Page 23 of Breathe
She took a breath; her shirt shifted, the beads rattled. He didn’t mean to do it, but the sound made him look down.
“Look at ME!” she shouted and shoved at the closest thing to her: his inbox. Focusing on it, she picked a handful of papers off the top. “I—” she threw the first sheets at him “—have to host a party—” another shower of papers landed on him “—for half of Boston this weekend.” He put up a hand to stop the next pile from hitting him in the face. Now out of ammo, she leaned across the desk. “You get me feeling all sorry for you, and then you take advantage and you think I’m just going to roll over and help you further your revolting reputation and I am not having it.”
She seemed to realize she was closer to him than she usually allowed; she straightened up and tugged her hair to the side, out of her eyes. The beads chimed again; Kane could smell her flowery scent.
She’d stopped talking. Yelling. He thought maybe he could speak now. “Yes, it’s my fault,” he began.
“I know it is, you attention-seeking piece of shit!”
“Jesus, Ellen. Of course I didn’t know the camera was there. I’m not that bad.” He wanted to point out that she had kissed him; that he’d been holding back as much as possible, because he’d wanted her to be sure. But perhaps this wasn’t the moment.
That one, brief kiss had taken up more of his dreams last night than all the passionate clinches he’d been in in his life, and not just because of his bruised windpipe. The brush of her lips against his had haunted him almost as much as her reaction afterward: the panic he’d seen in her eyes, the fear in her voice.
“I just mean, because of my—” he sighed, hating that she’d been right about it “—social life. Joe called me this morning; he swears he didn’t know anything about it, and I believe him. We go way back. It must have been one of the waitstaff, or someone at the bar who heard us talking. I guess they found you on the Rosette website.” He scraped his hand through his hair in frustration.
“Stop rearranging your hair,” she snapped. “And don’t even think about lighting that around me.”
He looked down, surprised to see a cigarette in his hand. “Didn’t even realize I got it out,” he said distantly, but now that she’d mentioned it, he wanted nothing except to go open that window and smoke the damn thing. He adjusted his position instead, stretching his legs under the desk. “And I don’t ‘rearrange’ my hair.”
“Oh, please,” she said in the same scornful tone. “Your whole life is based on how good something makes you look. Leering at your plastic secretaries—”
“Hey—”
“When’s the last time you got a haircut? Always ready for a photo-op, aren’t you? I saw the press conference the other day. Couldn’t go three minutes without coming on to someone.”
“For God’s sake, Ellen.” He finally had to fight back. “First of all, Anna was a NICU nurse for five years before she came here. She finally couldn’t handle losing the babies she couldn’t save. I’m sure the others are just as valuable to society, and I don’t leer at any of them. Second of all, you really think so little of me that you believe I’d hook up with that journalist? Based on one flirting comment in a room full of people?” He tapped the filter end of the cigarette on the desk. “I’m trying to show our customers that our supply chain is just fine and they don’t have to look anywhere else for their paper. I had to sound like I wasn’t bothered by it, or by anything. You think I have time for a social life right now? And third.” He glanced at the door, and lowered his voice a little. “Do you understand that I own a business here?”
“Yeah,” she snorted, folding her arms tightly, “like a child owns a toy train.”
“No.” And now he was mad. He’d screwed with her life, he admitted it, but she wasn’t going to malign his commitment to the company. He leaned forward. “Like a tenth-generation Fielding owns a business that’s putting one sister through college and has just started growing trust funds for three more who only have him to rely on. Like a family who knows how many other families rely on us, in an industry that’s going through so many changes, anything smaller than International Paper has folded long ago. Like a guy who knows that an accident of birth gave him one damn thing that sets us apart from the competitors, that makes people remember us when they decide whose paper to choose, and so yeah, I run with it.”
Her arms were by her side now. She’d lost most of the rigid fury that had kept her standing.
“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go paying me back by telling that to anyone.” Fuck it. He was having that cigarette. He stood up, shedding all the paper she’d thrown at him, and went to the window.
While he opened it, she said, in a smaller voice, “Of course I wouldn’t tell anyone. I told you I wouldn’t.”
“Of course nothing, Ellen. I don’t know a damn thing about you, remember?” He blew smoke out of the window and looked back at her. “Guess I won’t get to find out.”
Her chin lifted. “Guess you won’t.”
She turned for the door. “One more thing,” Kane said. When she turned back, he took the opportunity to fix her face in his mind, since he wouldn’t be seeing her this close again. Her hair was still disheveled, but with highlights showing from the light coming in the window. Her coat was half off one shoulder, showing more of those beads that would make him crazy if he let them, and the creamy skin over her collarbone.
He’d looked at her from here only three days ago, yet he felt like her eyes had been bothering him for half his life. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
Ellen’s mouth fell open. Her throat worked for a moment, but then she just turned back around and walked out. He heard her say, “Sorry, Anna,” and her steps walking away down the hallway.
In half a second Anna was in the room. “So that’s that,” he said.
“Good riddance,” said Anna.
