Page 42 of Heated
My words echo in the silent kitchen. Heat streams up my neck and pours into my cheeks, and I’m pretty sure I’m debunking the Black-people-don’t-blush myth. Dammit. I hadn’t meant to say all that. What happened to nothing personal?
“What’s in this pie?” I huff out a soft, trembling laugh. “Truth serum? Because I honestly meant to wait until our second hangout to spill the sad story about my family’s pettiness. Now you probably won’t invite me over for pie anymore.”
My joke falls flat. Mainly because even I can hear the strain and embarrassment in my voice, and he doesn’t look the least bit amused.If anything, the tight fold of his lips, the flex of a muscle along his jaw, and the frigid ice in his eyes scream anger. But at what? At ... whom?
“Cyrus?”
“I’m suddenly not sorry for interrupting your dinner.”
“Um ...” Okay. “Why not?”
He splays his hands out on the top of the island, leaning forward. “Because if I was having dinner with my parents, I would’ve taken the damn pass. You can deny it to yourself if it makes you feel better, but you wanted to leave. You weren’t just leaving them; you were running to me.” He straightens, picking his fork back up, as if he hasn’t left me broken. “Next time don’t leave your brother and sister behind. Bring them with you.”
Did I say he left me broken? No, he’s left meshattered.
So I eat more pie, afraid of what might spill out of me next. Afraid I might tell him I feel safer here in this kitchen with him than I did at my parents’ table. Afraid I might confide more about my chaotic childhood, about the war of wearing earrings, of how conflict twists me into so many knots I become physically ill.
Of how I opened a business inspired by my parents’ craziness. And how that business brought me to him.
But I can’t admit that. The time for admissions should’ve been earlier, when he wouldn’t have felt lied to, played for a fool. When I wouldn’t have placed not just me but my company and my brother’s and sister’s futures at risk.
So I eat more pie.
“I bake to feel closer to my mother.”
I pause, the fork halfway to my mouth.
“When I was younger, she baked as an outlet for her emotions. When she was happy, she baked. When my father pissed her off, she baked. When she was sad, she baked. It was her happy place, and she always included me in her space. Never pushed me away because I was too young or small. Shewantedme in her space. We bonded inthe kitchen. It’s where she’d ask me about my day, and I could tell her anything, and she listened. And I learned. After they died and I had to leave the house, I snuck into the kitchen that last night and stole her tin box of recipes. And no matter where they sent me, it went with me.”
A fist squeezes my throat as I picture a small thin boy with Cyrus’s eyes going from home to home, a suitcase in one hand and a small tin box in the other. More questions crowd into my mind, onto my tongue. What was your childhood like after they died? Did you have a good home? Were you okay?
Then I look at him. Really look at him and glimpse that shade of ruthlessness around his mouth. Recall the ice of his eyes. Remember the flatness his voice can take. And I answer my own questions.
Not good. No. And no.
But why is he sharing this with me? I didn’t ask him to ...
“You gave me a little of yourself, so I’m giving you a bit of me in return,” he says, as if he heard my silent question.
This man is dangerous. If I didn’t know it before, I do now.
Today taught me a valuable lesson. I can’t let my guard down around Cyrus. He’ll sneak under my shields before I’ve even mounted a defense.
Three months.
I just have to hold out for three months.
I can do it.
So why do I sound like I don’t believe in myself?
Shit.
CHAPTER NINE
CYRUS
I watch the door of the Five Points restaurant that Zora suggested we meet at for lunch. Suggested, hell. She informed me the barbecue place was where she’d planned to eat today, and I could meet her there or have my lunch date over the phone. My choice. Seeing as how I’d called her about a half hour earlier and asked to see her, I guess she might be a little miffed.
