Page 54 of The Heir
“My dilemma is that I’m equally attracted to and turned off by Nmen at the same time.”
“Nmen? Don’t make it sound like you would have kissedanyNman.”
“No, of course not.”
Frustrated with her playing coy, I angled my head a little. “Look, I understand pride and I know it’s not easy, but you can tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“That you’re in love with me.”
“In love with you?” Her forehead wrinkled. “Where did that come from? We have sexual chemistry, Thor, but I haven’t pined for you since I was twelve.”
My pride rejected her rejection and latched onto her last sentence. “What did you say?”
I could tell she regretted her words when she tried to backpedal. “Nothing.”
“You pined for me when you were twelve?”
Seeing Linea’s face turn bright red was the cutest thing ever and made me laugh out loud. “You did!” My teeth showed as I leaned back and smiled from ear to ear. “Son of a sea lion.”
Linea was smiling too. “Did you just swear in Motlandish?”
“I heard Doreen say it earlier and I like it. Tell me about your crush on me. I want to know everything.”
Her hands came up to cover her face but after a second of composing herself, Linea removed them and met my questioning glance. “All right, full disclosure. I think it happened that spring when there were protests and tension in the Northlands and your family sent you kids to live with us for a while. It was that time when someone almost killed Mila, remember?”
“Yes, I remember. We had a blast at your house, but you were so little.”
“Yes. It was the year I turned four. You were seven and trying to keep up with the older kids yourself, and yet…” She smiled and shook her head a little. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this but there’s this vid of you carrying me around and making me laugh. At one point you’re talking to my dad, who is filming, and telling him that you wish your parents would make you a little sister. And then you kissed me on my cheek, and I kissed you on yours. In the vid everyone is laughing, making ‘aww’ sounds, and telling me that I have a strong protector in you.”
“I can’t remember any of that.”
“Me neither, but I watched that vid many times growing up and every time you came to visit, I would think of us as having a special bond. When you smiled at me, I melted, and by the time I was twelve, I was madly in love with you.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because my love for you died a horrible death at that summit when my mother and I came to teach you energy work.”
I sucked in my lips before saying the obvious. “I wasn’t very nice to you that day, was I?”
“No. You humiliated me in front of everyone. Maybe it was the fact that I idolized you that made the experience so traumatic for me. My mother wanted me to rise above my anger, but I couldn’t. After that day I thought you were an arrogant asshole.”
I smiled. “Sounds like an accurate assessment of most fifteen-year-old boys.”
Linea shrugged. “I didn’t hold resentment against anyone else but you. The reason I couldn’t do those simple energy exercises was because you were there watching. I wanted to impress you and make you see that I wasn’t a little girl anymore, but my nerves got in the way and then you laughed and called me a freak and a witch.”
“I’m sorry, Linea.” Taking her hand, I lifted one of them and placed a kiss on the back. “Please forgive me.”
We exchanged a long smile before she surprised me by saying. “And then there’s the matter of how you treated me in January when I came to find you. Or have you forgotten that you threatened to hit me?”
“Whoa, I said spanking, not hitting.”
“Still, you were an ass to me when you were fifteen and you were a jerk to me when you were twenty-five.”
I groaned. “Yeah, you’re right, but can you at least acknowledge that when you found me on that beach, I was going through a dark time in my life? My mind wasn’t in a good place. I was confused about my feelings for you, which is probably why I said all those dumb things. If we could start over, I’d do things differently.”
“What would you change?”
