Huge Deal - Lauren Layne Page 0,83
annual fishing trip with his friends because the place they’d always stayed at was closed. You rented a house for them. Why?”
Kennedy shook his head, vaguely remembering the occasion but certainly not remembering the details. “I don’t know. It seemed important to you, because it was important to him. I had the ability to help, so I did.”
“And what about when I said I wanted to go back to school. That was important to me, too. You had the ability to help . . . so you did?”
He opened his mouth with the default lie that Ian had paid for it, but she lifted a finger in warning.
“Are you sure you want to lie to me right now?”
Kennedy tiredly ran his hands over his face. No. He didn’t. What was the point anymore?
“Why?” she asked quietly, reading his silence for the affirmation it was.
He shrugged. “Like you said, it was important to you. So I guess it was important to me, too.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay. But then why let Ian take the credit for it?”
“I’ve asked myself that a million times,” he said honestly. “I still don’t know if I have an answer. It just seemed important somehow.”
“That I didn’t know you did something nice for me? No, not just nice.” She shook her head. “Over-the-top generous, Kennedy. Even for someone with a lot of money—and I know you have a lot—paying for my tuition outright was beyond generous. Why not just let Wolfe cover it? They have education assistance for employees.”
He was already shaking his head. “I didn’t want you tied to the company. For all I knew, you’d start business school and realize you wanted to do something else with your life, something outside of Wolfe. I wanted that to be an option for you.”
“You wanted me to leave Wolfe?”
“No,” he said sharply. “God no. I just wanted you to feel like you could, if you wanted to. I wanted you to be happy.”
“Ah,” she said lightly, even though she didn’t sound like she understood. “But you didn’t want me to know it was you who’d ensured that happiness?”
“Not really,” Kennedy said warily, because she had that look on her face—the one where she knew she was one step ahead of whomever she was dealing with. Which meant she was one step ahead of him, and with his defenses as low as they were around her these days, he wasn’t entirely sure he was up for this conversation.
“Why?”
He shook his head.
“Try, Kennedy,” she whispered. It wasn’t a plea, but it was close.
This was important to her, and because she was important to him . . .
“I didn’t want you to like me because of that,” he said in a rush. “I didn’t want to win your affection or your respect because I paid your tuition. I wanted you to like me because of me. To like me just as I was—uptight, crotchety, and all of that.”
“But I did like you,” she said softly. “Way too much.”
“Well, I didn’t know that,” he said, his voice a little cross. “All I saw was that you were easy with Matt and Ian but on edge with me. I figured you disliked me because I wasn’t charming and easy to talk to the way they are.”
“Because I heard you call me plain—”
“About that,” he interrupted, because if they were going to have this out, they were going to have it all of the way out. “It was recently pointed out to me that I was the one who insisted we make the pact to stay away from you. Did you hear that in your eavesdropping?”
She frowned and shook her head.
“Ian and Matt apparently didn’t need the pact because they were never in danger of hitting on their assistant. I was the one who needed it, who needed to be reminded to keep his hands to himself. Does that sound like a man who thought you were plain? Or in any way resistible? Because it sounds to me like a man who needed his friends’ help in resisting.”
“Revisionist history.” She gave a flippant wave of her hand, but he reached out and gripped her wrist.
“No, Kate. It’s not. I noticed you. I did. Even if I didn’t consciously realize it at the time. And yeah, it bugged me that you never seemed to like me like you did the other guys. You think I don’t realize that I can come across as cold? That I lack Matt’s charm and Ian’s wit? That despite