Page 9 of Canvas of Lies
“What thehellis going on?”
Her temper had always pricked at my own like nothing else in the world. I threw the towels aside and leaned down, bracing my arms on either side of her and lowering my face until it was only a few inches from hers.
She lifted her chin in a glorious picture of defiance. There was no way to win this kind of battle with Katherine Willoughby, but it promised to be the fight of a lifetime.
“I’ll explain everything when I’m good and fucking ready. Until then, I guess you can consider yourself my hostage.”
Chapter Three
Kat
WhenNicoswungawayfrom me, I eased myself into a sitting position, letting my legs dangle off the edge of the table. I watched him stomp around the kitchen, slinging the towels into a tiny washing machine stacked in the corner, and wondered if I should be afraid instead of furious.
After the briefest consideration, I tossed that thought aside. No, I was pissed, and being pissed always trumped being scared.
Still glaring in his direction, I cursed my treacherous heart for speeding up at his proximity, cursed my body for reacting to him with such longing when the rest of me was so frustrated I could scream. Especially after watching that same slow, sweet smile that had always gutted me spread across his stupid, handsome face.
Since he was currently paying no attention to me, I let my gaze drift over the interior of the cabin. It was small, rustic in a cozy sort of way. I had no idea where we were or how long I’d been in the back of that van, though I guessed we hadn’t gone too far based on the setting sun that framed Nico’s body when he opened the van door.
His long, lean, beautiful body.
Casting that observation into the depths of my brain—where I’d locked away every bit of my attraction to Nico so long ago—I took in the rest of my surroundings. The kitchen, dining area, and living room were all sections of a single large room. The bathroom door stood open across from where I sat, and I assumed the other door along that wall led to a bedroom.
Nico’s expression while tending to my injury had been apologetic, but I recognized the stubborn set of his jaw. It made me wonder, in the midst of this bizarre situation, whether I could even claim to know him anymore.
The boy I’d adored had grown up, and I had yet to learn the man he’d become.
But no, Nico wouldn’t hurt me—no matter what changes the years had brought, I knew him well enough to be certain of that. And shit, I couldn’t deny the little thrill that had trembled through me when he growled the word “hostage” in my ear.
Still, we’d come a long way since the day I left on the back of a motorcycle my senior year of high school.
That was the last time I saw Nico, standing there with his father. I left for college two months later and hadn’t looked back, taking myself as far away from home as I could get. Nico’s father died during those years, I knew that much, but I hadn’t even known about the funeral. My father was too self-centered to think to inform me, and Nico . . . well, when I learned about it later on, I couldn’t quell the hurt that he hadn’t seen fit to tell me about it himself.
Pierre Beaumont had been one of the only adults I’d ever truly trusted, one of the only ones to care about me in return during a time when I felt the hollow ache of abandonment most acutely. Now, looking back with the benefit of adulthood, I was able to view our past a little more objectively.
I was far from the only one here who’d lost something essential with Pierre’s death. Regret flooded my chest.
“I’m sorry about your dad, Nico,” I said quietly.
He froze in the middle of drying his hands on a clean towel in the kitchen. I felt steadier now, but I stayed where I was, afraid my legs might not support me if I hopped down, as tempted as I was to go to him.
“I didn’t find out until months after the funeral. I would’ve come. I would’ve been there for you.”
All the air left his lungs in an audible whoosh.
“I know.” He paused, as though about to say more, then simply repeated, “I know.”
With that, the tension eased and the anger faded. We locked eyes for a minute, the weight of all the intervening years fallingaway, until Nico turned back to what he was doing. He kept busy for another few minutes in the small kitchen, set the oven to preheat, and then walked over to the table to stand in front of me.
As if by mutual agreement, we paused to look one another over.
I had only the skinny college boy and gangly adolescent he’d once been to compare to the man before me. He’d filled out, broadened in the shoulders, sharpened in the jaw. The same black curls fell across his forehead and brushed at the collar of his t-shirt, but he was no boy, not anymore.
He looked a little scruffy, a whole lot sexy, and more enticing than ever.
“Your hair got darker,” he said, reaching out to brush his fingertips over the wisps escaping my braid. “How’s your arm feeling? And your head?”
It was a close call, but I managed to avoid leaning into the caress. “I’ll survive.”
