Midnight Kiss (Men of Midnight #7) - Lisa Marie Rice Page 0,7
I knew most everything about their lives.”
“Knew? Are they gone?”
A spasm of pain crossed his face, uncontrollable. “My mom died when I was eighteen. I lost my dad a couple of months ago.”
He still felt that loss, it was clear. It made her even more aware of how strange her family was, how cold and uncaring. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” He bowed his head briefly. “Go on.”
“Well, like I said, I never questioned my family much. I had nannies, then boarding school and then I discovered computers and the hacker community and my parents were like this background noise that never interfered with anything. They paid for my schooling, weren’t mean to me, made sure I didn’t want for anything. But that’s about it. They never took any kind of interest in me, in what I was doing.”
For the first time it occurred to her what she was really saying. She wasn’t describing parents. She was describing guardians.
“Then — then they died suddenly. In an accident. They hired a plane to get to Kingston and it went down over the Cayman Islands. I didn’t know for a week. It was the bank that notified me.”
His eyes narrowed until only the pale glow of his irises showed. “This is a shrink question but — how did you feel about it?”
“I was appalled. I was appalled that I didn’t find out sooner, that I didn’t feel more than some sadness. Thinking about it, though, I also realized they hadn’t tried to make me love them. They — they just went through the motions. There was a memorial service I organized and which only a few people attended. They hadn’t made many friends. I blew up a photograph of them I had and put it on an easel. Some friends of mine came. One had studied genetics at MIT and was a buddy of mine. Kyle Ackerman. He spent the memorial service studying their photographs and afterward came up to me and asked me if I’d been adopted.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed even further. “Isn’t that a big assumption to make?”
In answer, she handed over a photo she kept in her backpack. It was a glossy hi-def copy of the photo at the memorial. Luke studied the photo carefully, flicked a glance at her, then continued studying it.
She knew what he was seeing. Two people who looked nothing like her. Not one trait in common. Both Neil and Sandra Ellis were ruddy-faced, with sandy brown hair, brown eyes, high broad cheekbones, round faces. She had pale skin, inky black hair, green eyes, a long narrow face.
“Kyle — my friend — saw my face when he said that, because it was something I’d long suspected. He said to get some of their DNA, for both of them, and to bring the samples to him. He had just founded a gene testing startup, sort of like 23andMe, only faster and very thorough. It’s in beta at the moment and he said he’d do the testing for free. He pulled out a swab for my DNA and took it then and there. I inherited the condo in Florida and the house in Boston. The will was very clear. I had the keys of course. There hadn’t been time to clear out the house so I found combs with hair still in them, toothbrushes. Kyle told me what to look for. I sent the material to Kyle and he was fast. He came over himself and sat me down. This was four days ago.”
She watched Luke watching her. His expression was neutral but there was no doubt she had all his attention.
He had hers, too. He was so distracting. He had a male model’s good looks — fine, chiseled features, blond stubble softening a hard jaw, amazing light blue eyes — but it was as if his looks didn’t belong to him. Most good looking people went through life with an air of privilege, preening. Nature’s aristocrats. But Luke didn’t, he didn’t even seem to be aware of what he looked like. Maybe because he also looked exhausted, like he’d run a marathon through a forest fire. Backwards.
“And?” he asked.
Hope shook herself. Damn. She must be really exhausted to get caught up in the good looks of a man sent here exclusively to protect her and try to help her get to the bottom of what was happening. Getting lost staring at him wasn’t cool.
She sat up straight. This was serious business and she couldn’t lose track drooling over a