Page 37 of How to Get Even

‘So what was it like?’

‘When I was nine, my sister was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins.’

His stride faltered for a second, his heart suspended in that moment for her, for all that could mean.

‘Cancer?’ he asked carefully.

Bella nodded, her gaze on the sidewalk, maintaining her pace.

‘Things were tough for her and my parents, so it was easier for me to go and stay with my grandma in Massachusetts until she got better.’

Chase frowned. She’d been sent away? Like she had been last year following her wedding, he realised. An inconvenience to be removed.

‘It’s okay,’ she said with a smile. ‘They needed to focus on her, and Grandma could focus on me. She used to take me to galleries.’

‘Hence the love of art.’

‘Hence the love of art,’ she confirmed. ‘And of course, there were afternoon teas.’

‘Of course,’ Chase duly repeated. ‘How long was your sister in hospital?’ he asked, instead of,How long were you sent away for?

‘A year and a half. And Bea got better, and I went home,’ Bella concluded with a dazzling smile.

A smile Chase was seriously beginning to dislike. It was as if she used it as a distraction. But he saw the hurt beneath the glitter in her eye. He knew that hurt.

‘My mother got ill when I was sixteen,’ he confessed, wanting her to know she wasn’t alone, wanting her to know that he understood. ‘I don’t know what it would have been like if I’d been younger.’

It had been hard enough then. Who was he kidding? It still was now. Every time he thought of his mother, he was hit with the kind of blinding pain that took his breath away. As if half of it was just shock that he could feel so much of it.

Grey eyes pulled at him like a thread and read him like a book.

‘I’m so sorry.’

He wanted to tell her more. Tell her about what his mother had been like. About how his mother could recite passages of Shakespeare at the drop of a hat as if she were on the stage, and whisper poems by Edward Lear in his ear when he was upset or angry. He wanted to share with Bella the warmth and beauty that had defined his mother. But that wasn’t ‘the Miller way’. Miller men didn’t air their laundry in public or speak their feelings even in private.

So all he did was nod, unsure what to do with her sympathy, other than let it wash over him.

He looked up to find the doorman from their apartment complex holding the door open for them, and they both muttered their subdued thanks. In silence they waited for the elevator without a word as they each tried to muscle through their own thoughts.

It arrived at their floor and he followed her down the corridor with a creeping sense of dissatisfaction without completely understanding the reason why he felt that way.

She pulled up opposite his door.

‘Well, thank you for the warehouse,’ she said, ‘andfor dinner.’

‘It’s not as if I gave you much choice over either,’ he admitted, his hand rubbing the back of his neck ruefully.

‘Perhaps not, but thank you anyway. I feel I can get a proper start on reworking the overall comms strategy tomorrow.’

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes as she nodded and said goodnight, and he decided that he didn’t much like that look on her either.

He watched the door close behind her and let himself into his apartment. He pulled the scarf from his neck and shrugged out of his coat, tossing it over the back of the sofa as he walked to his view of Central Park. He wondered if Bella’s view was the same. He imagined her apartment to be a mirror reflection of his own. No doubt neat as a pin, and as ruthlessly organised as she was in her job.

He walked towards the book shelf where he kept the bottle of scotch and his whisky glass and poured himself a drink. He sipped at the peaty alcohol, relishing the burn of it against the back of his throat, trying not to wonder about Bella. About the line of tension that seemed to permanently hold her so upright and upstanding. What lay beneath the false smile that distracted and dazzled people who couldn’t or wouldn’t see beyond it? What would smooth the furrowed line that appeared between her brows when she frowned?

It wouldn’t be him, Chase answered himself grimly, that was for sure.

The thought that she’d ever find someone like him, paint-stained, and paint blocked, and not remotely suitable. No. Her fiancé might have walked out on her, but that didn’t mean her tastes would change from the practically perfect son-in-law that could fit into an annual calendar of social events that a presidential candidate would be jealous of.

---