No, mama. Please, not the closet!
But she shoves me inside anyway. “Bad girls sit by themselves in the dark. And you’ve been a bad girl, Kelly.”
I don’t bother asking her what I’ve done.
She won’t tell me anyway.
I don’t even know.
Was I late coming home from school?
No.
Did I leave a mess at the table? Crumbs when I fixed myself a piece of bread with peanut butter?
That’s probably it. I love peanut butter, but it’s so sticky. I can’t help but get it somewhere. Sometimes she can see the tiniest streak on the counter.
“No, mama, no!”
She grips my shoulders. Shakes me. Violently shakes me.
* * *
“Kelly!”
I pop my eyes open. For a moment I don’t know where I am, and I strike. I kick at the person who’s gripping me.
“Damn, that hurt.”
Leif.
Leif’s voice.
I remember. I decided to wait for Leif outside his door, and I must’ve fallen asleep.
He’s rubbing at his shin.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” he demands.
“Where have you been? I needed to talk to you last night.”
“I was out,” he says.
The spear of jealousy slices through me, gutting me.
Out? He was out? With a woman? After he and I just…
“You’re a pig.” I sneer.
“So be it,” he says. “Look, I’m exhausted. What do you want, Kelly?”
Why did I come here?
Right. I wanted to talk. I wanted to tell him about my successful first night at work. I wanted to tell him…
About my childhood. About why I am the way I am. I want him to understand me, and I want to understand him.
Except he was out all night fucking another woman, so I’m done here.
“Never mind.” I get to my feet, stumbling a little.
He studies me. “Come on. Come inside. I’ll make a pot of coffee.”
“I don’t want any coffee, Leif.”
“What do you want then? Because it better be something important for you to stay out here all night. You know how dangerous that was?”
“This building has round-the-clock security.”
“Yeah, it does, but nothing is completely foolproof. You’re much safer locked behind your apartment door.”
“Like you care.”
He shakes his head again, sighing again. “I have been up all night, Kelly. I don’t have time to repeat myself. If you don’t know that I care by now—”
“If you cared, you wouldn’t have been out all night, in someone else’s bed!”
He cocks his head, narrows his eyes. Then he does something completely unexpected. He erupts in laughter.
Fine. I can take a hint. I turn with a huff and walk toward my apartment.
He yanks me back. “You really think that? You think I was with another woman?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, you’re right.”
God, the jealousy. Like a bright red blade cutting into my heart. And then the anger. The kind of anger that starts in the depths of your belly and travels up your spine ending with rats nibbling at the back of your neck.
The rage, the red rage.
Only this is more intense than anything I felt on the island or anywhere else. This is raw. Not just anger but pain. Torturous pain. I feel like an animal—an animal who’s about to lose her mate. And I won’t go down without a fight.
I push into Leif, pummeling at his chest.
He pushes me away easily. “No. That’s not how you handle anger, Kelly. You’re not on the island anymore.”
“Damn you.”
Then I slide my back against the wall and into a sitting position.
I will not cry. I will not honor this man with my tears.
He sits down next to me, and then he does something weird. He takes my hand. He rubs my palm with his thumb.
“I was with another woman last night, and you will never guess who it was.”
“I don’t care who it was.”
“I think you might care about this one.”
“Why should I care about any woman that you fucked?”
“Well, one, because I didn’t fuck her. And two…because she’s your mother.”
The rage dissipates.
And fear curls into my belly like a cannonball.
My mother. Still, after all these years, she has the ability to turn me into that scared little girl.
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
“She wants to see you.”
Still I say nothing.
“What happened between the two of you, Kelly?”
Still I say nothing.
He adds his other hand, massaging my palm and my wrist. “I didn’t get a good feeling from her. Not at all. But you may be interested to know that she has a lot of money now.”
“I know that.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Yeah. I found out about it once we were rescued. Some spinster aunt of hers left her some kind of sizable estate. She’s not going to give any of it to me.”
“She says that’s why she wants to see you. So she can take care of you.”
“She’s lying.”
I expect him to deny my accusation. Tell me how wonderful and caring she seemed, and that she truly wants to see me and take care of me, her only daughter.
But he doesn’t.
Instead—
“I believe you, Kelly. I believe she’s lying.”
I turn to him, regard his handsome face. “You… You believe me?”
He lets go of my hand, cups both my cheeks. “I do.”
“No one’s ever believed me before. I mean, not without knowing…”
“We learn how to read people during our SEAL training. It’s very important because we have to rely a lot on instinct and intuition. And what I read in your mother was that her words didn’t match up with her actions. Her facial expressions, her emotions.”
“Just how much time did you spend with her?”
“I met her at her hotel, and we had dinner. After that, I went to Buck’s apartment and we were up all night doing research on her.”
“So you didn’t…”
He laughs again. “My God, no, Kelly. How could you think that?”
“My mother’s an attractive woman.”
“She’s…pretty, but not attractive.”
I scoff. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she has pretty features. But her personality keeps her from being attractive.”
“Doesn’t that mean the same thing?”
“No. Objectively, I can observe her features, and I can say she’s pretty, although her features aren’t as fine as yours. You happen to be beautiful.”
Warmth surges to my cheeks.
“Attractiveness, on the other hand, requires attraction. And I felt no attraction to her. So to me, she’s not attractive.”
My cheeks are burning from his touch. “No one’s ever explained it to me like that before.”
“That’s how I see it anyway. You’re a beautiful woman, Kelly, and you came from your mother. So of course she’s quite pretty in an objective sense. But attractive? Not at all. Beautiful? Not even the same galaxy as you.”
He uses one hand to tilt my chin and then brushes his lips over mine. “Now, can I make that coffee?”
I nod.
He rises and pulls me into a stand next to him. I want to melt into him, let him embrace me, but I don’t.
Not yet.
Maybe over coffee, I’ll tell him about my mother.
That’s what I was going to do anyway.
Will he run away screaming?
I can’t blame him if he does. I come with a hell of a lot of baggage. But I’m feeling something for this man. A warm and cozy feeling like I’m wrapped in a cashmere shawl and protected from the world.
And I think…
Maybe I am.