Even in that moment, her traitorous heart had begun to pound a little faster. Surely, there was no one else this kid could be but Jake’s nephew? Which meant Jake couldn’t be far behind. She had tried in vain to stop her eyes from darting around the room, bouncing off every wall and every person, as they looked for Jake.
She’d ignored the dip of her stomach when they finally confirmed what some intuitive part of her already knew—that he wasn’t there. He couldn’t be. Still, the hairs on her neck had stood up with some kind of awareness.
Time to calm down, she had remonstrated herself. Seeing Jake’s nephew here was pure coincidence, nothing more.
Except that she’d known that was a lie. There was only one reason that she had frequented Paula’s Café more times in the last week than she had probably used it in the last twelve months, and that reason was about six foot two, with dark hair, and almost as serious and earnest as the boy standing at her table.
However, it was the haunted expression which had poked its way into her, scraping at her. The brief story that Jake had told her about the boy’s mother had echoed painfully around her chest. Oesophageal cancer. So sudden and unpredictable. How easily could that be Julianna or Marcie?
Deus, it didn’t bear thinking about.
‘As it happens, I do know the difference between poison and venom,’ she had acknowledged gently. ‘But why don’t you tell me what you think?’
The boy—Brady, if she remembered Jake rightly—had dipped his head in acknowledgement, maintaining direct eye contact but without a hint of a smile. All business.
‘Both poison and venom are toxins, but it’s the method of delivery that changes. Venom is injected whilst poison is secreted.’
He had delivered the facts quite animatedly, with such an intensity in his gaze that it had been like looking into a mirror to the past. For a moment, it had taken her quite aback.
Now, tugged back into the present, something slammed inside Flávia’s chest. How much of her own childhood had she spent lost in knowledge, and facts, and learning, in a way that her peers simply hadn’t understood? Greedily soaking up information and devouring books about anything and everything, but especially the natural world?
It had made for a rather lonely childhood, craving someone who would share her knowledge and her passion, but more often than not being thought of as a bit nerdy. Or, more likely, plain weird. Not least by her younger, social-butterfly sister, who had loved her but never understood how Flávia could have preferred ants over boys. Then again, if it hadn’t been for Maria dragging her to every party and social event going, maybe she would have turned out a lot more...introverted than she actually felt. At least now, in social situations, she could fool people around into thinking she was more confident than was actually the case.
Something twisted in her chest, but she pushed it aside. She wasn’t that weird kid any more. She’d come out the other side a long time ago and now her life was everything she could ever have dreamed it would be. An internationally respected, cutting-edge research scientist by day, and a loved and admired best aunt in the world to her two gloriously fun nieces by evening. The perfect life. But this poor kid still wouldn’t be there for about another ten years or more.
If that was, indeed, his path. Folding her hands in her lap, she cocked her head to one side. How like the seven-year-old Flávia was this boy? Did he get adults dismissing him the same way that she used to? Would he respond to someone who treated him as more than just a kid, and could talk to him on his level?
‘Nice. So, do you want to give me some examples?’
A sense of victory punched through her as she saw that closed expression relax a fraction. Then he edged closer to her.
‘Bees, scorpions, spiders, ants, snakes—they all deliver toxins through their bite or sting, so that’s venom. Rough-skinned newts, poison dart frogs, cane toads—all secrete, so they’re poisonous. That’s also why we say food poisoning, not food venoming.’
‘I’m impressed.’ She smiled widely. ‘Okay, here’s a bigger test. What about the Asian tiger snake?’
He narrowed his eyes.
‘That’s not a bigger test. It’s venomous, like I said. Snakes inject through their bite.’
‘Actually, as well as fangs to deliver venom, the Asian tiger snake has defensive glands on the back of its neck which deliver poison that it stores from eating poison toads, making it the only snake which is poisonous as well as venomous.’
It was a gamble, Flávia knew that. She wasn’t intending to trap him or belittle him, although she knew other kids might have felt that way. But this kid was different, and she suspected that as long as she was feeding him more information, he wouldn’t care about being wrong. He’d just store the knowledge for the future.
Still, she didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until the boy’s eyes widened and he edged forward again.
‘What else do you know that I don’t?’ he demanded, almost breathless with excitement.
‘I’m willing to bet lots.’ Flávia grinned, relieved when he smiled back. ‘But first, how about we find who you’re here with?’
She couldn’t bring herself to say Jake, but when he backed up almost imperceptibly, and his little face shuttered down, she could have kicked herself for not thinking faster.
‘My mummy died last year.’
‘I’m sorry, Brady. It is Brady, isn’t it?’
He nodded.
‘I know you’re here with your uncle. I just meant, who is looking after you now? A hospital nurse?’
‘Patricia,’ he confirmed after a moment, jerking to an older woman paying for something at the counter. ‘She’s getting me a meal. Then Uncle Jake will meet me here.’
‘Soon?’
‘Whenever he finishes.’ He shrugged, that sadness swirling around him again.
He might as well have slammed her in the chest. Flávia fought to breathe. It was all she could do to stay composed.
‘I see,’ she managed.
The silence moved around them, and then Brady narrowed his eyes—eyes which must have been identical to his mother’s given how closely they resembled Jake’s blue depths.
‘Why do you work for a company called VenomSci? Do you use animal venom? Do you hurt them?’
It was the distraction she needed.
‘Quite the opposite,’ she assured him. ‘I’ve worked with wasp venom, scorpion venom and snake venom. But whatever project I work on for pharmaceutical companies, my personal goal remains the same, and that’s finding ways to protect and save as many animals as possible.’
He eyed her suspiciously.
‘Why would I believe you?’
‘I don’t know. But I have a nine-year-old niece and a six-year-old niece, and we often go exploring the forest together to see what we can find, and which animals we can help.’
Although she never let the girls go near anything that could possibly harm them.
He scrutinised her for a little longer.
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
They eyed each other for a few moments, and she knew he was assessing her. Evaluating. Just the way that she would have done at that age.
‘Brady? Brady? Why aren’t you with Patricia? What are you doing here?’
It was the moment she told herself she’d been dreading. It took everything she had not to spin around in her chair, but instead she waited for him to draw level with her table.
‘Jake.’ She inclined her head as professionally as she could. ‘I already checked where Patricia was, and she’s right over there by the counter.’
‘I was coming to sit down when we...’ Brady paused, looking to her.
‘Flávia,’ she supplied helpfully.
‘Flávia and I started taking about venom and poison.’
‘Is that so?’ Ja
ke bit out, eyeing her as if she had somehow engineered the situation.
Evidently, he’d had no intention of seeking her out after their night together, and probably would have been more than happy if their paths hadn’t crossed for the remainder of his stay in Brazil.
She told herself she didn’t care, that she’d known the parameters of their...encounter the night of the party. But the way her throat was closing, and the shameful stinging behind her eyes, told her a different story.
Idiot that she was.
‘How did you get talking, anyway?’
‘Because she knows about nature, too.’ The kid looked at his uncle as though the answer was surely obvious.
Clearly, Jake wasn’t convinced.
‘He spotted my laptop case.’ She gestured to the bright logo. ‘It caught his interest.’
‘Ah...’ Jake surveyed the case, and if he didn’t actually roll his eyes, then he at least gave the impression of dismissal. ‘That would have done it. He’s obsessed with everything from ants to cheetahs. How they live, how they feed, how they defend themselves.’
‘Fascinated,’ Flávia corrected automatically, unable to help herself.
‘Sorry?’
‘He’s fascinated. Not obsessed. There’s a difference.’
It was like a mini stand-off, but Flávia couldn’t bring herself to regret it. She told herself she was just looking out for the child. She suspected a part of her was also trying to help Jake make that connection he hadn’t been able to bring himself to outright admit to her was lacking.
‘The difference is called hyperfocus,’ he told her, his tone clipped.
She glanced at Brady, and this time it was her turn to do a little assessing. He stared right back at her with intelligent—if sad—eyes, a slightly cheeky set to his mouth and a vaguely mutinous look to his stance.
She didn’t see hyperfocus, or any other issue that she imagined people might have thrown at Jake over the past ten months. She just saw a bright little boy, grieving for his mother, possibly too bright for his own good, probably considered cheeky or disruptive in school and misunderstood by the adults around him.
She saw herself.
But where she’d had her father, always there to encourage her curiosity and teach her new experiences, she wasn’t sure Brady had the same level of support. Though, it was clear that he had an uncle trying desperately to do his best.
She could shut her mouth and stay out of it, or she could try helping both Brady and Jake, all the while knowing that she risked Jake believing she was using his nephew to wedge herself into their lives after what had been, for all intents and purposes, a one-night stand.
Finally, decision made, she turned back to Jake.
‘Maybe,’ she answered coolly, even though her heart was now threatening to beat right out of her chest. Though not necessarily for the same reasons as before. ‘But I don’t think so.’
He could see the fury in Jake, in the tight set of his jaw, and the tiny pulse flickering in his neck, though he reined it in admirably.
‘Brady,’ he addressed his nephew in an eerily calm voice. ‘Please join Patricia for a moment.’
‘But I wanted to ask Flávia some more questions.’ The boy frowned, apparently oblivious to Jake’s anger.
‘Now, Brady,’ Jake instructed. ‘Please.’
He waited until his nephew was an adequate distance away before he turned his gaze back to her. The fury in his gaze almost blistering her skin everywhere it fell, though regrettably not for the same reasons as the other night.
‘Listen—’
‘Not here,’ he cut her off harshly, leaving her no choice but to grab her bag and stand.
No sooner had he done so than he took hold of her elbow—not roughly, but not with the tenderness of the other night, either—and ushered her out of the room, down a corridor and into the first unoccupied room he could.
And Flávia steeled herself for the inevitable onslaught.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
CHAPTER SIX
HE COULD SEE the flinty look in Flávia’s eyes as he challenged her. A part of him even admired her for it.
But not when she was pulling Brady into some game.
Rage coursed through him...and something else. Something it took him a while to recognise.
Disappointment, he realised darkly. He was disappointed in Flávia.
He couldn’t explain why, since one night of sex hardly equated to a deep knowledge of another person, but that simply wasn’t the way he would ever have expected Flávia to behave.
‘I’m not playing at anything, Jake.’ Her honey-hued eyes gleamed. ‘I’m trying to look out for a little boy.’
‘You believe that I’m not?’ he barked.
‘I don’t believe I commented on you, whatsoever,’ she answered evenly, though he could see the hectic racing of her pulse at her neck.
‘You don’t know the first thing about Brady, and yet you feel you have the right to judge him. Why? Because we slept together once? I have news for you, Flávia—I have had a fair few one-night stands in my life, and they tried many things to draw more of a relationship out of it, but none of them acted so low as to bring a seven-year-old boy into it.’
He’d intended to throw the verbal punch, but when it hit home, when she recoiled, he felt...remorse. Regret.
Then, to his surprise, she straightened herself and faced him boldly.
‘I dare say that’s because you only took responsibility for Brady ten months ago. If he’d been around when those kinds of women had tried to ingratiate themselves into your life, then I imagine some of them might have thought he was fair game.’
He inhaled sharply but then, astonishingly, she held her hand up to silence him.
‘I, however, do not think he’s fair game. But for what it’s worth, I know more about boys like Brady than you might think.’
‘Is that so?’
‘There’s something special about Brady.’ She smiled, a soft smile which inexplicably made Jake feel as though he was intruding on her personal memories. ‘And I’m willing to bet that it doesn’t fit with whatever you’ve been told about him being a difficult kid in school. I think you know it, too.’
Jake faltered. Her words made more sense than he’d have liked to admit. Before he could answer, she had started talking again.
‘And, for the record, I have no interest in drawing out anything with you.’
She was lying. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. He knew it in the way her pupils dilated when she looked at him, the way her pulse still raced and the way her cheeks flushed slightly.
And he knew it in the way his entire body reacted to her.
One night hadn’t sated the extraordinary attraction between them. If anything, it had only made their chemistry stronger.
It was baffling. Yet here he was, drawn in, compelled to hear whatever else Flávia had to say. Though, whether it was for Brady’s sake, or simply his own selfish desire to prolong any contact with her, Jake couldn’t be sure.
‘What do you think you know about kids like Brady?’ He gritted his teeth. ‘Or is it just because he happens to have this damned obsession with venom, or snakes, or whatever?’
She actually snorted at him—even if he heard a faint shake behind the sound.
‘Sorry—a fascination,’ he corrected, remembering her earlier words. ‘As if it makes that much difference.’
She sucked in a breath, composing herself.
‘It does make a difference,’ she insisted. ‘Listen, I can see that you care for your nephew, and that you’re trying to do your best in a really horrible situation. But labels matter. Attitudes matter. And how you help Brady matters.’
‘I appreciate your attempt to help...’ He really wanted to say something else, but decided
it wasn’t the best idea. Her words echoed Oz’s only too closely, if a little more forthrightly, and it hit him again how little he knew about kids—any kids—but especially about his little nephew. ‘But you really don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I know.’ She scowled.
‘How?’ he pressed, uncertain why it mattered. Was he asking for Brady? Or was there a part of him that was hungry to know Flávia better? ‘How do you know?’
‘It isn’t relevant.’
He could feel his patience fraying and snagging at the edges. He just wasn’t sure why.
‘When you’re standing here telling me I’m not doing the best thing for my nephew, and that you believe the things I’ve been told are wrong, believe me, it matters. So, I’ll ask you one more time, Flávia—how do you know?’
She glared at him, her teeth bared in something of a snarl, and he got the sense that she wanted something said without actually wanting to utter the words.
Just when he thought she was going to concede the argument, or discussion, or whatever it was that they were even having, she squared up to him and spoke.
‘Because I was a Brady.’
The words hung there, between them, shimmering like a curtain.
‘What do you mean, you were a Brady? What is a Brady? He’s just a normal kid retreating into a subject that he’s decided has caught his interest, because his mother is dead.’
He nearly choked on the words. Nearly choked on the guilt that had followed him around like a dark cloud ever since he’d failed to save his sister’s life.
‘I don’t think so.’ She shook her head.
‘Then what?’
‘I don’t think it’s hyperfocus, ADD, ADHD or whatever else schoolteachers, doctors, other professionals may have told you—and don’t get me wrong, I know those conditions are very real for some kids, but not for Brady.’
‘So what, in your professional opinion, is it?’
He heard the edge of sarcasm in his tone, just as he heard the edge of desperation and hope.
Falling For The Single Dad Surgeon (A Summer In São Paulo Book 2) Page 7