then get that gorgeous butt of yours into the car.”
Still, she felt a sense of unease as she slid into the passenger seat. He’d insisted on driving from Bagleyhurst despite her protestations.
“I’m hired to do this,” she had pointed out stubbornly.
“Not any longer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t mix my personal life with my professional. I’ve never slept with someone in my employ.”
