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The quiet gave Kris time to regroup. She hated that Nate rattled her so much.
Normally, she had little use for the opposite sex other than, well, sex. Men were untrustworthy, boring, or indifferent—too caught up in their work to pay attention to the women in their lives, like her father—and Kris would rather be alone with her freedom than suffer through a relationship with someone she didn’t like.
She’d quickly tired of the few boyfriends she’d had in the past and had settled for casual flings and one-night stands when the need arose. Luckily, Kris had remarkable control over her libido, and she could satisfy her sexual urges herself most of the time.
However, Nate stirred a lust inside her she hadn’t thought possible. The way his throat flexed when he swallowed his food…
Kris reached for her glass of water. Was it just her, or was it hot in here?
“How did you find out about this place?” she asked. “Long Beach is, as you mentioned, a long way from Hollywood.”
Kris wasn’t one for idle conversations with strangers—and Nate was, at the end of the day, a stranger, considering she knew next to nothing about him—but the warmth and food had lulled her into an odd complacency. She wanted to know what lay beneath Nate’s chiseled good looks, and her conviction that he actually possessed depth surprised her almost as much as her interest in his background did.
“My mom. She loved exploring new neighborhoods and trying new things, especially food. Oddly, she wasn’t great in the kitchen except for baking cookies—” Nate’s mouth curled with amusement. “—but she could sniff out a good restaurant like no other. This was one of her favorites.”
Kris examined the far-off look in his eyes and the smile lurking at the corners of his lips, the kind people only get when they were lost in the wells of memory. “Was, as in past tense?”
The smile fell. Pain clouded Nate’s face before he covered it up with a blank expression. “She died five years ago. Plane crash.”
Something welled in Kris’s throat. The emotion was so unfamiliar it took her a few beats to identify it as sympathy. “It sounds like she lived a good life before she passed.”
That was the only response Kris could think of. She hated platitudes likeI’m sorryin the wake of tragedy. Such sentiments were so common and expected they’d lost all meaning. Plus, what the hell was someone supposed to say toI’m sorry?Thank you? It’s okay?
“She did.” Nate’s mouth softened. He appeared grateful that Kris hadn’t showered him with pity the way most people would have. “Sometimes I bring my sister here for old times’ sake, but not as often as I’d like. She’s coming up on her senior year of high school and is swamped with activities and college prep, and I have work and auditions all the time.” He stabbed at a piece of pork. “It’s the first time I’ve been here in months.”
The knowledge Nate had brought her to this specific restaurant, one that meant a lot to him and his family, stirred a part of Kris she hadn’t known existed.
“My mother’s gone, too.” She wanted to snatch her confession back the instant it left her mouth. She never talked about her mother. Ever. Not with her father, not with her best friends, and certainly not with beautiful men who made her heart pound for the first time in God knew how long.
But it was too late. She’d already said them, and Kris wasn’t one to back down from her words.
“She didn’t die,” she added. “She left. When I was two.”
She pushed the rice around on her plate. Her parents had been a love match. That was what her father told her, but if that were true, how could her mother just walk away like that from the man she loved? From herdaughter?
To this day, Kris hadn’t received an explanation as to why her mother left. Roger Carrera shut down any discussion of his ex-wife and had removed all traces of her from the house. No pictures, no trinkets, no heirlooms.
Other than hazy memories of dark hair and tanned skin, Kris barely remembered what her mother looked like. She supposed she could have fought her father harder on the subject, but Kris was too proud to dwell on anyone who abandoned her.
Even if that person had brought her into this world.
“Her loss,” Nate said.
Kris’s gaze snapped up to meet his. The tiniest of smiles touched her lips. “Yes, it is.”
She was glad she wasn’t the only one who hated platitudes.
Kris and Nate lingered over dinner, discussing any topic that came to mind—food, movies, music—and exchanging random facts related to their respective areas of expertise long after they’d cleared their plates of food. Nate made an impassioned argument for why the Lakers were the best basketball team in the country—like he wasn’t biased as an L.A. resident—while Kris explained the difference between St. Moritz and Aspen for ski aficionados.
“St. Moritz has more glamour and five-star hotels, but celebrities love Aspen,” she said. “It’s where the beautiful people go.”
Personally, Kris preferred St. Moritz, especially after a dreadful Christmas vacation in Aspen with her father and Gloria this past winter. She would never forgive Gloria for convincing her father to spend winter break in Colorado instead of St. Barth’s like the Carreras always did.
A white Christmas. Who would want such a thing? The whole point of a winter getaway was to get away to somewherewarm.
“Good to know,” Nate said dryly. “I don’t intend to visit either place, since I hate flying.”
Kris’s water glass paused halfway to her lips. “You want to be an actor. That involves a fair amount of flying. Even if you only shoot movies in L.A., you still have to go on press tours.”
