“Actually…”Fuck.“No. My family is about the only thing I don’t miss.” I stand, a clearlet’s get back to worksignal. A signal Killan doesn’t understand, because he remains seated.
“Why do you not miss them?”
I’m forced to slowly lower myself back onto my chair. I can’t even be mad at him for asking, not when I pushed him into this conversation. “We don’t get along. It’s not a big deal.”
He continues watching me, and it’s the least angry I’ve seen him. He isn’t scowling. He isn’t frowning. And he isn’t issuing orders, acting like he expects his every demand to be instantly obeyed.
It’s highly disconcerting, even more so than him admitting to not hating my company. Which, of course, is the cue for the return of my butterflies, and what little lunch I’ve eaten sits uneasily in my stomach.
Madness,I repeat to myself.I’ve gone completely and utterly mad. Stress has finally killed my common sense.
“My dad has never been in my life much, and Mum has always been obsessed with me falling in love and finding a nice man to settle down with. I suppose because that’s the life she missed out on.”
After my dad, there’d been a series of men in Mum’s life, each one worse than the previous one. She sure knew how to pick the rotten apples—the lazy bastards who wanted to spend her paychecks on beer. The ugly brutes who expected her to do all the cleaning and cooking and to wait on their every demand. And the handsome sleazebags, who promised her the world and always failed to deliver, even on the most basic of stuff, like respect and kindness.
Lucas must have been a prince in comparison. And he was, in his own way. But he and I didn’t suit. He wanted comfort and safety. I wanted my shop.
It should never have been such a big deal. Probably, a better person would have worked out how she could’ve kept her man and gotten her bakery. But that better person wasn’t me.
And, as it turned out, it wasn’t Lucas either. Because when I broke off the engagement, he cried about how I’d broken his heart, but he never once suggested we try a compromise.
“When Lucas and I got engaged, it was like all my mum’s dreams had come true. But then I realized I wasn’t ready to get married, not when it would probably mean me giving up on my dream to run my bakery, so I broke off the engagement.” I broke my mum’s heart that day, as well as Lucas’s. And I turned his entire family against me. All in a single afternoon’s work. “Mum hasn’t spoken to me since.”
She and I are too much alike. When she decides to make an enemy of someone, she doesn’t let a little self-doubt or guilt get in her way.
“Akh.” Killan growls, deep in his throat.
“What?” I demand, seizing on the spark of anger that ignites at the sound of his grunt.
Akhseems to be the brothers’ all-purpose word. Sometimes it sounds like a question. Other times it’s a sign of agreement. Or confusion. Or, in this case, discontent.
“Don’t tell me that you’re pissed at me, too. I don’t have to get married if I don’t want to.” I cross my arms, using forced anger to once again kill my unwanted butterflies.
God, I’m exhausting.
“Loo-cuss,” Killan says, speaking slowly, as if he’s testing the name to see if he likes it or not. “Lucas was yourfee-on-say.”
“My…what? Oh, my fiancé.” Probably another Human word Killan’s heard from Roan and Harlee. “Yep, he was.” I shrug dismissively. Aggressively. “His loss.”
Chapter Ten
Killan
Icould have sworn… I breathe deep, and there, under the scents of sweat and this morning’s breakfast, is something else. Fainter than when we had been climbing up the ladder, but still as distinct.
I have not smelled it before, and I cannot immediately pinpoint its meaning, for all that I know with certainly that Lydia is the source.
It is sweet. Delicious, even. And I am licking my lips as though I can taste it on the air.
“Earth does not sound like anything special,” I hurriedly say, continuing our conversation as if I am not thoroughly distracted. “And you are better off without your former Mate, if he would not give you what you wished for.”
I study Lydia’s face, searching for some clue as to the origin of the scent. She is flushed still, but then she scowls at me, lines marring her forehead and her eyes narrowing.
“You don’t know anything about Earth.”
“And after hearing those few things, I have realized that I do not want to know any more. It is nothing in comparison to Ril II.”
“Oh, really?”
