Page 12 of Canvas of Lies
Now? Hearing his deep voice murmuring the word did odd, fluttery things to my insides.
His lips kicked up at the corners again. “You were always the one tying me up in knots. I guess I can’t complain if you’re a little tongue-tied this time around.”
“Tied up in knots! You couldn’t get away from me fast enough,” I countered, frowning. “I barely saw you once you started high school. After—”
After I threw myself at you,I almost said. After I decided I was sick of waiting for him to notice I wasn’t a little kid anymore and tried to kiss him outside the school during a football game. After I humiliated both of us when our teeth collided, when he had to grab my shoulders to keep us from falling to the ground and to force some distance between us.
That rejection still stung, even after all this time. It was the only time I’d expressed my true feelings for Nico, only to be shot down like the pathetic little mess I was that night.
Now, he was close enough to reach out and brush his knuckles along my jaw, close enough to see the shiver run through me as he did, though I tried valiantly to hide it.
“After that kiss, you mean?” he asked softly.
I wrinkled my nose. “That’s a generous description for it.”
“If I stayed away, Kat, it was only because I had no other option. Your father didn’t exactly approve of me being around you to begin with.”
There was something he wasn’t saying—I could see it in his face. “What did he say?”
He rubbed his jaw. “A few days later, he told me my dad and I would be out on our asses if he ever thought I was so much as dreaming of touching his only child and sullying his reputation. Believe me, tangled up is putting it lightly.”
Shock flooded my system at his confession, leaving me staring silently back at him until a low thrum of heat pulsed through my veins. Everything I thought I knew spun wildly inside my head like a Tilt-a-Whirl, until I was no longer sure which way was up. I’d always taken Nico’s dismissal personally, assuming he had no interest in me.
Now here he was, pointing out something I should’ve seen for myself years ago.
Though I wanted to argue, I bit my lip to keep from saying anything more damaging to my own pride.
My father had never approved of Nicolas, I’d always known that much. Since having Nico’s dad in his employ was a point of pride—some macho contest with my father’s long-time rival, who’d hired a fancy chef from California—he’d never come right out and forbidden Nico’s presence when we were kids, but the sentiment was clear.
I just hadn’t known he’d paid enough attention to suspect we were anything but friends. Had I known he’d confronted Nico back then, I would’ve raised holy hell.
And Nico’s family would have suffered for it.
Ashamed of my lack of awareness, I mumbled, “I didn’t realize that.”
The timer beeped from the kitchen and Nico rose to get the pizza out of the oven. While he sliced it, I watched him.
Watched, and remembered.
Chapter Four
Kat
Selfish,spoiledlittlerichgirl.
What I’d seen as rejection at the time took on a new light now that I considered Nico’s side of it. Not once had I even considered the position I might be putting him in, with both my friendship and, later, my shameless flirtation. What an idiot I’d been.
Nico set a plate in front of me, then held up a bottle of hard cider from the fridge. “I have this, Sprite, or more water.”
I laughed, remembering that he’d gotten caught drinking one of those in the woods behind the house and been grounded for weeks. “Cider sounds wonderful right now.”
He grabbed a bottle for himself, popped the tops, and handed one to me. “Drink it slow,” he teased. “You might not think it was bad enough to warrant a doctor, but you did hit your head.And I still remember when you got drunk on the champagne you pilfered from some fancy event your father hosted.”
“I was tipsy, Nicolas, not drunk,” I replied haughtily.
“So tipsy you tripped into a hedge in the garden and needed me to pull you back out?”
“Okay, maybe I didn’t try very hard to remember that part of it. That was the last time I over-imbibed.”
