“Why not?”
She stared at him for a few seconds, then waved her hand back and forth. “Not an interesting story. Forget I said that.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge about what’s interesting or not? Why wasn’t it an option for you?”
Their waitress brought dinner, so she didn’t answer him. But he got the idea she’d said something she wished she hadn’t. Now he was curious and wanted to know more about her.
“Are you going to make me guess in a twenty questions kind of way, are you going to tell me, or will you just tell me it’s none of my business?”
She lifted her gaze from her plate. “What?”
“The reason you couldn’t go to college.”
“Oh. That.” She hesitated. “It was nothing.”
He wasn’t buying it, because if it was nothing, she would have just told him. Like something inane to talk about over dinner. “So you did jail time and had to put your college career on hold?”
She laughed. “No.”
He waved his fork at her. “You’re an international spy?”
That made her laugh harder. “Nothing that exciting, I’m afraid.”
She went back to eating. Her way of dropping the subject.
“You’re really not going to tell me. This makes me think you’re harboring a deep, dark secret. Maybe I wasn’t so off the mark about the spy thing. Or maybe you were held prisoner in a foreign country during your formative years.”
She laid her fork down and gave him a direct look. “My mom died and I had a younger brother and sister I had to take care of. Around the same time, I got the offer from the agency and started booking modeling jobs, so it all worked out great. That was the reason I didn’t go to college. Sorry, nothing nefarious or exciting.”
She made it sound so matter-of-fact, when it must have been a nightmare for her. “Katrina. I’m sorry about your mom. You were seventeen, right?”
“Yes.”
“That must have been so hard for you. Your dad—”
“Was not in the picture. It’s just me, Leo, and Anya.”
“Leo and Anya are your brother and sister?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about them. How old are they?”
“Leo is fifteen. Anya is seventeen.”
Having finished his fish, he pushed his plate to the side. “They’re young. So they must have been really young when your mom died.”
“Yes.”
“Who took care of them after? Did you have aunts and uncles?”
She laid her fork on her plate. “No. It was just me. We had no other family.”
This story kept getting worse. “Jesus, Katrina. You raised those kids? And worked full-time as a model?”
“You make it sound like it’s a big deal.”
“It is a big deal. You were just a kid yourself.”
She shrugged. “They’re my family. We’re a family. We had no one else but each other. What was I supposed to do? Child services wanted to take them away and put them in foster care. Can you believe that? I wouldn’t allow it—couldn’t allow it to happen. I booked jobs right away and fortunately I turned eighteen not too long after my mother passed away, so I filed for custody of the kids. Since I had immense earning potential, the courts let me have guardianship over them.”
Grant’s chest tightened at the thought of what Katrina must have gone through. Losing her mother, being all alone, and having the burden of raising her two younger siblings thrust upon her all at the age of seventeen. The pressure of her situation must have been overwhelming.
“You had no one to help you?”
“I hired a really good au pair, because I had to travel for work. I put the kids in good schools and I bought a really nice apartment in New York. I was home as much as I could. We’ve managed just fine.”
“I’ll bet you did.” He looked at her. “I have to admit, I’m damned impressed. You could have bailed.”
She lifted her chin. “I would have never done that. I love my sister and brother.”
“A lot of girls that age would have, faced with that responsibility. I admire you for taking it on, for having the balls—or the courage, I guess I should say. You’re an amazing woman.”
“I did what anyone else would have done, given the same circumstances.”
“I don’t think so. You don’t give yourself enough credit. I’m not sure I would have done the same thing. At seventeen all I wanted to do was play sports and party. The thought of that much responsibility—of having to raise my siblings?” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “No way in hell would I have been able to take that on.”