I chuckle and reach for a carrot.
She beats me to it, feeding me. “No complaining.”
“Oh, I’m not, believe me,” I reply, chewing the carrot.
She reaches for another and feeds me again. “Besides, don’t you ever do anything random like this?”
I arch a brow at her. “Random?” I chew the carrot and swallow, then shake my head. “No, I can’t say I do much that’s random.”
“Hmm” is all she says.
I’m not sure what’s on that pretty little mind of hers, but I know exactly what’s on mine. “Tomorrow night I’m hosting a gala at Phoenix for my charity that supports breast cancer research. Would you come with me?”
She’s reaching for more food when she pauses halfway and looks at me. “A gala on a Monday night? That’s unusual.”
I glance away from her, grabbing a piece of chicken, not shocked that out of everything I said she focused on the one thing I didn’t say. “The event falls on a different day every year.”
Of course she doesn’t miss the importance of my declaration. “An anniversary of something, then?”
“My mother’s death.”
Allie’s eyes soften naturally in the way that they do. “That’s a sweet way to honor her and make what could be a sad day a little brighter.” I attempt to smile in gratitude that she understands me, but when she adds, “I’m just not sure I’m ready to go so…public,” it’s impossible to hide my disappointment.
“Why?” I gently ask.
She sighs. “It would change a lot for me. I couldn’t hide…”
I stay silent, reaching for a cashew and tossing it in my mouth, allowing her to lead this conversation. My focus narrows on her, and I hear no sounds in her condo but her shallow breaths. The light coming from the fridge highlights the side of her bowed head, and the long strands of her hair are nearly curtaining her expression from me, yet not enough to hide her pained stare.
She draws in a huge deep breath before addressing me again. “I have to tell you something that I probably should’ve told you before.” Her head lifts to me, her voice strong. “Darius Bennett is my half-brother.”
I ponder how to deal with her honesty. I decide there are enough secrets between us on my end, no need to drag hers into it. “Yes. I know.”
Her brows draw together. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because it was an unimportant detail.” And I would be breaking my word to Darius if I told her without her acknowledging the truth first. Dating Allie is a complication that I need to sort out with Darius, but I’d never given him my word that I wouldn’t date Allie; I’d only given him my word that I wouldn’t tell her unprompted that I knew of their connection.
She cocks her head, watching me intently before grabbing out a piece of chicken from the container and feeding it to me. “It doesn’t bother you that I never told you?”
“Why would it?” I finish chewing, thinking I have too many of my own secrets than to pass judgment on someone else for having some. “But it does make me curious as to why you would hide such a thing about yourself.”
“Now, that is a complicated answer.” She hesitates while she grabs a cashew and slides it between her pouty lips. “Sometimes when people know that I’m Darius’s half-sister, it can change their perception of me.”
“Which you don’t like?”
She half shrugs. “It’s not the life I’m used to. All the fame. All the money. I didn’t grow up like that.”
Darius never told me details about Allie’s life, only that she was his half-sister. “What do you mean exactly?”
“I mean that I lived very simply growing up,” she explains. “We didn’t buy designer clothes, or have fancy dinner parties, or have housekeepers and things like that. We had hand-me-downs from my mother’s friends, family dinners every night, and weekly chores. I didn’t know any other way until after my parents died in a plane crash when I was fifteen.”
I stroke her knee, the bare skin closest to me. “I’m sorry you lost them, I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.” She shrugs again. “You of anyone knows that sometimes life hands you a shit deal and you have to pick up your socks and move on.”
“This is something I wish we didn’t have in a common.”
She gives me a sad smile, reaches for a piece of chicken and feeds me. “Anyway, my mom taught me the importance of the little things in life. Things that often get missed when money is involved. When she was married to Darius’s father, she told me, she learned quick that happiness isn’t something that can be bought. So, it was weird for me when I moved in with Darius.”