He leaned forward in his seat, bracing his arms against the counter. That wouldn’t be happening this time. He had himself under control.
Shrugging, Serena scanned the recipe they were working from and plucked a one-cup measure from the pile of implements he’d laid out. “It just seems like something that would be useful to know how to do. For Max, mostly. And. You know.”
“I don’t.”
“It’s a nice thing to be able to do. Bring a tray of something with you when you go to someone’s house. Gifts.” Her voice quirked upward, a strange pitch to that word.
He looked at her askance. “Gifts for whom?”
“Anyone.” She dipped the measuring cup into the flour, then paused. “Okay, promise you won’t judge me?”
“I make no such promises.”
She bit her lip as if trying to hold it in. But then she told him anyway. “Sometimes I go to the bakery down the street and buy cookies or brownies or whatever. Then I put them in Tupperware and pass them off as homemade.”
“Scandalous.”
“I know, right? Don’t tell. There are just so many domestic types where I work, and among the parents.” Her expression soured. “I bet the moms at the private schools are even worse.”
Ah. So that’s what this is about. “The ones at Upton?”
The school where she was so intent on sending her nephew next year.
Squaring her shoulders, she nodded. “Max doesn’t have all the advantages of some of the kids there. I’ll even the score however I can. Baked goods for the secretaries.” She glanced at him. “Private tutors. Whatever.”
“Of course.” A question formed on his lips. It was terribly uncouth. Nosy and awful. But she herself had brought it up in the first place. “Can I ask...”
She eyed him warily. But she didn’t say no.
He worked his jaw, gulping. Best to be direct. “Max’s mother.”
Sighing, she placed her hands on the counter. Left the scoop in the flour and dropped her gaze. “My sister. Penny. She’s...not in the picture right now.”
Alive, then, at least. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it’s okay. Just not easy to talk about, you know?”
Cole could only imagine.
Nothing brought out a woman’s emotions like a child. Helen’s face flashed hot across his vision, eyes red, cheeks flushed and damp, and if he could just...If he’d only handled it better.
If he’d only been a different man entirely.
The silence that settled over them pressed on his lungs, an awkwardness that made his fingers twitch. Serena’s, too, it seemed. After a moment, she dug back into the bag of flour, fumbling with the measuring cup before hauling it out, soft white powder overflowing as she steered it toward the mixing bowl.
He reached out before he could think about it too hard.
Her wrist was so small in his grasp, the bones so delicate. Her skin was warm and soft.
She darted her gaze around to meet his, mouth twisting down.
With a soft grunt of an exhalation, he let her go. Clearing his throat, he tipped his head toward the kitchen scale he’d placed beside the mixer. “You have to weigh it. Or at the very least level it.”
“Really?”
“Truly.” He pointed to the mass in grams the recipe specified.
“Huh.”
Together, they got the flour measured out. As she dithered around, removing a couple of extra grams, she shifted her weight, chewing at the inside of her lip.
“She was just so perfect,” she said, seemingly out of nowhere.
It took him a moment to catch up. “Your sister.”
Serena nodded. “She was two years ahead of me, and all the teachers loved her. Straight As, awesome at sports, the whole package. Except...” She hesitated, lines appearing between her brows. “It started when she was a teenager, I guess. She had these times when you couldn’t talk to her, could hardly even get her out of bed.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, looking back on it now, it’s so obvious she was depressed, but at the time—it’s not like teenagers are never moody, you know? And she was so resistant to the idea that she needed help. We thought we got it under control before she went off to college, but...”
She trailed off, and Cole clenched his hands against some broken, forgotten instinct that had him longing to reach out. There was a heaviness to her when she talked about her sister, and he heard the burden of responsibility in her tone. Serena had been the younger of the two, but she’d been the one doing the caretaking, hadn’t she?
A wry smile curled her lips. “I think it’s safe to say she engaged in some risk-taking behaviors once she was on her own. Self-medicating. Unsafe relationships. And in the meantime she was putting on a happy face in her messages home. But she was avoiding phone calls until...”
“Until Max.”
“Pretty much.” She shook her head. “God. I’ve never seen her and my mom fight like that. Her boyfriend at the time ditched her in a heartbeat, and she didn’t know what to do. Mom wouldn’t hear of her not keeping it, but Penny had this whole bright future laid out in front of her. Even if she hadn’t, though. She wasn’t in any state to be taking care of herself, much less anyone else.”
The picture snapped into place before his eyes. “So your mother took the child.”
“Penny was in and out of hospitals for a year after he was born. Mom’s basically raised him since day one.”
He studied her face, watching the interplay of light across her features. The subtle, soft curve of her smile. The pride with which she spoke about this boy.
“Not without a bit of help, I suspect.”
“I was still living at home when he was born. I’d watch him after school, take him to his doctor’s appointments, sit with him and hold his hand when he was sick.” Her mouth twisted, a wistfulness tugging the corners down. “My mom still gives me such a hard time about it.”
His eyebrows rose. “About helping her?”
“About not living my life.” She shrugged. “They’re part of why I stayed so close to home, for college and even now. She thinks I should be out sowing my oats or something, like Penny is now, but I don’t get it. I already have everything I want. I love my job and my friends, and I’ve got this great kid that I adore. I love my family. Is that such a crime?”
“No...” He hesitated.
Because how dare he ask the kinds of questions that were rising to his mind? After his own stagnation, his own withdrawal from anything and anyone...how could he ask?
But he did. “Maybe she wants you to have a family of your own?”
Her laughter was a sharp rush of breath. “Please.”
“What?”
“I’d love that. But...” She took the basket of flour off the scale, tapping her thumb against its corner in a staccato rhythm that set him on edge. “It’s not easy, you know? Finding a guy who’s serious. Who would commit.”
Of course. After what had happened with her sister, she had every right to her wariness.
And it burned him all the same. Made him sit a little straighter in his chair. Keep his hands a little closer to his sides.
“Anyway,” she said, voice loud in the quiet of the room. “My life is fine the way it is. I’m not going to change it for a man. Not unless he can give me everything I want.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Unless he’s perfect.”
Cole’s heart clenched, the very muscle, underused and tender, going tight.
He’d made his promises. He’d honored them all these years. And it didn’t matter how lovely this woman was or how she’d barged her way into his life. How she’d made him feel for the first time in what felt like a century.
Promises were promises. And even if they weren’t.
Perfection was a million miles beyond his reach.
Perfect. The word rolled off Serena’s tongue so easily, and with good reason. She’d had this conversation with her mother so many time
s. Her refrain was always the same. She wasn’t ready or she wasn’t interested or the men she met on dating sites were only looking for one thing.
Serena was looking for more.
Only the entire package would be enough to lure her away from the life she already had.
And yet, even as she was repeating those tired lines, she was looking at this man. At the scar on his lip and the frowning tilt of his mouth. The keenness to his eyes. The slope of his shoulders and the straight line of his spine, both radiating discomfort—both practically screaming that he didn’t want to be touched.
But he’d let her in. He’d taken care of her nephew and he was giving her his time, telling her these basic things she should have figured out from her mother or from any of a hundred cooking shows, but which she hadn’t.
He’d been rude, and he’d been gruff, and he’d listened to her babbling on about her sister without condescension or pity, with an even voice and with interest.
He was the furthest thing from perfect she’d ever seen.
And it was strange. She’d been attracted to him from the very first instant, but it wasn’t until that moment, when she was saying out loud that she would never date someone like him, that she really let herself consider it.
What would it be like? To turn in to him, reach out her hand, and press a palm against the rough slope of his cheek? Brush lips on lips and taste his accent on her tongue. What would he do? Pull her in against his chest, wrap her up in warm arms, and keep her close?
Or push her away.
Face hot, ears burning, she dropped her gaze.
“What about you?” she asked, hands unsteady as she took the basket of flour and poured it with care into a bowl.
“Me?”
“Did you ever think about a family?”
She heard what she had asked at the same time he did. At her side, he stiffened, posture winding even tighter than it had been before, and she let loose a string of curses in her mind he might be proud of.
He’d shut down on her the last time at the barest mention of his wife. She’d been bursting at the seams ever since, curiosity eating her, but she’d thought she’d tamped it down. That she could be cool.
“I did,” he said, and the metal seat of his stool creaked with the force of his grip. “A long time ago.”
“Oh.”
She moved on to the next ingredient on the list, scanning the lines of containers just for something to do and someplace to look.
“It wasn’t meant to be, though.”
A hundred questions pressed at her ribs. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep them in.
“My”—he hesitated, voice rough—“my wife wanted to. She was trying to convince me of it the night...” He sucked in a breath that could have been razors. Bleeding and sharp.
Her own lungs wouldn’t work, the air in them going thin as she waited for him to let his out. To say...To tell her...
“The night she died.”
Oh God. She’d known. She’d figured, at least, but it was something else to have it spoken, hanging trembling between them. A crystalline web spun from confessions, glistening brightly in the light.
Only to shatter.
He rose from his seat in a lurching motion, knee near buckling as he got his crutches underneath him. “Eggs,” he said, and the word was watery. He swabbed at his eyes as he turned away from her. “We need—”
“Cole.”
“I’ll just get—”
“Cole.”
But he didn’t stop. He hobbled over to the fridge and tore open the door, rebalancing himself to reach into that space, to retrieve the cardboard carton. It shook in his grip, and her heart ached.
“Here.” He thrust it toward her. “I can’t.” He gestured helplessly at the braces beneath his arms. “Infernal things, I just—”
One last time, she spoke his name, only for him to hurl the carton at the wall. He whirled around, and the fridge door slammed shut with a clatter, the whole thing rocking, something inside it falling over. With a crash, the eggs hit the ground, but she couldn’t see them.
All she could see was this man, and the bands of control with which he was trying so damn hard to keep himself together. And failing.
His ragged inhalation was a hairline fracture to her ribs. His fist hit the front of the fridge, and then his foot, and there was another, wetter, angry sound of pain inside his lungs.
She was moving before she could think.
She stepped around the mess he’d made, right up to him. Those broad, strong shoulders still radiated distance, still told her with everything he had in him to stay away, but the hurt in his bones spoke louder.
And that was something she could never ignore.
With a hand on his arm, she tugged him around, and he resisted, clumsy with the crutches and as stubborn as the day they’d met. But she managed to get a hand on his face, to touch the stubbled line of his jaw, thumb brushing against the corner of his mouth. He let out a sound that might have been punched out of him, and her own eyes went blurry as she pulled at him to look at her.
His gaze was glass and steel, both ready to break and impossibly hard. A skittering pang throbbed through her chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
For his loss and for asking. For everything.
Something in his expression cracked. This time, when she tried to draw him in, there was no resistance. One of his crutches tumbled to the ground, an arm going around her waist. He pressed his face into her hair and let out a breath against her ear, damp and shuddering, and she felt it like an ache inside her heart.
Closing her eyes, she curled her hand around the back of his neck. There was something so raw about him. Like he’d never said those words before, maybe not even to himself.
Like years had passed since he’d been held.
So she tucked him closer. Wrapped him up and took his weight. Took his confessions.
And tried to give him back all she had in return.
Years.
For years now, Cole had been holding himself together through sheer will. It had gotten to the point where he had scarcely recognized it anymore—the tightness in his limbs, the tension straining every muscle to just keep choosing to breathe. The strain had faded into the background, had become this barren landscape of numb forbearance that he had to trudge through, day after day after day.
Until now. Until this woman.
Serena. She’d stormed her way into his life and his home, and now she’d—what? Asked him a bare handful of questions. Refused to let him change the subject or hide his face. She’d touched him with the softest glancing brush of fingertips against his cheek, and it had all come crumbling down.
He sucked in another searing breath, and the wet raggedness, the weakness in it threatened to take him to his knees.
Fuck. Shameful, pathetic. He spat the words into the vacuum of his own mind, but even as he did, he clung to her more tightly.
Worse, she let him. Everything in him was falling, but she bore him up with quiet strength. Her hand cupped his nape, the warmth there grounding him in a way he’d forgotten it even could.
And it felt good. Better than good.
Too good.
He squeezed his eyes shut tight, giving himself one last moment to soak this in. The unwinding deep inside him and the luxury of letting go, of allowing himself to be touched. Tenderness and comfort, and he didn’t get to have it. Wasn’t allowed to keep it.
Steeling himself, he opened his eyes and dropped his arm. She let him take a scant half-step back, but then her face tilted up, and his throat went tight.
That wasn’t pity in her gaze. It was resolve.
Just like that, she rose onto her toes, and she didn’t let him go. She reeled him in and down, and his protest, his shock, died in his mouth at the hot press of soft lips to his. It was all he could do just to hold on.
His lone, remaining crutch went crashing to the ground. He got both
his arms around her, pure instinct driving him. Pivoting on his good leg, he turned her until her spine hit the refrigerator door, and God, bloody motherfucking hell. He really let himself feel her this time. She was all soft curves pressed against him, full breasts and perfect hips, the subtle dip of her waist fitting to the furl of his palm.
And her mouth. She tasted like heaven and hell, redemption and sin, and his blood pounded in his ears as he bit at lush lips, slipped his tongue in to tangle with hers until he was lost. His mind went blissfully, impossibly blank, his thoughts going quiet for the first time in years, for the first time since—
Icy, frigid water poured into his heart.
He hadn’t kissed anyone since Helen.
In one, too-fast motion, he tore himself away. He swore aloud at the wave of fire shooting from his knee. He pitched backward, stumbling, barely catching himself against the counter behind him. With both hands braced against the granite, he fought his own aching, spinning breath.
Helen. Helen whom he’d loved and whom he’d ruined, who had asked him for more, for a family and a life, and he’d known he couldn’t. He’d known. There’d been that ugly, awful, untameable thing inside of him, and no one should have to live with that. No child should have to grow up with a father who didn’t know his own strength, who couldn’t control his fucking temper, who lost himself to the white-hot anger in his chest until he forgot what he was doing, who he was hurting.
His breath caught. No woman should’ve had to live with that, either, but he’d been so fucking selfish. So wrong.
And then she’d died. Because of him.
He looked up, his chest pounding, and the gaze that met his own stopped him cold.
Serena stared back at him with her lips red and bruised, her hair a golden, gorgeous mess, face flushed. But those pale green eyes of hers—they were full of compassion, full of kindness. Full of hope.
Forget falling. His stomach plummeted, taking the rest of it with him. Because he’d been down this road before. He couldn’t do it now.
Confessions in the Dark Page 7