I watch him take a sip of his coffee.
“I’ve felt better.” I offer a small smile. “But I don’t think I can manage anything at the moment.”
I curl my hands around my cup and lift it to my mouth, taking a small sip.
God, it tastes good. He makes damn good coffee.
I put the cup down, keeping my hands around it. I look him in the eye.
He’s already watching me. The look in his eyes seems curious. Like I’m a puzzle that he can’t figure out.
I wonder if my eyes reflect the same. Because I honestly cannot figure him out.
He exudes this harsh exterior, but beneath all of that is a guy who will get in his car and drive to London to pick up his drunk employee, bring her back to his home, and take care of her.
Warmth spreads across my chest.
“I’m really sorry about yesterday. Calling you when I was drunk. The things I said…” I briefly close my eyes in embarrassment as the words flood back to me. “Passing out in your car. You having to take care of me. I am so, so sorry. And I know I acted like a complete idiot, and I deserve to be fired, but I really, really need this job.” I lean forward, putting my arms on the table, and I clasp my hands together. “And, I swear to you, what happened yesterday will never happen again. Never, ever.”
“Why did you go out to a bar alone and get drunk?”
His question throws me.
“Um…because, I’m stupid.”
“You’re far from stupid, Daisy. Although getting that drunk while alone in a bar was a pretty stupid thing to do.”
“There was a compliment in there, right?” I smile, and his lip twitches.
But his face quickly goes back to serious. “Anything could’ve happened to you. You get that, right?”
He was…concerned about me?
Well, color me surprised.
“Yes. It was stupid. I was just—”
“Trying to numb the pain.”
That shoots my eyebrows up. I knew Kas was smart, but I never took him for perceptive. Especially when it comes to me. Honestly, I thought he was ignorant to everything having to do with Daisy Smith.
“You said something about your brother last night…” he adds, letting his words hang.
So, apparently, he’s not that ignorant.
Sadness prickles my skin at his mention of Jesse.
But I’m also taken aback that he wants to talk to me about this.
I really need to keep my job, and if telling him about this stuff means I will have a job at the end of it, then so be it.
“I went to see him yesterday. It didn’t go well.”
“Why not?”
I blow out a breath. “He blames me for him being in foster care, and he’s right to. I was all he had left in the world, and when I went to prison, he got taken into care.”
“Where are your parents?”
“Our dad is dead. Our mother is…gone. When I was sixteen, she ran off with her drug-dealer boyfriend. I guess she didn’t want to be a mother anymore. Jesse was only six. I knew, if Social Services found out she was gone, they’d take him away.
“I’d been practically raising Jesse since he was a baby since our mother cared about drugs more than us. She’d always used drugs. She had somehow managed to stay clean while she was pregnant with Jesse; maybe she cared a little more back then. But, after our dad died, that seemed to tip her over the edge. I’d just finished doing my exams when she disappeared on us. So, I did what I had to. I got a job. It was hard in the beginning, but we managed. Things got easier when I got the job at the jewelry store, as I was earning more money.”
“The jewelry store you stole from?”
I let out a humorless laugh and say in a droll tone, “Yeah, the jewelry store that I stole from.”
“So, why did you do it? You had everything to lose. Why risk it?”
I stare into his face, weighing my options. Tell the truth or the truth that everyone believes.
I know he won’t believe me, but I decide to go with the truth.
“I didn’t risk anything. I loved that job. I didn’t steal from those people. What I did do was make a huge error by trusting someone.”
His expression hasn’t changed. It’s blank and unreadable, like always.
I wait, expecting him to tell me that he doesn’t believe me.
So, I’m surprised when he says, “Trusting whom?”
“A man.” I let out a bitter laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t call him a man because a man wouldn’t do what he did to me.” I wrap my hands around the cup again, needing its warmth. I stare down into the coffee as I continue to talk, “My boyfriend, Jason—well, now, ex-boyfriend. We’d been together for about four months. He seemed like a good guy. A decent guy. I wasn’t so keen on his family…especially his brother. I’d heard things about them…not so great things…but Jason was good to me. I’d never had someone be good to me before. And he was good with Jesse. So, I trusted him. And he stabbed me in the back. I don’t know for sure exactly how it happened…but I know I went to prison because of Jason and, if I’m guessing correctly, his brother, Damien.”
I see Kas’s body stiffen, and I feel a tension rise in the air, like static electricity covering my skin.
I lift my eyes to his, and I’m startled by the anger I see in them.
I’ve seen Kas angry, but this…this is a whole new level of anger that I’ve never seen before.