Spice (29 page)

“There's no going back, Nadia. I love you. I can't recork that bottle.”

She gasped, pulling the sheet closer around her and shrinking away. Kane loved her. He loved her, and even though he said it, it sounded like he wished he hadn't.

“I . . . I don't know what to say.”

“There's nothing to say.” He barked out a bitter laugh. “You would be the perfect relationship for most men. A hot woman who doesn't want anything more from a man than a steady supply of spicy sex. But I'm not most men, Nadia. I want more than that. I need more than that.”

She opened her mouth, but words wouldn't come. “I can't—I need time, Kane. I need you to know everything before you can say that to me again. I need to tell you what happened to me—”

He slashed his hand through the air, cutting her off. “If this has anything to do with your past drug abuse, I don't want to hear it.”

She shrank back from the harshness in his words. “Why?” she managed to ask.

“How many times do I have to say it? It doesn't matter. That's in the past. Do I need to give you a play-by-play of everyone I've slept with? Hand you my entire curriculum vitae since my first kiss? We shared our tests so you know I'm clean, the rest is immaterial, like your drug abuse. It's in the past so it's not important to me.”

Her heart sank. His offhanded dismissal of that pivotal point in her life stabbed at her. So did his steadfast refusal to let her talk about it. Why couldn't he see that rejecting that part of her past was akin to rejecting her? “It was important last night.”

“Nadia, dammit.” He sighed. “Do you really think I give a damn about what anyone at Herscher thinks about who I'm dating? Do you really think that little of me?”

“No! I didn't mean it like that.”

“How did you mean it?”

She breathed out harshly, then back in, drawing air into her lungs. One breath at a time, one step at a time, one day at a time. She tried to explain, willing him to understand. “It's an important part of me. Who I was and who I am. If you can't see that . . .” A sudden tightness in her throat threatened to choke her. If he couldn't see that, if he couldn't understand that, then it didn't matter if he loved her or not.

He shot to his feet. “What I can't see is why you're using something that's over and done with as a crutch to keep me at bay. It's a bullshit excuse, and you know it. It's not the truth.”

That hurt. She slid off the bed, wrapping the sheet around herself. “You think I'm using my past as a crutch? Like I need or want that sort of attention?”

“Then why do you keep bringing it up?”

“Because other people do! No one at that dinner last night wanted to talk about sticky buns or cookies or soda bread. All they wanted to know was why did Professor Sex hook up with a druggie? It's going to always come up. It's going to always matter.”

“That's absurd.”

“What's absurd is you thinking I need to use my past as a crutch against you. There are easier ways to keep you at bay. I could have just said no on day one.”

“But you didn't.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You wanted someone to care for you, care about you and burn for you the way you wanted to do. Now that you've found that, it scares the shit out of you. Do you know why?”

“I'm sure the professor is going to educate me.”

He didn't blink at her sarcastic barb. “You're afraid of losing control, of being controlled by your emotions. It's okay to be sexually controlled in the bedroom but you'll be damned if you're going to give anyone control over your heart. You're afraid of giving everything.”

“That isn't true!”

“Isn't it?”

She wanted to pull her hair out. “I've given you everything I've got. Why isn't that enough?”

He released a pale imitation of a laugh. “You haven't given me everything and you know it.”

“I surrendered my body to you. We've explored sexually. You know I care. What else do you want?”

“I want you, dammit! I want all of you, including your heart. I want you to fall for me as hard and permanently as I've fallen for you. I tell you that I love you and you practically have a panic attack.”

Said panic attack reared up again, her heart threatening to hammer its way out of her chest. “I can't do this,” she blurted out. “I won't be addicted to you, Kane!”

He stopped mid-rant. “Addicted?”

“That's what this feels like.” She wrapped her arms around herself in a search for warmth. “I can't think straight when I'm with you. All I can think about is how much I need the pleasure, of what I can do to please you, to see you smile, to make you give me more. I lose myself with you, and that scares me. I lost myself like that once before, and I don't want to go there again.”

“I'm a person, Nadia. I'm a human being. Not drugs.” His dark gaze pinned her in place. “You said you trusted me. Do you think you're not safe with me?”

“I feel safe with you, Kane. But you can feel safe and still be lost. You can think you're safe when you're actually far from it.”

“That's fucking great.” He threw up his hands. “I say I love you, and you tell me you don't know if you're safe or not when you're with me. I say love and you say addiction. Why, out of all the women I could have fallen for, did I have to fall for an addict?”

A bright slash of pain struck her, stopping her heart. “I think . . .” She stopped, drew a shaky breath, then tried again. “I think you should leave now.”

“God damn it! Nadia, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”

“Yes, you did, and it's okay.” It wasn't. Not when her insides were crumbling. “We need time and distance to sort through all of this. It's obvious that trying to make this more than it was meant to be wasn't a good idea.”

“I get it. It wasn't a relationship for you. I was just a substitute addiction, something to get you off, a quick hit to get you through your day.”

She flinched. “Kaname, I'm sorry—”

“So am I.” He hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. “You accused me of using you. But who was really using who here, Nadia? Think about that.”

He walked out. He didn't look back.

G
oing through rehab had been a horrible experience.

Going through a breakup? Pure hell.

Kane stopped coming to the café. While she understood, it still hurt. The pain . . . she was right likening it to withdrawal. She couldn't eat, couldn't focus. Sleep was a distant memory as she obsessively replayed every moment, good and bad, that she'd spent with Kane.

The only thing that helped was working in the café. Baking, making a mess while crafting a confectionary masterpiece, and then restoring cleanliness and order afterwards. The precise measurements of ingredients engaged her mind, rolling and cutting dough enabled her to pound out her frustrations, and restoring her kitchen to clean order gave her a measure of control. On the inside, she felt as if she were treading water. She went to work, chatted with customers, interacted with the staff, and deflected every attempt Siobhan made to get her to talk.

She didn't want to talk. Talking would pick at the wound she desperately needed to scab over. She didn't want to think. She didn't want to feel. She didn't want to face the fact that she might have forever ruined the best thing that had ever happened to her.

She tried to avoid it, and for the most part she succeeded. During the day, it was easy to keep herself busy with the daily operations that running a successful bakery and café entailed. Verifying inventory, placing orders, planning menus. In the afternoon she retreated to her condo and spent time experimenting with new recipes, creating a bakery bible for Jas.

The nights were the worst, the nights and the first weekend. At night the silence pressed down on her, making her more aware of what she was missing, more aware of the emptiness beside her in bed. More aware of the pain that echoed through her whenever she thought of Kane, wondering where he was and what he was doing.

Somehow she made it through the first week. She couldn't call it a success, but the fact that she didn't die from her broken heart made her think she would actually be able to survive without Kane. If she kept telling herself that like her recovery mantra, she might actually believe it in three or four years.

Into the second week without Kane she retreated to the office once Siobhan arrived to prepare for lunch. She'd attempted to help her partner with the lunch menu, but after she'd broken into tears over a pot of chicken stock Siobhan had banned her from helping. Now she spent her spare time making plans to overhaul the café's website. It wasn't her forte, but she'd keep at it. Anything that would keep her mind engaged and not thinking about Kane.

“Hi, Nadia.”

She glanced up to see Audie standing in the doorway. Audie looked . . . healthy, and Nadia realized that it had been several weeks since she'd seen her friend. No signs of her assault remained. In fact, she looked open and relaxed, though caution shaded her green eyes as she regarded Nadia.

“I don't know whether to hug you or hurt you,” Nadia said, rising to her feet.

“I think I deserve both.”

Nadia stepped around the corner of the desk and hugged her friend, pounding Audie on the back a little harder than necessary. “Where have you been? What have you been doing? When did you get back?”

“Slow down,
chica
,” Audie said, taking a seat at the small round table tucked in the corner. Their office was small by design so they could maximize the space for the kitchen and dining area. Still, they managed to pack in two computers on a modular desk and a four-top table they could use for samples, brainstorming, and eating.

“I was at a wellness retreat in the foothills. I worked with the counselor in person and online and she's going to do some life coaching sessions with me as well. I'm basically broke now, but I think I've got a handle on myself and my life, though I still have to deal with the trial.”

“Oh, Audie, I'm so happy for you,” Nadia said, hugging her friend again. And she was. She'd been so worried about Audie after she'd disappeared. It relieved her to know that Audie had in fact gotten her life turned around. At least someone had some forward motion going in their life. The irony that Audie had gotten her life together while hers had fallen apart wasn't lost on Nadia.

“As for when I got back . . .” Audie gave her a sheepish smile. “I just got in. Siobhan told me what happened between you and the professor.”

Nadia stiffened. “Of course. You wouldn't want to give up your ringside seat to the implosion of my life, now would you?”

Audie winced. “I deserved that,” she said softly. “I deserve a lot more. But no, I'm not here to gloat. I'm here to help.”

“Help with what?”

On cue, Siobhan entered the office, bearing a plate of cookies and several tall, frosty glasses of milk. Vanessa entered behind her. “You still look like crap,” Siobhan observed as she placed the tray on the table.

“Considering that you've actually seen me at my worst, I guess I'm not doing as well as I could be with the whole breakup thing. What's this?”

“I thought it was time to stage an intervention.”

“An intervention of what?”

“You. To make sure you either shit or get off the pot.”

Audie laughed. “I've missed your mouth, Siobhan. No one expects the mouth of a sailor is hiding behind that peaches and cream façade.”

Nadia grabbed a macadamia nut cookie and a glass of milk before settling back behind the desk. She told herself it wasn't a defensive move, having the desk between herself and her friends. “I appreciate you guys coming over and crowding up the office, but an intervention isn't necessary.”

Siobhan took the chair closest to her as Vanessa also sat. “We know this isn't the usual intervention,” Vanessa said. “You do need to talk about the professor and your relationship, though. It's not fair to either of you to be in limbo like this.”

“It's not in limbo,” Nadia admitted. “It's over, and I'm still in detox. It's better than denial, but painful as hell. Being without him hurts. I can't eat, I can't sleep. And I'm irritable all the time.”

She looked down at her cookie. “All I can think about is him, and when I'm not thinking about him, I'm thinking about the pain. I'm thinking that maybe if I took something, just a little something to help me sleep, I'd be all right. Just until I get over the breakup.”

“You know that's not how it works, Nadia.” Siobhan squeezed her hand. “You're four years clean. You can't slide now.”

“Wrong. I substituted Kane for the drugs. I was addicted to Kaname Sullivan. I still am.”

She should have recognized the signs. The need that caused her hands to shake, her body to tremble until she could have him inside her again. The pain that cramped her sex when she'd gone too many hours without coming around him. The sweat in her pits and the burn in her chest when she didn't know how long it would be until she could see him, smell him, touch him. The need that consumed her, a need stronger than hunger, more vicious than thirst. And finally, finally, the bliss when he gave her what she needed, what she craved, the intensity of orgasm rolling through her blood, her synapses, overtaking her and sending her straight to nirvana.

“Are you sure what you're feeling is addiction? Not something else?”

“I don't know what else it could be.” She rubbed her arms in a half-hearted attempt to warm herself. “You don't forget the hunger for it. The desperate craving. And then I realize this desperation is the same thing I feel—felt—with Kane. I crave him. I need him so much it hurts. I'm addicted to him, and if I'm addicted, it can't be a good thing. Not for me. Right?”

Siobhan squeezed her hand. “I've got to show you something. Grab my tablet out of the bottom drawer, will you?”

Nadia opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out Siobhan's tablet computer. She handed it over, waiting while the blonde thumbed through her settings.

“You remember this, don't you?” She slid her tablet across the tabletop. Nadia picked it up, realizing it displayed a publicity shot from
Spice of Life
, her old cooking and lifestyle show. Not of her in her chef's whites, but in an amber-colored party dress for one of her on-the-town segments. The dress accentuated her curves, her dark hair falling past her shoulders in soft waves, makeup that rivalled any beauty queen's. She'd been glamorous and outgoing and sexy, a combination that had made her show a popular one.

She'd also been a bitch and high as hell.

Nadia studied the publicity shot critically and with perfect hindsight. Her smile was too sharp, her eyes were dazed and bright, almost maniacal, but she could clearly see the plea for help in her gaze.

It took her several tries to speak. “Yeah, I remember this. I don't know how many pills I was up to then, but I was a walking narcotics lab.” She put the tablet down. “I can't forget that, even if I wanted to.”

Siobhan thumbed through the tablet's gallery until she found another picture she wanted. “Take a look at this one.”

Nadia glanced at the image. Her hands immediately began to tremble. It was a picture of her and Kane caught unawares, the people around them blurred out as they moved out of the camera's focus. She wore a bloodred Asian-influenced corset and a short black skirt. He wore a matching red shirt beneath a black striped vest, and she suddenly remembered where they'd been. They'd attended one of Siobhan's burlesque performances and someone had caught them smiling at each other. She couldn't remember what they'd been talking about, but it was something that had made her laugh and flush with pleasure.

Nadia shook her head. “You see how I'm looking at him? Like I worship the ground he walks on. Like I'm completely addicted to him.”

“And how is he looking at you?”

She blinked, holding the photo closer. “He looks . . .” She drew a sharp breath. “Like I'm the most important thing in the world, the only thing in the world. Like he's addicted to me.”

“That's not addiction, Nadia,” Siobhan said quietly. “That's love. You love him, and you're in love with him. Seeing the expression on his face, I'd bet my half of the café that he feels the same way about you.”

Nadia stared at the two pictures. The differences were startling, almost as if the woman in the photographs were two different people.

“On the night of my assault, I told you that the professor was so into you that he couldn't see anyone else,” Audie said. “I meant it. Any woman would want a man she's into to look at her like that, to want her like that.”

“Remember, we've seen in person how he is with you,” Vanessa added. “He's protective, not domineering. He's concerned about you without trying to do everything for you.”

“He's not Gary, Nadia,” Siobhan said into the quiet. “Sullivan's not abusive. He cares for you even when you're not aware of it. He loves you. I know that look. I had that look directed at me on my wedding day.”

“He told me he loves me,” Nadia confessed, her throat tight. “But every time I tried to tell him about Gary so that he'd understand why I was afraid of what I felt for him, he would brush me off. He said that my past wasn't important to him.”

“He didn't understand how important it was for you. I tried to explain it to him.”

“You did?” Nadia frowned. “When did you talk to him?”

“The Monday after you broke up,” Siobhan answered. “He told me what happened and asked me to keep an eye on you, to make sure you'd be okay. A couple of days later he asked me for any information I had on how nonaddicts could help addicts through their recovery.”

The room wavered as Nadia forgot how to breathe. “Kane did that?” Even after she'd hurt him with her brush-off?

Siobhan nodded. “I think he realizes he made a mistake by dismissing your past the way he did. I believe he wants to understand what happened with you so he can help you when you need him to.”

Nadia sat back in her chair, stunned. Kane had done all of that for her? Was he really trying to understand her better, so that he could be with her, support her? Was that the undeniable proof she needed that he loved her?

“Do you love him, Nadia?” Audie asked.

“I don't know. I'm not sure.”

“Think about it. Think about how your fathers feel about each other, how you'd do anything for them and your brothers,” Audie said. “Compare that to how you feel about Kane.”

Nadia knew she loved her family. She'd do anything for them to make sure they never knew a day of pain—not that she'd tell her brothers that. When she thought about Kane, her heart leapt in her chest as if redlining. The thought of him hurt because of her was an almost physical pain. Some of her happiest moments over the last few weeks were with Kane, whether it was helping him make ramen, shopping in San Francisco, attending shows, or just being snuggled up on the couch watching movie musicals from the fifties and sixties. She wanted more of those.