Spice (30 page)

She wanted him.

“I love him,” she said, her voice clear and sure. “It doesn't matter though, does it? Even if we decide we can't live without each other, there's the fact that being with me didn't go over well with his colleagues. What if something like that happens again? Would that be fair to Kane?”

“You know that's not a question we can answer right?” Audie asked. “You're going to have to go to the source for that one.”

“The professor's a smart man,” Siobhan told her. “He's already taking steps to try to understand you and help you. He's trying. I think if you go to him and ask to talk, he'll be willing to listen. Tell him that you love him. Everything else will flow after that.”

For the first time in days, hope sprang to life in her heart. If Kane was trying on the one subject that was most important to her, then she could meet him halfway. She would meet him more than halfway.

She shot to her feet. “I'm going upstairs. I've got to get ready.”

“What are you going to do?”

“If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, I've got some cooking to do. I still have a key to Kane's place. I think it's time I use it.”

“S
ullivan!” Simon Mayhew stepped into the room, clapping Kane on the back. “I would say good to see you, but that would be a lie. In fact, you look like shit.”

“Thanks. Good to see you too, Simon.” He gestured to the wet bar. “Want something to drink?”

Simon looked at him quizzically. “A little early to be hitting the sauce, don't you think?”

“No.” Kane knocked back his Scotch, poured another. “Trying not to think actually.”

“Who is she?”

“Who is who?”

“Cut the bullshit, Sullivan.” Simon crossed to the bar, unscrewed a bottle of water, then began to fill the coffeepot. “The only reason for a man to do something completely out of character for him is when there's a woman involved, if not to blame.”

“I don't know.” Kane held up his glass, allowing the amber liquid to catch the light. “I think it's my own damn fault.”

“So there is a woman?” Mayhew tore open a packet of coffee then started the brew.

“There's a woman.” Kane took a seat at the table near the window that gave him a surprisingly clear view of Los Angeles. God, he hated this city. It was too busy, too crowded, too plastic. Nothing like Crimson Bay. He was going to have to find something to like about LA, though. It was a real possibility that he was going to have to move for the sake of his career and his sanity.

“What's her name?” Simon asked quietly, putting a mug of black coffee in front of him.

“Nadia.” Kane hesitated, then set the empty Scotch glass aside. Simon was his friend, had been a good friend for years. If he couldn't talk to Mayhew, he wouldn't be able to talk to anyone. “Nadia Spiceland.”

Simon's brow wrinkled. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

Kane sighed. “A few years ago she had a cooking show called
Spice of Life
. Now she owns a café up in Crimson Bay. We've been dating the last couple of months.”

“This is the relationship you said you were playing close to the vest?” Simon whistled. “You don't go for easy, do you?”

“Easy is boring.”

“True, but there's also less chance of easy biting you in the ass.” Simon's expression grew thoughtful. “Tragic what happened to her. It's nice to know she's bounced back from all her troubles, especially the scandal.”

“Scandal? You mean the addiction to painkillers?”

“Oh, more went on with her than a prescription drug habit.”

“What are you talking about?” Kane asked, frowning.

“You don't know?” Simon scrubbed his chin. “I can understand why she wouldn't want to tell you, but that's a major red flag. Especially since it's pretty common knowledge. She had to know you'd find out sooner or later.”

“Find out what?”

“She was in a car accident with her manager, who was also her lover. They were both high as kites, and both were ejected from the car. She survived, he didn't.”

“That's awful, but that's hardly a scandal,” Kane pointed out.

“It is when you consider that her manager was married at the time, and allegedly left his pregnant wife for his young client. Rumor has it that she might have been driving, and they were arguing because he was going to leave her and go back to his wife. If I remember correctly, the accident reports show that the car left the road suddenly. They're saying she may have deliberately driven off the road.”

“I don't believe that.” He couldn't believe that. It sounded so unlike the Nadia that he knew it had to be completely ridiculous. “Who the hell is ‘they' and why would anyone believe that? Just because it's salacious and people latch on to it, doesn't make it true.”

“I'm just repeating what was reported at the time,” Simon said, raising his hands in surrender. “Of course there was an investigation while she was in the hospital, but it proved inconclusive and she claimed that she couldn't remember what happened. Since it was his car, authorities decided he was driving, so Nadia wasn't charged with anything, and went into a drug treatment facility straight out of the hospital. That didn't stop the widow from suing her when she got out of rehab.”

“She was sued?” It just didn't end.

“Wrongful death suit,” Simon confirmed. “You know the burden of proof is lighter in those types of circumstances than in a criminal investigation. Still, the results were the same. There was no definite proof that Nadia was liable for her manager's death.”

Kane sat back, floored. “I didn't know.”

“She didn't tell you,” Simon pointed out. “Why do you think that is?”

“Fuck.” Realization slapped him in the face. “She tried. She tried several times to tell me everything about her past, but I kept brushing her off. I said it didn't matter.”

He shoved his hands into his hair. “I told her that I didn't see her through that lens,” he said. “I saw her as someone who came through that and lives on the other side of it. And when she kept pressing on about it, I accused her of using it as a crutch to keep us from growing closer.”

“That's probably a good thing,” Simon told him. “Some of those stories from back in the day make her out to be a generally unlikeable person. Where's there's smoke, there's usually a fire.”

“Everything you're telling me is how she was, not how she is,” Kane retorted. “You of all people know the effect drugs can have, considering how you had to deal with your mean drunk of a mother.”

“You're right—I do know,” Simon said tersely. “I know enough that I never want to deal with it again. How do you know she won't trip and relapse? Do you want to deal with that?”

“I don't know if she'll relapse. I don't know how I'll deal with it if it happens, but I've been reading some material from Narcotics Anonymous, talking to people with firsthand knowledge. All I can tell you is what I do know. I know she's been clean for more than four years. I know she's helping other people in recovery, opening her café to support groups when there weren't any gathering places in town. I know she has a huge support network of family and friends who love her and want her to succeed.”

He stared out the window, not seeing the city outside. “More than anything else, I know she has a huge heart. I know her capacity to care, and receiving her compassion was the sweetest experience of my life.”

“Sounds like you love her.”

“I do.” Without thought, he moved to the closet, grabbed his suitcase, and began stuffing his things into it.

“Going somewhere?” Simon asked, his smile all too smug.

“Don't you dare try to take credit for this.”

“For what?”

“I'm going to go get my woman.”

He caught the first flight back that he could get. Part of him wanted to immediately head to Nadia's place, to pound on her door and demand that she see him. The slightly more rational part of him said he should at least take a shower before trying to convince her to take another chance with him.

The aroma of something baking filled his hallway. The scent immediately reminded him of Nadia, of sugar and spice and how she made everything nice. Need pulled at him. Somehow he'd find a way to convince her that he was more than an addiction, that what they had could be better than good.

Stepping over his threshold he stopped short, blinking in disbelief. The smell of freshly baked sticky buns hit him square in the face. Someone was baking sticky buns in his kitchen? No, not someone.

“Nadia?”

She stepped into view, uncertainty bright in her eyes and a tentative smile on her lips. “Hi.”

“You're here. In my house.”

The smile faltered. “I wanted to talk to you. And I wanted to make you some sticky buns since you hadn't had any in a while.” She wiped her hands on the towel she'd thrown over one shoulder. “I'm beginning to think this wasn't one of my better ideas, so I'll just head out as soon as I—
Oof!”

He clutched her to him, burying his face into the crook of her neck, breathing in the scent of honey and vanilla and cinnamon that always seemed to cling to her. “Nadia. Nadia, baby, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

She clung to him just as fiercely, hot tears splashing on his neck. “I'm sorry too, Kaname.”

It took several tries before he could loosen his grip. “I can't believe you're here. I wasn't scheduled to come back until tomorrow.”

She scrubbed at her eyes. “You were on a trip?”

“I went to visit my parents, and I told them all about you. I also went to Los Angeles, to finish up my consulting work and sketch out the book series I told you about. I've also heard from a university that wants to expand their online coursework, and they want me to manage the program. I'd be able to work out of my home office. I told them I'd have to discuss it with my family. Then I had a nice heart-to-heart with the department head at Herscher.”

“You're leaving?” she asked, dismay clear in her voice. “But your work at Herscher—”

“Isn't as important as you are,” he said, cutting her off. “I'll survive without tenure if it comes to that, but I don't think it will. They need me more than I need them, and I let them know that you're going with me to every faculty-plus-one event they make me attend and I don't give a damn who has a problem with it.”

“But Kaname . . .”

“I don't want to live without you, Nadia,” he insisted, desperate to make her understand. “That night was a mistake from start to finish, because I handled it wrong. You tried to tell me, and I refused to listen. Honestly, I thought everyone would see you the way I see you—see the beautiful, successful woman that I fell in love with.”

Nadia heard the words. He said them so easily, she couldn't believe it. Didn't dare believe it.

“I'm prepared to fight for you, Nadia Spiceland,” he declared. “To do whatever it takes to convince you that I love you and want to be with you. To prove that what we have is not addiction, not obsession, but something precious and real and right.”

Hope threatened to beat its way out of her chest, but she couldn't let it. Not yet. Not until he knew everything. She took his hand, pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “Kaname, I need to talk to you about what happened with me and Gary. Before anything else, you need to know what happened to me.”

“You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to.”

“I may not want to tell you, but I need to. I don't want anything else between us, okay?”

“Okay.”

She guided him over the couch with its beautiful view of the bay. “I told you I wasn't a good person, before. I'm trying to be now, though. Some days are just harder than others.” She looked away. “But you deserve to know everything that happened, everything I can remember. I don't want whatever you feel for me to be built on half-truths. It wouldn't be fair to you.”

“All right, Nadia.” He took her hand again. “You tell me what you want, how you want. I'm listening.”

“I was young and stupid and naïve,” she began. “I also connived and schemed and manipulated. No one could tell me anything, not even Gary, my manager. He was the one who got me hooked.”

“Your manager got you addicted to drugs?”

She nodded. “The drugs Gary gave me only made it easier to be that person because the pills numbed everything else, even my judgment. They also made me more . . . susceptible to him. I did things for him, because of him that I never want to think about again. I was under his spell, a spell he deliberately wove. I thought I loved him. Instead it was an obsession, another addiction, because he was older and worldly and exciting and I needed the feeling I got from being with him. I trusted him, and because of that I gave him control of everything. He abused that trust. He abused me.”

“God, Nadia.” His hand tightened on hers.

“It was mostly mental, not physical. Not that it made a difference,” she continued. “I never told anyone, not even my therapist. Siobhan didn't learn the truth until about two years ago. I dealt with it by taking more drugs to numb the pain of it, hoping to fill the hole that I didn't realize being with him had created inside me. Then one day I looked into the mirror, didn't like what I saw—didn't recognize who I saw—and I said enough.”

“Good for you.”

“It was the best day and the worst day. I got up the nerve to tell him it was over, that he was fired from my business, my life, my bed. He didn't take it very well. He said I wasn't going to be free of him that easily, then he drove us into a tree.”

She heard his sharp intake of breath, felt the tightening of his fingers on hers. She couldn't look at him though. She didn't want to see his pity or his disgust. Or his regret that he'd given her words he wished he could take back.

Finally, he spoke. “Why did you never tell anyone the truth? You could have saved yourself a lot of heartache over the speculation.”