Kiss Me (Promise Me Book 3)

by Brea Viragh

  Nolan shushed him. “Kai, don’t butt in.”

  Against my better judgment, I surged to my feet. “I don’t need your help! I don’t need anyone’s help, thank you, so if everyone can shut up and eat this mockery of a meal, then I’d appreciate it.”

  Thessaly rounded on me. Not only had I insulted her motives, I’d insulted the food. It was one step too far. “Sit!”

  I was shocked when she got to her feet as well, grabbing my hands and shoving me back into my seat once more. “You don’t understand how hard I work for the good of this family,” she burst out. “I’m not stomping around tooting my own horn but it doesn’t mean I don’t try my best. The least you could do is pretend to be happy.”

  Hot, choking anger took hold of me. “Let go of me right now.”

  I was a boxer facing an opponent. An animal with a rival in sight. No matter how hard I tried, or how much I wanted to, I wasn’t able to back down. There were nights when, faced with a fight, I did the right and proper thing by walking away. I wished tonight were one of those.

  “If you want to fight, then by all means, go ahead.” My chin rose. “I’m tired of being told how I should live when I come here. And now you’re dragging Kai into this.”

  “The only one who made a problem tonight is you.”

  “Dinner and a show, how fun.” Kai set his fork down, stepping up from the rank of casual observer. “Ladies, if no one minds me interjecting…”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “Stop arguing!” Now it was Nolan’s turn to drink the spiked punch of agitation. “I think everyone is acting like spoiled rotten babies.”

  “Blame the pomegranates. Since it was someone’s idea to include a round of aphrodisiacs with tonight’s festivities.” I slid the bowl across the table until it knocked against the napkin holder.

  “Ah. I wondered why I suddenly felt a little hot-blooded,” Curran commented good-naturedly.

  “I’m coming from an outside perspective here, mind you, but I can see there’s a small unwillingness to give in with both parties. With the interest of fairness in mind, I think there should be an apology made,” Kai demanded, pointing between Thessaly and me.

  “I refuse to budge,” I shot back. If there was one thing I’d learned from nursing school, it was that if you were right, then you clung to the knowledge and stood your ground. It made for a better practitioner when the health of the patient was involved. Now I stood for my mental health.

  “No. You deserve an apology,” he insisted.

  “Kai, I swear, if you don’t mind your own business I’ll come over there and mind it for you.”

  Nolan shifted his gaze between us. “Now wait a minute. You can’t talk to him that way!”

  It was a downhill slide. When Kai spoke, it was with meticulous politeness. “I’m sticking up for you, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Oh, I noticed. And it pisses me off. I don’t want you to fight for me.” I didn’t want him to be right for me, either.

  “I make it a point to say what’s necessary to push you. I don’t intend to stop now,” Thessaly commented, trembling. She picked up her glass of homemade fermented tea and downed half in two gulps.

  “This is awkward.” Curran moved his shoulders as if to shake off any responsibility.

  She swung her arm around and pointed to Kai. “There is a good man here, and a good match for you. Why can’t you let me help? He obviously cares for you. You’ve had multiple years of doing what you want, Nell. Of being alone to make a silly point to me. The one decent thing you did was going out with that nice young doctor. Then you ruined it by running away. I’m trying to help you.”

  It took effort to stay seated when I wanted to surge out of the room. How could she say such horrible things to me without knowing the truth?

  “You’ve done nothing but help since I turned sixteen. Finding nice young boys and good men to fill whatever void you think I have.” I ticked them off on my finger one by one. “There was Ricky, the kid next door. Bruce, from the grocery store. Tyler, in my math class. Enrique, your exchange student. Do I need to go on?”

  A dozen excuses rushed across my mother’s face. She had a ready and willing comeback to each of the names I’d given her, but we had a guest and it wouldn’t do to bring more negative attention to herself. Nothing to hinder the match she’d already set in stone in her head.

  “Nell…” She kept her voice soothing. “You found fault with those boys on purpose.”

  “Do you want to take this into the other room? I can tell you don’t want to be honest, Mom, otherwise you’ll embarrass yourself.” I gestured over my shoulder. “Wouldn’t want your precious Kai to hear you admit you have a dowry for your daughter.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Thessaly began. “If you’d told me beforehand, then we wouldn’t be making your brother uncomfortable right now.”

  Nolan? She had to be kidding. The need to attack scorched me. A red-hot whip of acid, burning. It was better to deal with awkward than ugly, and dinner was quickly spiraling toward the latter. There was no contest to win or lose, but I felt the pressure.

  Kai rose from his seat. “The ability to soothe emotions is one of my strong points. Right now, I think we need to leave.” He came around the table and stood in front of me.

  “What?”

  He held out his hand in a no-nonsense manner. “Now, Nell.”

  I had no intention of going anywhere with him. There was too much pride at stake to let him take me away before I had a chance to finish. Unfortunately, as things turned out, his slight form hid a wealth of strength.

  “You can scream at me later for this,” he murmured in my ear a split second before lifting me over his shoulder.

  The rest of them stood to attention when I yelled, my nose buried in Kai’s back. He ignored my shrieked curses and the fists pounding against him and proceeded to cart me out of the room.

  “Wait a minute!” Nolan managed. “You can’t do that! Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Let me down right now! Kai Ingles, you bully! This is not the way to solve—”

  My feathers were rarely ruffled to the point where I was at a loss for words. Years’ worth of anger rolled off me now, channeled through my fists and onto his back, but I had nothing to say.

  We were out the door and heading upstairs before I could come up with a suitable comeback. It fell short.

  “You’re a jerk,” I finally told the muscles of his shoulders, beating my hands into his hips and waving my limbs like a scolded toddler in a mall. I had a vision of knocking him between the legs and shoving his head through a door.

  “And you’re a hothead,” he said. “You need to calm down before there’s blood. No sense in having you and your mother at each other’s throats. I want to enjoy my turkey.”

  “You think I’ll lose!”

  “Worse. I think you’ll win.”

  Kai climbed the last steps and made a right-hand turn into my bedroom. Hours earlier we’d been in nearly the same position.

  Among my garbled protestations and the sounds of footsteps coming behind us, Kai whirled and kicked the door closed. Flipped the lock. Shut us inside. He did the same with the bathroom door before dropping me. I landed unceremoniously and suppressed a squeal when he kept me from falling backwards.

  “You have a lot of nerve carting me off like that. I’m not a child.” Irritated thoughts buzzed around my head, an angry swarm of bees with their hive disturbed. “We were settling things when you decided to stick your nose in the mix. No one asked for you to come to the rescue.”

  “I couldn’t sit there and watch her berate you. I know it’s not my place, but goddamn it, Nell.” Kai shifted forward, his earnest face displaying a wealth of emotion. There was frustration, sure, as well as a sort of pity I didn’t care to see. “The woman doesn’t let up, and neither do you. It wouldn’t end well. You’re a couple of bulldogs fighting over the same bone and chewing up anyone who gets in the way.”<
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  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sure you will be,” he insisted, “but I’m not the type of person to sit and watch someone get torn down. She might be your mom, and she might think she has your best interests at heart, but it wasn’t coming through tonight. And to bring up your past like that…no.”

  Yes, I pondered with a fleeting flash of bitterness. It was her skill to choose the most dramatic moment and add gas to the fire.

  I pointed to the door. “You might have suggested leaving the room before you randomly decided to throw yourself in my business.” I wasn’t sure who I was angry with anymore. Thessaly, Kai, or myself. “You’ve given her fodder. Now she’ll see this as a triumph instead of a stalemate.”

  He sighed, running fingers through his hair and messing up the gelled strands. “It was too much for you to be in that room. You might have a flair for cutting to the quick of the matter, but I know when I’m needed. And you needed me.”

  It hurt more to know he was right. I did, and I wanted him there too. “We’re not here to talk about what I need. You don’t know me.”

  Kai took my hand in his, cupping it protectively against his chest. The anger in my chest burned away and a different sensation took its place. This time, the touch of his bare fingers on my skin was a mixture of pleasure and pain. I felt upended, roiled by a wave to the shore.

  The change had me pulling away deliberately.

  “You have no business with me. Not anymore. We did the dance and now I’m tired. I’m not looking for a partner, and I’m not looking for a knight to save me.”

  “Who said anything about being a knight? Actually, I feel more like a punching bag tonight.” He held his arms open. “Let me have it, if it will make you feel better. Take your frustration out on me.”

  I stared at the ceiling, biting the inside of my cheek. “I have nothing left to hash out with you. The time is long past for you to disappear. I don’t want you around and yet you keep coming at me. You don’t have the right. Don’t pretend you give a damn.” I walked over to the window and stared out at the twilight. It was better than looking at his face. I had to fight this, dammit. It mattered.

  “Let’s be honest for a minute, Nell. You don’t want me here, and that’s fine. But it has nothing to do with your mother. It’s because you have feelings for me.”

  I remembered being twenty, with such strong feelings for Peter that I walked around lightheaded. Wildly in love and full of dreams for the future. Plans I would never carry out. I remembered being twenty-three when I woke up one morning no longer recognizing the face I saw in the mirror, when I had to cling to the last shreds of my identity and pick up the pieces of my disintegrating relationship. Twenty-three, with the decision to go our separate ways weighing me down.

  I refused to do it again. Now, I thought, I will stand firm.

  Shaking a finger, I told him outright, “You’re delusional. Let’s not pretend this argument wasn’t long overdue. I put it off so I wouldn’t hurt Nolan’s feelings by being confrontational. Since he’s not here, I think I can let you have it now.” I rounded on him, and saying it, I believed it. “You need to move on. I’m not the right girl for you. We’re not on the same page, we do not have any stake in a relationship, and I’m not a puppet to fall on the first man my mom sends my way. In fact, I’ve proven to be pretty much the opposite. So you can kiss your ideas about saving me goodbye. Because it was only sex.”

  “No,” Kai muttered. He didn’t come toward. The others were knocking on the door, trying their best to come inside and see what was going on. One more show for the circus roster. “If I believed that, I would say goodbye and walk. I don’t.”

  “Do you only hear what you want to hear? I said it was nothing.”

  “Stop disappointing yourself. It doesn’t look good on you.” Kai had his hands in his pockets. I wondered when, not if, he’d choose to walk across the room and place them on me again.

  “I suggest you go back downstairs and we can all pretend to have a nice dinner. You’ll have to live with your disappointments, Kai. We’ve had enough for one day.”

  God, he was attractive. All that brown hair looking on the shabby side, the gently spiked bangs in need of a trim. The quiet and dreamy eyes coming alive when he was enflamed by something, able to shoot sparks at whomever he had in his crosshairs. Long, dark lashes...which was part of the reason I needed to stay firm. I’d go to Hell before I gave my mother the satisfaction of being right.

  “Yes, we have.” He turned and started toward the door, then hesitated. “I am good at pretending. It’s another thing we both have in common. The ability to blend in to survive.”

  There was no good way to end the conversation. I watched him walk out and saw the press of faces when he closed the door behind him. Moving to the bed, I sat carefully to not shatter the illusion of calm I clung to.

  I remembered each one of them. Bruce, Enrique, Ricky…they paraded past me. Ricky came when I was sixteen, an invited dinner guest pleased to make our acquaintance. By eighteen it was old hat and I was struggling to cling to my independence while the promise of marriage hung over my head. It never mattered how many times I tried. The only solution was running. Away from the house, away from my mother’s matchmaking and not indirect domination, away from the desperation I’d kept to myself.

  Peter had been my choice. I’d loved him. Loved him more than any broken heart or empty wallet. I’d missed the warning signs, gone to a dark place, didn’t say anything to anyone—it didn’t matter. He’d never loved me. He’d owned me, which was worse, and I had wanted to bolt. To run for miles and miles and miles until I didn’t hurt anymore.

  Yeah, so I didn’t make it far, to the stoplight, before I knew this was my home. Heartwood, the country, the woods. I would never be happy anywhere else.

  I lifted my hands to my face and rubbed until I felt the friction of skin on skin, a moaning laugh smoldering in my throat. Knuckles brushed against my burning eyes.

  What was this charade, after all? A woman trying to be a good daughter. A good sister. The weight of those was so much, I didn’t have the energy to be a good girlfriend or wife.

  I let my head fall back. How long could I sit here and be sad? My lips tightened. I crossed to the door. Wrapped my hand around the antique door knob. I’d say nothing else for the night. Let Thessaly rage and Nolan pine for his love. Let Kai throw me over his shoulder again.

  There was still food to eat and company to entertain. Was I the only one willing to tweak my mood to suit the good of the whole? I wondered about it. There were times when Nolan—who had his fair share of appreciation for melodrama—managed to put his meaner tendencies aside to keep the peace. Would he do so now, or would I have to once again carry the load?

  I stalled. I had no desire to go back down. All of my life I’d tried to outrun what my parents expected. Now it was sitting down to dinner with us. The clomp of footsteps receded when the rest of the clan moved down the hallway. I recognized the slam of the front door, the muttered curses.

  Typical.

  I didn’t want to think about Peter, let alone remember him while my heart throbbed and I felt powerless. He popped up anyway. Drawn from the corners of my mind and given form.

  Never again.

  I opened my door and walked out.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Curran took one look at me and his face melted into sympathy. “You feeling better?”

  I stayed in the kitchen doorway, watching him take two hand-sewn potholders and retrieve a pie from the oven.

  “No, but there’s nothing I can do,” I answered.

  “The others are outside walking off the meal. Nolan insisted on going before the weather got worse. He said there was too much negativity in the air and they needed to escape.” Curran pointed to the upper cabinet near the banquette. “Go get us something good while they’re gone.”

  How had I gotten lucky enough to have the three biggest mouths in the house gone at the same time? Crossi
ng the kitchen, I opened the cabinet and grabbed the glass bottle of whiskey on the top shelf. Hidden from view under normal circumstances. I unscrewed the top, took a swig, then walked over to hand the rest to my father. The whiskey singed a trail of fire before settling in my gut, warm and familiar.

  He obliged me with a single sip before pushing it toward me again. “Drink up. You need it.”

  I eyed my father shrewdly while he worked on his special dessert. He wore his good tie, the one he reserved for special outings, holidays, and anniversaries. It was black with grey vertical stripes. We’d all been required to don our finery for dinner.

  I tried to focus on the tie, a symbol of his self-expression in the midst of my mother’s chaos. The entire house was her way of showing who she was. For Curran, it was the tie he reserved for certain days of the year. He was a man contented with his life. I suspect he remained that way because he rarely came out of his own head to listen to my mother, or see what was happening in the world around them. He didn’t mind where he was, or who he was, and chose to remain surrounded by the things he loved most: his garden and his family.

  There were times when I wished to be more like him. Gratified with everything I saw and the path laid out. I wanted to know about lasting stability. I wanted to know about routine. I wanted to know about a relationship that worked. Was it him, or was it Thessaly who put in the effort? What made them click? Was their reliance on each other a strength, or a weakness?

  Since my parents settled down together thirty years ago, they’d remained busy. I guess that meant it left Curran little time to quibble about anything he found out of the ordinary.

  He stared at the golden pie crust and inhaled. “We should let this puppy sit. It’ll be ready to cut in a few minutes. She tried to use up all my sweet potatoes. I got more at the store. I know your mom made something else, but this is tradition.” Curran looked out the window above the sink, above the foaming froth of suds and the mountain of dirty dishes hiding beneath the peaks. “Now we’ve gotta tackle the dishes.”