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“We did not.” Kate aimed for indignation but her laugh ruined it.
“You did, and I have to tell you, it’s kind of smug.”
Hamish put his hand briefly on Tia’s, to draw her attention. “People in love are so annoying, aren’t they?” And now it was Hamish who sounded smug, as though he and Tia had worked out the perfect recipe for a successful marriage—not being in a true relationship.
“Absolutely,” Tia agreed, sipping her champagne, ignoring the way Hamish’s light touch on her hand was making her blood move way too fast in her veins. Not his touch, just the unexpectedness of it. But it was nothing more than one friend might do to another. A meaningless gesture, something she didn’t need to overthink.
“Yeah, well, just watch Cupid doesn’t strike you down with his arrow,” Kate murmured, as elaborate but tiny entrees were brought to the table by four different servers and placed down simultaneously.
“Believe me,” Tia said, using the arrival of food to liberate her too-warm hand. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Famous last words,” Kate said, with the exact same smugness they’d accused her of earlier.
“Why didn’t you tell them?” Tia asked Hamish, over yet more champagne in the empty, candlelit restaurant, after Kate and Roman had left to get Gracie fed, bathed and into bed. The sight of her very burly masculine friend completely bowled over by the addition of two petite females would never stop being entertaining to Tia—ditto the way Kate could run rings around him with no effort whatsoever.
“You have to know my parents to understand.”
“Well, I’m going to get to know them, right? So help me understand.”
“It’s complicated.”
She’d sipped her champagne slowly, and now, she was glad. Her wits were very much still about her, with her mind only ever-so-slightly fuzzy at the edges.
“What isn’t?”
“This,” he said, nodding towards her, face unsmiling. “And I want to keep it that way.”
“As we’ve agreed,” she said, finding it odd that he seemed to be filled with doubts.
“My family has a way of complicating…everything.”
Tia’s brow furrowed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re one of the most pragmatic people I’ve ever met. Isn’t the apple meant to not fall far from the tree?”
“You’re asking me? From everything you’ve said, you’re nothing like your parents.”
Her head tilted to the side. “Okay, fair point.” She forgot to sip and took a large gulp of champagne, savouring the feeling of the bubbles hitting the top of her mouth. “Okay, so what’s the deal?”
He sucked in a deep breath. “You sure you’re not going to bolt out that door?”
She stared at him. “It can’t be worse than what I grew up with.” She lifted her left hand in the air. “Besides, it’s too late, right?”
“There’s always an annulment.”
“Come on. We’re both in this. So what’s going on?”
He nodded once, but there was a tension in his frame that she hadn’t seen before. It both fascinated and concerned her, and she found her fingers aching with a desire to reach out and touch him. To press her palm over his thigh, as he’d done to her hand earlier.
He expelled a deep breath, finished his drink—red wine, by now. “My mother was a model, before she met my father. Not an international supermodel or anything, but well known enough in the UK. She dated a guy from a rock band for a while, they were always in the press.”
“She’s not aristocracy?”
“Yeah, she is. She was sort of the black sheep of the family,” he said. “Her two older sisters were settled down and married while she was stumbling out of nightclubs at three in the morning.”
Tia frowned. “Okay. But everyone’s got a past, and everyone—even you, surely?—has gotten drunk in a club.”
“That’s just the preamble.”
“Right.” She sat back, determined to listen without interrupting.
