last time they’d been alone together. That night in her hotel room where he’d lost complete sense for the sake of needing to prove something to himself. Only thing he’d proved was that he couldn’t trust himself when it came to Kat.
He watched her over the top of his paper. A picture of pure grace and beauty in her blue dress, though she would probably argue and proclaim it something fancy like Aegean blue. Either way, it turned her eyes to a mesmerizing shade of watercolor. One he found himself drowning in with no wish of a life preserver. She was the brightness to his gloom. The lightness to his burdens. The call to his heart, and how difficult it was not to answer it in full.
She traced a watery bead down the side of the glass. Lonely in its solitary journey, it stuttered and stopped in resistance to its fall until the heat of the air pressed it down to plop meaningless onto the desk. “Do you know what she kept saying? ‘He’s going to leave her. He’s promised me. It’s a loveless marriage and she’s vicious.’ As if that makes it any better.”
He turned the page on his paper. More guerilla attacks near Chaville. “Men like him never leave their wives.” Her sharp intake of breath jerked his attention back up. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to rub it in.”
Pain ebbed in her eyes as she shook her head. With the blond waves pinned back to her neck, the lines of fatigue washed uncovered across her pale face. “No, you’re right. Ellie’s floating on ignorant bliss, and I’m just worldly enough to realize it.” Moving the glass aside, she dipped her small finger into the watery ring left behind and fanned it out into long lines. “She was always the carefree one, much to our parents’ never-ending vexation. Dutiful Kathleen and Rebellious Eleanor. Different as could be, but still tied with sisterhood. No matter what came, those ties never broke. Until now. Her sneaking off to Paris is more than an act of disobedience. It’s an irretrievable loss. One I feel may never mend between us.”
“Would you want things to return to the way they were? Duty and rebellion shackled beneath the same roof, reporting to that list of rules your family has mapped out for you. You might find the fresh air more to your liking if you give it a chance.”
“You mean be more like Ellie.”
“No, more like you. The you locked beneath the rules. The woman who didn’t hesitate to step into Naziland. The woman who faced down Hitler at teatime. The woman who loves Benny Goodman and wants to eat cake for breakfast. The strait-laced woman who relaxes in my arms when she’s dancing.”
A smile ghosted her lips. “That doesn’t sound like the Kathleen Whitford I know.”
“But it’s one I’ve come to know.” The one I’ve fallen head over heart for.
Kat quietly worked the water over the varnished planes of his desk. Art, the expression of her working mind. “She accused me of overreacting.”
“Did you?”
Kat flipped her gaze up to him, spearing him to the seat. “She’s angry at her lover for having his wife show up unexpectedly, and yet she’s furious at me for daring to point out that she’s a mistress. Who here is overreacting?”
He conceded with silence. That sister of hers needed to have her hide tanned for all the misery she caused people. People trying to help, no less. Her own sister had risked her life coming here, and look how she repaid her. By slapping her in the face with insolence and selfishness. Ellie was running herself into the ground and taking Kat right along with her.
The water under her finger curved into a bow with two high stacks on top. Slowly, her nails looped circles and billowing smoke. A ship that gleamed with varnished oak from the desk beneath. For a woman so tightly held together she possessed the most surprising imagination. Dipping her finger into the glass, she rippled waves of ginger ale over the sides of the ship. The waves rushed forward to the edge of the desk and dripped to the floor. Where did she imagine it going? As far away as he wished to go?
Turning in his chair, he filed the paper in the folder for burning later that night. Get rid of all evidence, leaving nothing to come back and hang himself with. Unlike paperwork, he couldn’t rid himself of her so easily. Bottle after