Page 135 of Twisted Knight

“What you like to eat isn’t one of them.”

His grin is lightning quick and dirty as hell. “Am I supposed to be ignoring that door you just opened about what I like to eat?”

I squirm in my seat, my body reacting viscerally to the memory of the skill of his tongue that last time we were in bed.

“Yes. You are supposed to ignore it.” But my grin matches his and the look we share says I wouldn’t mind if he did it again. “I mean things about you. Growing up. College. Broken hearts. The kind of things that build character and make you.”

He glances my way for a beat before giving a quick shrug. “Grew up with little. My mom, brother, and me. Then it was just my mom and me. Tried college. It wasn’t for me. I’m not good with structure or being told what box I need to stay in. Taught myself coding. Then software. Got lucky being at the right place, the right time, with the right product.”

“Pretty sure it was more than that,” I say and get a shrug in response. “Where in California did you grow up?”

He looks over his shoulder to change lanes, causing a pause in his response. “Northern.”

“Silicon Valley?” I ask because that’s what I read.

He nods.

“Are you close with your mom?”

“Very. There was a long time where it was just the two of us. Now she has Graham—her husband of five years. He’s good to her. Makes her laugh. I would say he takes care of her, but she’d be mad if I did. She firmly believes she doesn’t need a man and can do everything herself.”

“I like her already,” I say.

“You probably would. What about you and your parents?”

I twist my lips as I watch the world pass by. “It’s complicated.”

“As I figured.”

“I love my parents to death, not just because they’re my parents but for who they are. I can respect them for that. At the same time there’s resentment there. For the longest time, I thought they wished I was the one who died that day instead of Cassie.”

“Rowan.” He sighs out my name.

My smile is sullen. “I was young, but that’s where my thoughts went.”

“But why?”

“Because she was everything they—and the society they try to impress—wanted her to be. Content with the part she was supposed to play while I bucked against it. Still do. She was happy being known as Rhett Rothschild’s sister—”

“The golden child.”

“Mmm-hmm. And I didn’t want to be the person propping him up on the pedestal. I thought he should have to earn it rather than have it handed to him solely because he was the boy of the family.”

“From what I’ve seen of Westmore, they’re the norm. You’re the—”

“Outsider? Unconventional? The rebel?” I laugh and wave a hand. “I’ve heard it all before and am one hundred percent fine with all of the labels. Good, bad, and patronizing. Hell, if it weren’t for my gran putting her foot down, I wouldn’t even have been allowed to work at the company.”

“Good thing for Gran.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I say as he makes another turn. For wanting to “go for a drive” we sure are driving. “Are we going anywhere in particular?”

“No, but I’ll know when I find it,” he says when he takes another turn down the main drag of a quaint beach town.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you ignoring the heartbreak question,” I tease as we stop at a stoplight.

Holden stares at me with an intensity I wish I could understand. “No heartbreak.”

“By choice or because you’re the one breaking them?”