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Another long pause. Hell, this was tough on a man’s pride.
“Of course I was. I told you I don’t need you to buy things for me.”
“Yeah,” he said, cutting her off as a kid raced by, splashing water into the breezy air. “I remember. So the deal is, we’ve got the museum security job coming up and since you’re already familiar with the proposal, I thought you could start with that. Work out the numbers on payroll for the guards, say, in four- and six-hour shifts.”
“Fine.”
He imagined her sitting in her new kitchen in a splash of sunlight, her eyes narrowed in thought. Maybe Connor was in the room, too, playing at her feet. Then he pushed those images aside and focused on the matter at hand.
“How’s Connor?” he blurted.
“Connor’s fine,” she said tightly, and he could hear the tension in her voice. “I’m fine.”
“Good to hear.” What the hell else could he say? He’s the one who had opened up this chasm between them. But in his defense, he thought wildly, splitting up had been their deal all along. So he pushed aside regrets. “Okay then. I’ll have Janice overnight you the plans and you can get to work.”
He was good at thinking on his feet, he silently commended himself. He’d only come up with this idea a few minutes ago and it was spilling from him like he’d been working it out for days. “I’ll need a complete write-up on the expenses by the end of the week.”
“You’ll have it,” she said firmly. “Is that it?”
No, he thought. There was more. There was admitting that he couldn’t sleep without her curled up beside him. That he woke up craving the taste of her more than his first cup of coffee. That breathing was disappointing because her peach scent didn’t flavor every breath.
But that would make him pretty damn pathetic, wouldn’t it?
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“Okay then,” she said. “Goodbye, Griffin.”
She hung up, and Griffin just managed to keep from tossing his phone into the sea.
* * *
Sunlight filled her gorgeous new kitchen and still Nicole felt as if she was at the bottom of a very black hole.
Griffin’s voice had caught her off guard. She hadn’t been prepared for it. Hadn’t been able to steel herself against the pain that ripped into her like the slash of a knife. Days now, she’d been working at getting over Griffin. She’d concentrated on her work and her son and had almost convinced herself that her life was normal again.
Then he had to call.
She stared at her cell phone and willed the misery she felt into a small, dark corner of her heart. She wouldn’t give in to it, because once she did, she didn’t think she’d be able to stop.
“Griff coming?” Connor’s voice steadied her.
She had to hold it together, if not for her, then for her son’s sake.
“No, sweetie, Griff’s not coming today.”
“Tomorrow?”
Nicole scooped him up into her arms and held him close. Inhaling the soft, sweet scent of him, she heard herself say, “We’ll see...”
Eleven
Life in a palace had its perks.
Solitude wasn’t one of them.
Griffin had never seen so many people. Which worked well enough for him at the moment, but he just couldn’t figure out how Garrett managed to put up with it every day. There were dozens of servants working around the palace.
Maids, chefs, gardeners, footmen...footmen, for God’s sake. He guessed that living in a castle meant you were predisposed to embracing the Middle Ages.
Coming to Cadria to see his twin had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. That’s where being a member of the King family came with its own perks—all he had to do was make a call and suddenly one of the family’s jets was at his disposal. Beat the hell out of security lines and hassles at the airport.
He stepped up and braced one boot on the bottom rung of a pristinely painted white fence and stared out across grounds so tidy it was as if they’d been manicured with scissors. The sun was out and huge white clouds sailed across a sky blue enough to make your eyes ache if you stared at it for too long. Ancient trees stood like soldiers around the perimeter of the fence, dropping shade from twisted, gnarled limbs.
