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It was because I was leaving.
For good.
“That’s why I made you my specialty,” she said, and gave me a wink.
“Oh yeah?” I swiped my thumbs across my eyes. “I didn’t take you for the cooking kind.”
“See,” she pulled away with a smile and stabbed me with a finger. "That’s where you’re wrong. I’m a phenomenal cook. I make the meanest hot chocolate you’ve ever tasted.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Hot chocolate, huh?” I said as she strode from the room and headed to the kitchen, and I followed. “What else can you make?”
She grabbed the pan’s handle with a towel and poured the chocolate milk into two cups, leaving just enough room for three perfect marshmallows. “That’s basically it. Hot chocolate. So, you better like it, ‘cause that’s all you’re gonna get, from me at least.”
“Great, I’m gonna be as big as a whale,” I complained with a smile.
“A veryawesomewhale,” she corrected, handing me a cup.
But she didn’t pick up her own. Instead, she just waited, watching me with stars in her eyes as I blew on the sticky mess and took a sip. But it was perfect, not too hot or too sweet. I scowled, stared at the melting marshmallows, and whispered, “This is actually damn good.”
“See?” she smiled, and grabbed her own cup. “Come on, sit and tell me about your lecture.”
I sank into her energy once more, finding myself doing just that, sitting beside her on the sofa, and started talking. She listened attentively as I ran through the lecture, touching on the highlights of the antiquated version of laundering as she sipped her drink.
“You know,” she murmured, sitting back against the soft black leather. “You’ve got the same look in your eye now that you did explaining it to Evan the other day. You really like this stuff, don’t you, launderer?”
I froze at the words, my excitement growing cold. “What? No, I mean, I guess I have a passing interest.”
“Bullshit,” she disagreed. “You don’t look like that with a passing interest. I’ve seen you look like that in two separate discussions…and only one of them was about laundering money.”
My face burned.Don’t say it…don’t say it…don’t sa—
“And the other was about Finley Salvatore.”
The chocolate perfection turned chalky in my mouth. Her gaze narrowed for a second, then fixed on mine. “Okay, there’s a whole lot going on in your eyes, Anna. Something’s happened between you two, hasn’t it?”
“You could say that.” The words slipped free before I knew it.
And it was too late to take them back. It was too late to take this all back…every single minute of this damn island.
“You want to talk about it?”
Talk. Theonething I couldn’t do. Not about the way I was feeling or the relationship between Finley Salvatore and me. “It’s complicated.”
Kat leaned forward. “Complicated how?”
I held her gaze, my voice small. “Complicated that it could get me in a lot of trouble.”
She went quiet then, her gaze picking mine apart. “You’re not just talking about feelings here, are you?”
Tell her. Confide in her. Goddamnit! You need to tell someone!
All I could do was slowly shake my head.
“Shit, Anna.” Kat leaned backward, her brown eyes careful. “How fucking deep are we talking here?”
Easy,the voice warned. “Are you talking about my heart?” I answered with a smile. “Because I’m pretty sure I saw a sold sticker on there somewhere.”
“I fucking knew it,” she muttered. “It all makes sense now, all the weirdness around him and the night of the party. You’re into him and he’s totally into you, like head over heels into you.”
