Page 54 of Unbuttoning Her Brooding Boss

‘And you blog full-time?’

‘I dropped out of university when the blog really took off,’ she said.

But it hadn’t been the blog. It had been after Dan’s illness.

‘What were you studying?’

‘Art history, design—some straight history papers as well.’

‘What were you wanting to do with it?’

‘Teach, I guess...’ She shrugged. ‘Or work in a gallery or something.’

‘But now you teach on your blog?’ he teased.

‘Hardly.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I just write lists.’

‘You want to travel,’ he said.

He’d seen that? She shrugged, as if it wasn’t really what she’d always wanted to do.

‘You want to go and see paintings... you want to go to Florence and Paris and New York.’

‘Whodoesn’twant to go to Florence and Paris and New York?’ She laughed, slipping back into Steffi Leigh. ‘Think of the shops, the fashion—’

‘And the art, the history.’ He waggled a finger at her. ‘You’re not as shopping-shopping-shopping as you pretend.’

‘I don’t pretend.’

‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But you don’t present all parts of yourself. Not on the blog.’

Of course she didn’t. ‘Some things should always remain private.’

‘A passion for art doesn’t need to remain private.’ He pulled off his tee and tossed it down by the corner of the four-poster daybed. ‘You filter everything you put online.’

‘Doesn’t everyone?’

‘Perhaps.’ He slowly unbuckled his belt. ‘You should trust yourself—you have more to offer than just lists.’ He shoved his jeans down and kicked them off. ‘You don’t want to go back and finish your degree?’

More than anything.But even more than that she wanted Dan to take up some kind of study—for him to envisage some kind of future beyond just sitting on the sofa. Her brother still had so much to offer the world... he just had to imagine it.

‘Maybe later,’ she breezed, brushing off the query. ‘I don’t have time right now.’

‘And no boyfriend?’

‘Not in real life,’ she tried to joke.

‘No time for that either?’

Exactly.But, in truth, Dan wasn’t the only reason why she kept her heart free. ‘You don’t want to inherit your birth mother’s addiction—I don’t want to inheritmymother’s problems either,’ she said.

‘What’s her problem?’

‘She’s dependent on men.’ She cleared her throat. ‘She couldn’t bear to be alone after my father died. She remarried a few months later. When that didn’t work out she remarried again. Within a few months.’

And didn’t give a damn about what her kids thought of it.

Dan had buried himself in his sport—pushing himself further and faster until his whole identity had been bound up in being a great athlete. So when the illness had robbed him of that he’d felt he was nothing. Had nothing to offer.

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