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“Think Japanese comfort food. Tempura, karaage, yakisoba. That sort of thing.”
“Yum.” I wasn’t that familiar with Japanese cuisine, but I had tried a few of those. “So she must be who taught you to cook.”
He gave me a queer look, something that was both terribly dangerous and terribly vulnerable. Then he stabbed a piece of lettuce, took a large bite, and nodded shortly.
We sat in awkward silence for a minute, and I pretended to read while an avalanche of questions crashed through my brain. I was tempted to press for more information, if only for Sofia’s sake. It was always a little awkward when pediatricians, for instance, requested a family health history only to find I could give them just one side. But also, I knew one day she’d want to know who her father was, who his family was, and so forth. And while she was willing to be put off now, that wouldn’t always be the case.
Which probably meant that I needed to tell her father that she existed too.
Shit.
“So, I’ve got to know.”
I looked up, startled. “I’m reading.” And lying, apparently.
He raised a brow. Pride and Prejudice was open, yes, but we both knew the pages hadn’t turned once in ten minutes.
“And being quite rude to your date,” he replied. “You think I’d have this rabbit food without repayment? You owe me some answers, Ces.”
I swallowed. He didn’t know, did he? No, he couldn’t. Right?
“All right,” I said. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, what’ve you been doing the last five years? Where do you live? Why did you leave school and become a primary teacher? Back then, all you talked about was becoming a professor.” He took a sip of his beer and didn’t even bother to hide his grimace.
I sighed and set down my book. “I…life got in the way. Grad school just didn’t work out.”
“Didn’t work out how?”
Tell him. This is where you tell him.
In my lap, my palms started to sweat. Suddenly, the avocado toast looked about as appetizing as marsh goo.
But before I could answer, one of the bar girls approached the table. I frowned. This wasn’t the sort of place that offered table service.
“Hi.” She elongated the word in that flirty way that gave a single-syllable greeting six extra beats. “I just wanted to check in and see how everything’s going. Can I get you anything else?”
Her words were pointedly not for me. Normally, I would have found it kind of funny. After all, I did have a stupidly good-looking brother who fended off his fair share of come-ons in front of me. It had become a game my sisters and I all played over who could make Matthew the most uncomfortable by pretending to be his jealous girlfriend.
But right now, I was actually annoyed. Though I couldn’t have quite said why.
Xavier turned stiffly as if the girl were an irritating fly he wanted to swat, then offered that same broad, rapacious smile I’d seen at the party. “Not unless you’ve anything off-menu I must try.”
The girl trembled and flushed bright red. I might have felt sorry for her if I didn’t want to dump my tea all over her cleavage. Just how many buttons had she undone before prancing over here?
“Um, no, I’m sorry,” she said. “I can ask the kitchen, though. Sometimes they experiment. Maybe they would for you…”
But Xavier’s smile disappeared once he realized he couldn’t get what he wanted.
“No, thank you,” he said stiffly and turned away.
“Sorry. Sorry,” the girl babbled before giving Xavier an awkward half-curtsy and stumbled away. I had to give her some credit. Hard to do in combat boots.
“Bit jealous, are we?”
I turned back to Xavier. “What?”
“Your eyes are especially green. You look like you want to murder the poor girl.”
