“Not bad,” Tarik said as he ate three helpings, then cleaned out the bowls. “Not bad at all.”
Kady had to laugh because she suddenly saw all his remarks about her cooking as what they were, teasing.
The rain still pelted outside, but inside the little cave they were cozy and warm, and as the darkness fell, Kady looked out nervously. What happened now? Was she supposed to climb into a sleeping bag with him?
Instinctively she knew that sex with this man would be different from any other sex she’d experienced. Sex with Tarik, or making love, as she intuitively knew it would be with this man, would change her life.
But worse, it would make her want him, and he wasn’t for her. He was going to marry someone like Leonie, with the sound of money and Ivy League schools in her voice. Men like Tarik Jordan didn’t take home cooks from Ohio to meet Mother. Especially not a mother who dedicated herself to retaining her beauty. What would she think of Kady, who never seemed able to remember to put on lipstick, much less all the rest of it?
“And what is going on in that little mind of yours?” Tarik asked as he set a pan of rainwater down by the fire and began to wash the dishes.
“That I would never have pegged you for a man to do the washing up.”
“And I would never have thought you were a liar. What were you really thinking?”
“About your mother. Does she adore your Leonie?”
“Two of a kind. Mother picked her out for me.”
“You mean like a set of dishes?”
“Exactly,” Tarik answered.
“And your father? Did he meet your . . . your . . . before he died?” She was hesitant about mentioning his father because Mr. Fowler had told her that it had only been six months since Tarik’s father had been killed in a plane crash. And she couldn’t seem to say the word fiancée.
Tarik very politely pretended he hadn’t noticed Kady’s speech problem.
“Oh, yes. He said I was an idiot. He said I should marry the cleaning lady’s daughter before I married one of Mother’s friends. There was no love lost between my parents.”
“So why did they stay married all those years?”
“If my father had divorced her, he would have had to give away some of his wealth, so he had one mistress after another. And my mother, as far as I can tell, hasn’t had sex since I was conceived, messes up the maquillage, you know.”
Kady laughed at that. “Is Leonie like your mother?”
“Come here,” he said, sitting on a rock, his knees wide apart. “No, don’t give me that look, as though I’m about to steal your virtue. I want you to sit here so I can brush your hair. It has so many twigs in it that I’m afraid a forest ranger will arrest you for stealing national property.”
Smiling, Kady moved to sit on the ground between his legs, and he gently began to brush the tangles from her hair, now and then tossing a twig onto her lap. She was silent as he worked, feeling the sensuousness of his hands in her hair. It was warm now in the cave, and the firelight was lovely. She was tired, but she didn’t yet want to go to sleep because she didn’t want this day to end. Not ever.
“No more questions for me?” he asked softly, her hair in his hands.
“No,” she said, “none,” then paused. “But I could listen.
I’d like to listen if you’d like to tell me anything.”
“My life story, maybe?” he asked, smiling. “But that’s what I’ve been doing, isn’t it? We got off to a bad start, so I’ve wanted to make it up to you.”
“Why? What does it matter? Are you being nice to me because of Ruth’s codicil?”
For a moment it was as though her hair had feeling, because she could feel his surge of anger, but she was not going to apologize.
After a moment he grew calm and resumed brushing. “I keep myself private because I don’t want to be surrounded by people who want nothing from me except my money. I do have a life, a very private one, at my home.”
“Oh? At your apartment in New York? Which one of those that I saw is where you live?”
At that he chuckled. “Neither. The plastic one”—he looked at her with twinkling eyes—“the one where you walked in on my shower, is for visiting clients and the other one is Leonie’s apartment.”
“I see. Her apartment, your building.”