HER ONE AND ONLY VALENTINE - (12 page)

But she didn't back down; instead, as usual, lifting her chin the extra inch to compensate. After all, they'd been making the effort to get on better of late, and if he remembered as much about her as he claimed to...

'That's not what I meant and you know it isn't. It's just better if she continues falling for you because of you rather than for what you can get for her, don't you think?'

Heaven alone knew it was why she'd ended up with him herself. And there were still the very odd moments when she was reminded of that while he was around.

The nod was very brief, his eyes warming a little as he studied her, before he glanced to one side and Rhiannon was momentarily distracted by the faintest breeze that lifted the finer hair against his forehead.

It was becoming an obsession, that hair of his. Again. She had used to love touching his hair, and it was probably why her fingers had itched that day in the office. Always, when they had sat in front of a computer screen or watching television, her hand had inevitably ended up at the nape of his neck, her fingertips absentmindedly moving from the shorter, coarser strands that touched his warm skin, to the slightly longer, smoother strands against the back of his head, where they would thread into the thickness.

It had been the simplest of physical contact really. But when he was tired, he would lean back into that touch, his lips would part as he sighed in relaxed contentment. Sometimes his head would turn and when his firm mouth moved across hers her fingers would thread deeper into his hair, willing him closer.

How had she forgotten that? Maybe, simply because she hadn't
wanted
to remember.

He took a deep breath. 'I still feel like I have ten years' worth of presents to make up for—Christmases, birthdays, all that. A pony and a dog don't seem to me to be that much in the great scheme of things. I'm not trying to buy her affection.'

When he turned away Rhiannon felt a bubble of disappointment grow in the pit of her stomach; it felt as if they had just taken a step backwards. And she really didn't want that to happen.

It left her floundering for a way back to where they had only just tentatively managed to get. And only one question came into her mind—the one that had been causing her the most headaches of late from trying to find an answer on her own.

Because there'd been a catalyst for her reactions all those years ago; that initial action that had driven her to make the choices she had, even though she now knew they hadn't been the right ones. And the guilt she now carried drove her to want to understand why he had disappeared when he had. The need to know growing exponentially, day by day, to almost consume her as she got to know him all over again.

And there was only one way to find an answer, wasn't there? So the question jumped out.

'Why did you disappear?'

Kane stopped suddenly. As if an invisible wall had appeared in front of him. Then his head turned and he looked over his shoulder, his eyes focused on a point on the ground in front of her feet. 'When?'

'You know when.'

'It doesn't really matter now. We're making an effort to fix things. Let's just let it go at that.'

She followed him when he stepped away again, her voice low. 'I don't think I can. I can't go back and change things. But every action has a reaction. Maybe I might have pushed harder to make sure you knew if you'd been remotely in the area of approachable.' She laughed a nervous laugh, fully aware that she was rambling. 'But you were some kind of ghost that was there one minute and gone the next. It was like you didn't even exist any more until you formed your company and made the announcement to the press with Mattie. Lizzie was almost three, then.'

She stopped when he stopped and then took a deep breath, forcing herself to stop rambling long enough to make sense of what she was trying to say.

'So now that I know I made a mistake not finding you to tell you, I need to know. Where did you go in those missing years? What made you drop out of Trinity early?'

Kane looked over his shoulder again. A muscle in his jaw flexed, his gaze shifted from her face to focus on a random point on the stone wall beside him. And in that instant, the minute movements told Rhiannon that, whatever it had been, it was something he still wasn't entirely comfortable with.

Thick, dark lashes flickered slightly as he searched the wall, taking the time to decide whether or not to answer her most likely. So Rhiannon tried again, feeling distinctly as if she were walking on eggshells as she braved another step closer to him, to where it would have taken very little effort to reach out and touch him.

Instead her arms hung redundantly at her sides, her cold fingers flexing in and out of her palms while she bit down on her bottom lip, willing him to give her a reason to understand, to complete the picture.

She really needed to know because, for her, it was the missing part of the puzzle. And it might only have been a moment or two longer while she waited for him to answer, but it felt like an eternity.

And still he seemed to be struggling inwardly. So Rhiannon tried to make it easier. 'I need to know.'

His gaze flickered briefly in her direction again, dark brow quirking, possibly in reaction to the somewhat breathless sincerity in her voice.

'It doesn't really matter any more, does it? We both made decisions then that we could have had no idea would stretch forward this far.'

The fact that he was trying to share the responsibility for the mistakes that'd been made softened a part of her she'd been protecting since he'd reappeared in her life. But it also made her need to know even stronger.

'It matters to me.' Rhiannon realized she had barely spoken the words aloud, so she cleared her throat. 'The reasons I had for doing the things I did then still matter to you, don't they? So why should your reasons be less important to me? It's all part and parcel of the same mess.'

'Maybe.' His voice was equally as soft, held a husky edge that drew her step closer to him. 'But I've been thinking some and what I think is that knowing doesn't change anything. And we're starting to make some progress, I think. Not arguing was a step in the right direction. And we agreed—this isn't about us—it's about Lizzie.'

'Yes, it is.' She knew he was right about that—there was too much water under the proverbial bridge. 'But I still need to know.'

He turned away, forcing Rhiannon to look at the back of his head. So she sighed and tried one last time, silently promising herself it
would
be the last time; she couldn't keep showing how much it still mattered. Because he was right about that too—it
shouldn't
matter any more.

'I've watched you with her, Kane, and the way you are reminds me of the way you used to be. You're right; I didn't hate you when we were together. And I don't want to carry around all the hatred I had for you afterwards any more either. But when you left and I found out I was pregnant, I was scared. And there was no one for me to talk to about that because the father of my baby was gone. I got through it on my own, but I don't think I ever forgave you for that.'

One last step and she was right behind him, her eyes focused on the short strands of hair against the column of his neck. 'I'd really like to understand it all so I can let it go. That's all.'

'Just like that? I tell you why I left and you put aside ten years of hating me? You have a tight control on your emotions, don't you, Rhiannon?'

She could hear the disbelieving edge of sarcastic humour to his deep voice. It was the last straw. She had tried. And, no matter what thoughtful, humorous, warm or even sensual roads he made into her psyche from here on in, she would burn in hell before she'd hold out an olive branch to their past again.

So she sidestepped around his massive frame and mumbled on her way past, 'Don't ever say I didn't try.'

She was almost through the arch when his voice sounded again, low, deep, rumbling, but with a flat matter-of-fact tone, so that she knew he still wasn't happy with telling her the truth. 'I was sick.'

Rhiannon froze. Without thinking about it, she found herself doing exactly what he had done only a matter of moments before—focusing on the stone wall, staring at the old cobwebs that had woven along the concrete lines within the irregular surface. While the words echoed inside her brain.

Like some kind of cruel cosmic echo of the day that Mattie had said,
'I'm sick.'

'Sick—how?'

She forced her heavy feet to pivot round so that she could search his face for the same fatalistic expression Mattie had worn that day. And Kane's eyes rose to lock with hers, the blue so dark across the distance between them that they looked as black as they had that first night in the kitchen.

He shrugged his broad shoulders, his hands pushing deep down into his pockets again. 'Sick enough to have to go and make the time to deal with it.'

Tilting her head to one side, she tried searching his face for the information she couldn't get from his eyes. 'What kind of sick?'

'Not with anything you could have caught—if that's what you're worried about.'

Damn, but he could be cruel when he wanted to be!

'That wasn't what I meant.'

Maybe it was the way she choked the words out, maybe it was simply the fact that she was staring at him with such wide eyes. Whatever the reason, his shoulders relaxed a little.

But he still glanced away before clearing his throat and saying what she had prayed he wouldn't say. 'A form of cancer.'

No!

He must have read the anguish on her face because he immediately made an attempt to negate it. 'I've been in remission for a long time.'

Slowly, so very slowly, little snippets of memories rose inside her head to form a different picture.

'That's why you and Mattie suddenly became such good friends.'

They had been friends in university, but not in the same way they had been maybe four or five years after. It was the same way all over the world, she had reasoned—networks of friends forming because of their ties to one person and not necessarily because they got on with the whole ensemble. But, even though Rhiannon had always wondered why the relationship had changed, she'd never sat herself down to figure it out, until now.

'You had something in common.' Mattie had fought leukaemia for most of his short life.

'Yes.' A dark frown creased his forehead again. 'Except that I won and he lost.'

And he actually sounded as if he felt guilty about that!

Rhiannon felt as if her world had tilted beneath her feet. Everything she had thought she had known—everything she had judged him on—

'He knew that was why you left when you did.'

Kane stepped closer to her, while Rhiannon's gaze dropped, focusing on the smattering of dark hair she could see peeking above the V of his shirt.

'Not until he got sick again a few years back, no. He knew the truth about Lizzie too, didn't he?'

Rhiannon nodded. 'Yes.'

'I thought he had to have.' He shook his head, a wry smile on his mouth. 'I should have worked it out for myself. It's something that's been driving me crazy this last while. I
should
have worked it out.'

'No, I should have found you and told you. If I'd known—' She flung one of her redundant arms out to the side, then lifted both arms and wrapped them around her waist, squeezing in tight. 'Why didn't he tell me you were sick?'

When he didn't answer her gaze rose, and when she was finally looking into his eyes he smiled, his gaze softening in a way that reminded her again of the way he had been with her before.

She'd been so very wrong about him, hadn't she?

'If I had to take a guess I'd say that you weren't any more prepared to allow him to tell me than I was to let him tell
anyone
I'd been sick.'

He was right again—about her, anyway. The first time Mattie had asked her outright if Lizzie was Kane's, she'd made him promise never to bring it up with Kane.
Ever.
Or she would
never
forgive him. As her best friend, he had respected that— argued it, but respected it.

As far as she'd been concerned, she'd made the effort. She'd known
exactly
why she'd done the things she had, or rather, had convinced herself she had.

But
Kane,
wait a minute— Her eyes widened in question. 'You didn't tell
anyone?'

He shrugged again, as if he was discussing the damn weather. 'My immediate family knew. But making it public knowledge wasn't exactly the best plan when setting up a new business and trying to attract investors. I wouldn't want shareholders to know now either.'

'But you said you were in remission.' Having hated him for so long, she was stunned to the core by the flash of excruciating pain that cramped across her midriff. She wasn't sure she could go through that again with someone she cared about.

She frowned hard. 'Are you saying—'

Varying emotions crossed swiftly through the blue of his eyes, but were immediately hidden with the unreadable, hooded gaze that she was all too familiar with. 'No, I'm not. I've been clear for eight years. But the word cancer has a tendency to strike fear into the people who have money invested in you. That's all.'