Page 15 of 40 and (No Longer) Fighting It
She narrowed her eyes, a flush darkening her cheeks. “Do we remember the same past here? Of course it’s a come-to-Jesus meeting.”
“I do remember, Claire,” he told her, the words softer than he’d intended. “Every bit.”
“Do you?”
Seven
He twirled his spoon in his bowl. Time to face the music, although he wished the anger he’d seen last night and this morning hadn’t made a reappearance. Maybe he had been trying to mellow her out; he wasn’t sure. He only knew that pulling his sins out into the light was harder than he’d anticipated—and he’d expected it to be hard, no doubt about it. But he hadn’t expected this vise squeezing down on his chest, making it hard to take a full breath.
“I remember how hard I was on you at the institute.”
“Harder than you were on any other student in our classes. Actually, you weren’t hard on any of them.” Did he detect a trace of hurt beneath the anger in her words? “You joked and teased and laughed, and then, when you came to me…”
“I froze up.”
“Or froze me out.”
“I did.” He couldn’t lift his gaze from his bowl.
“Why?” Claire’s spoon clattered as she dropped it into her dish. “I spent hours trying to figure out what I’d done, what I’d said to make you look at me so differently than you did all of them, but I always came up blank. Best I could figure, you thought I was totally incompetent, some backwoods hick who wouldn’t know good food if it hit her in the face. That, or you hated me for reasons that were all your own, reasons I obviously couldn’t change.”
“I never thought you were incompetent. You were the best in your class, Claire.” He forced himself to look up, to meet her laser-sharp eyes. “I’m sorry I planted even a seed of doubt about your talent. You were, and are, incredible, and even a dumb shit like me can’t take that away from you.”
“You did, though.” The hurt was a definite now. “You might be a dumb shit, but you were a charismatic, popular dumb shit, and my superiors took you seriously.”
He closed his eyes, almost unable to bear what she was telling him, what he’d known was true even as he couldn’t stop himself all those years ago.
“So…” She sighed, and he could see when he opened his eyes that she was making a conscious effort to push off her anger, to dig deeper. Maybe she wanted to destroy the power the past had over her as much as he did. “If you didn’t think I sucked as a chef, why did you hate me?”
He shook his head, forced himself to speak around the strangled feeling in his throat. “I didn’t hate you, Claire. That was the problem.”
“I don’t understand.”
He steeled himself. “You know what happened to my wife.” Everyone did. Perfect strangers brought it up to him on the street; he knew for certain every student at the institute had been aware of the event that had changed his life forever.
“I know she died,” Claire said, her words going soft with empathy.
“Kelly had only been gone a year when”—he stopped, cleared his throat—“when we met.”
Claire waited, and he found himself grateful that she didn’t interrupt.
“I might have had my own restaurant. I might have had all the success anyone could have wanted, but when I lost her, I lost everything. I couldn’t face what had happened. Too often I’d walk in the door when I got home and find myself calling her name, ready to tell her all about my day, ready to hold her, love her…” A deep, deep breath. He’d never talked about this with anyone, even JD and Carter. “So I stopped going home. I filled my days as full as I possibly could so I didn’t have to walk into the house we’d shared and have that moment. And then I met you.” His smile felt wry. “The minute I walked into class that first morning, I noticed you. God, the attraction was…” He shook his head, searching for the right word. “Explosive. Just totally blew me away. And that was before you ever spoke. Before I saw you interacting with everyone. Before I saw you cooking.”
Claire’s eyes were wide in her face, her shock unmistakable. But she still didn’t interrupt.
“I wasn’t ready to face my wife’s death, Claire. I certainly wasn’t ready to face a desire like that for another woman.”
A long moment of silence fell between them. “So you did everything you could to keep me at a distance,” she finally said.
“I did.” The chuckle that escaped him had very little humor in it. “Imagine my dismay when I discovered you’d been assigned to Prime as an intern.”
Claire remained silent. He knew what she waited for.
“Seeing you day in and day out, never knowing when I was going to run into you in the kitchen, the place that had been my sanctuary for all those long months since Kelly’s loss… I know I was hard on you in class, but that tension… I was a bastard to you at Prime and I know it.”
“And then you kissed me.”
He tightened his fists where they rested on his thighs. “I didn’t mean to.” They’d been arguing, and he didn’t even remember about what now. It hadn’t been important, he knew that. It was merely a way to keep her at arms’ length. Until he’d escaped into the freezer. He hadn’t needed anything but to cool down, so his hands had been empty when he’d come back out, turned a corner, and run full-bore into her. He’d grabbed her to keep her from falling to the floor. He hadn’t meant to pull her against him and feel her body, head to toe, pressed into his. Her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. It had been so good, the first full-body contact he’d allowed himself since the accident. And to have it be with Claire, after all those months of unfulfilled desire…
