Kiss Me Kate (The English Brothers Book 6) (19 page)

That Kate hadn’t known about him coming to New York managed to shock Étienne, although it probably shouldn’t have. Her father had been so absolute in his refusal to let Étienne see Kate, it was no wonder he’d kept it a secret from her. It hurt terribly to know that she’d been oblivious to his last attempt to see her, but at the same time, relief coursed through his veins like a balm. She had written. She had called. She hadn’t turned her back on him, after all. All these years he’d believed she had stopped loving him, but she hadn’t.

In the end, it was their families who had kept them apart.

They’d been star-crossed from the very beginning.

He tightened his fingers around hers and shifted closer to her on the bed. Just close enough to hear her breathing, to feel the slight movements of her body, the light tremors and quiet gasps, as he told her the truth of their long separation.

“You walked back through the hedge, and I stood there for an hour. Pacing, looking through the branches at Haverford Park. I considered throwing pebbles at your window, or just throwing caution to the wind and knocking on the front door and risking your cousins’ anger to see you again, to say goodbye again. I was wild with frustration. I couldn’t believe that we’d just had sex and now I wouldn’t see you again for weeks. I couldn’t call you, I couldn’t e-mail you…I couldn’t stand it.”

He swallowed, squeezing her hand and heaviness threatening to overwhelm him as he told her what happened next.

“It was late, but I could hear music coming from Dash Ambler’s house, and he was about the closest thing I had to a good friend, so I walked across the street to his place and found him and Kurt Martinson sitting by the pool, drinking beer and listening to CDs. I had a few beers with them. When Dash asked where I’d been all week, I said I’d been with you.”

“You did? You told him?” she asked in a surprised voice.

They’d been so purposely clandestine that week, and by all intents, they’d intended to keep their love a secret from everyone except Kate’s friend, Libitz. Sharing their affair with his friends had never entered the conversation or been okayed by Kate.

Étienne nodded solemnly, remorse making him wince as he stared at her, still outlining the steps that ultimately doomed them. “Yeah. I was… maybe it was the beer, but I wanted to talk about you. I wanted someone to know that I’d fallen in love with you. If no one knew but you, I’d be all alone, because you were leaving. I just wanted it to be real. I just…” He huffed softly, squeezing her hand. “I shouldn’t have told Dash and Kurt. I should have realized that telling them could make trouble for us. I should have kept it a secret, kept it to myself.”

“What happened?” asked Kate, shifting toward him on the bed so that her hip was aligned with his and the silk of her blouse brushed against his bare forearm. Her thumb made soothing, but distracting circles against the heat of his skin, making it difficult for him to concentrate, but he forced his thoughts back to the story she needed to hear.

“Do you remember the story I told you a long time ago? About Kurt Martinson’s sister, Johanna? How she—”

“The one Alex dumped, who…who hurt herself. I remember.”

“Yeah.” Étienne swallowed, his deep regret assaulting him like it was yesterday. Kurt had asked so many questions about Kate—who she was, verifying that she was Alex’s younger cousin, and that Étienne had slept with her. Étienne was so blinded by his feelings for Kate, so distraught by her leaving, he hadn’t really noticed Kurt’s tone or line of questioning. It hadn’t occurred to him that Kurt would use information about Alex’s cousin to get back at him. “Yeah. Are you angry? That I talked about you?”

“No.” She squeezed his hand gently. “No. I understand. I do. I felt the same way. I told Lib about you first thing. Please…tell me the rest.”

“It was only because I was so in love with you.” He raised her hand to his mouth, pressing his lips against her skin. “I was…bursting to tell someone and my sisters were too young and my brother hated Barrett, so I didn’t feel I could trust him. I just didn’t… Oh God, Kate, in a million years I never, ever would have hurt you like that. I should have used better judgment. I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have—”

“Please don’t. Please don’t do that to yourself.” She reached up, smoothing his hair from his forehead and cupping his cheek with her hand. “I believe that you loved me. I believe that you didn’t mean to hurt me.” 

He took a deep breath and nodded, lowering their hands to his lap. “J.C. and I were never exactly favorites of your cousins. Nor were they favorites of ours.”

“I know about Bree Ambler,” said Kate. “And Jillian…O’Connor?”

“Yeah. That was a shitty thing to do to Stratton.”

“Yes, it was,” said Kate, remembering Étienne’s too-cool-for-you swagger and knowing that Stratton, as much as she loved him, wouldn’t have stood a chance against teenaged Étienne.

“I thought I was settling some debt for my brother.”

“I know,” she said gently, dropping her hand from his cheek, but holding his eyes.

“The next day at school, I was getting high fives and slaps on the backs after mass, which I had missed because I was hung-over and went to the infirmary for aspirin. I mean, everyone’s coming out of mass and I had no idea what was going on. They’re saying,
Way to go, Ten!
Or, uh,
Ramming Rousseau.
Even
Easy English
. I had no idea what people were talking about. All of these comments, and I didn’t put them together immediately. There I am in the courtyard as everyone’s pouring out of the chapel, and Kurt comes up to me and tells me that he’s sorry. He says he didn’t mean for the whole school to find out. He was only trying to get back at Alex for dumping Johanna. He wanted to embarrass Alex by spreading rumors about you. And sure enough, Alex comes up behind me and Kurt’s eyes get all wide as fucking Alex sucker punches me in the side.”

Kate’s whole body flinched, her fingers suddenly tightening around his as she gasped. “No!”

“He was…so
pissed
. Throwing punches and telling me I disrespected his family, saying I should’ve kept my hands off of you. Kate, your fucking cousins throw punches before finding out what’s real and what’s not. Anyway, I was down for the count and he’s on top of me and he breaks my nose. I hear it snap. Honestly? I have no idea how I managed to get on top of him but something else snapped
inside
of me, too. I was so pissed at Kurt, and at Alex, and at the world for taking you away from me. It was this crazy amount of rage, and suddenly I’m on top of Alex, whaling on him. Like, crying and snotty, totally out of control, punching his face like a bag.”

Kate’s chin had dropped to her chest and she was crying; Étienne could tell from the way her shoulders shook, and he couldn’t bear it. Shifting slightly on the bed, he dropped her hand and pulled her into his arms, rubbing her back gently as she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Don’t cry,
chaton
. Please.”

“We’d just shared the b-best night of our lives, and that’s how you spent the f-first day back to school. I can’t bear it. I’m so
pissed
at Kurt…and Alex!”

“Kate, listen,” he said, leaning back to press kisses to the tears dotting her face and dripping onto her pretty cream blouse. “Let’s stop here. You and I didn’t give up on each other. That’s all that matters. We can talk about the rest later. We don’t have to—”

She reached up and clutched his face, her red-rimmed eyes searching his. “Yes, we do. I want to get this over with and put it behind us, Étienne. Tell me the rest.”

Releasing his face, she dropped her cheek to his shoulder, as he drew her back against his chest and resumed rubbing her silky back. “Okay. So…when the monsignor came outside, I was on top of Alex, and he was barely fighting back at this point. All of his friends knew the rumors, and fucking Kurt never took responsibility, for fear that he’d get in trouble. Alex’s friends vouched for him, saying that I jumped him in the courtyard for no reason. I was expelled that day for fighting, and my father enrolled me at a military school in Mississippi about twenty-four hours later.”

“But your nose was broken too. Why wasn’t Alex—”

“Expelled? He only had two months of school left…plus, his friends all swore that he only threw one punch in self-defense and happened to catch me in the nose.”

“So your father sent you away,” she murmured in a broken voice.

“I embarrassed him. Big time.”

“And the consequence was banishment.”

“It was,” whispered Étienne. “I never would have said those things about you, Kate. Never ever. I loved the way you looked. I loved
you
. That someone else disrespected the time we spent together was obscene to me. The fact that those words got back to you and hurt you? That’s tortured me for years. I thought… I thought that was why you didn’t want to see me. And yet, I was pissed at you for not giving
me
a chance to explain.”

“Étienne,” she said softly, her jaw moving lightly against his shoulder and her voice dreamy. “I never knew. I never knew that anything was said about me—by you or anyone else. I never knew you and Alex got into a fight. The first I ever heard of it was yesterday. That my cousins are protective of me goes both ways. Alex fought you to protect my honor. But he and Stratton—and my father, apparently—hid the details from me to protect my heart.”

His eyes fluttered closed, a mixture of relief and sadness, and he stopped speaking for a moment, waiting for the old frustration to spit and sputter inside of him: the fury for Kurt’s betrayal and Alex’s rashness, and the terrible injustice of his expulsion and Kate’s loss. Surprisingly, it didn’t come. It didn’t happen. Instead, as he held Kate against him, smelling the fresh sweetness of her neck and feeling the softness of her hair against his throat, he only felt sad to have missed so many moments with her, and relief that she hadn’t suffered from his purported words, or sanctioned Alex’s retaliation.

“Speaking of your father…do you want to hear the rest, counselor?” he asked gently.

“I don’t…but I do,” she murmured, pressing her lips to his shoulder before resettling her cheek. “Tell me.”

“I was set to fly down to Mississippi on Friday and start school on Monday, and I was basically under house arrest, but by Thursday I was going out of my head. You hadn’t sent any letters yet—”

“I had,” she said. “I’d already sent three.”

“I didn’t get any,
chaton
. I guess they were kept from me. My parents knew I’d fought with Alex. There’s no way they’d give me letters sent from anyone with the last name English. It was the same reason my mother hung up on you.”

Kate nodded. “I think you’re right.”

“I had to try to see you before I left. I borrowed the car after my parents were asleep and drove up to New York. I walked into your apartment building asking for you. Your father came down and told me I couldn’t see you and I tried everything. I pushed past him and tried to get on the elevator. I begged him.” Étienne swallowed painfully, remembering the desperation of the moment, knowing Kate was so close and that he was forbidden to see her. “He told me you knew what had happened with Alex. He told me you didn’t want to see me.”

“That was a lie,” Kate whispered, her voice breaking. “My uncle must have told him what happened between you and Alex. But I never knew. I was in love with you. If I’d known that you were there—right there in my building—nothing could have kept me from you.”

Her words knocked the wind from his lungs and made his chest hurt for a moment, and he closed his eyes, tightening his grip around her. “Kate. Fuck, it was terrible.”

She nodded wordlessly, loosening her hands from where they were trapped against his chest and winding them around his neck. “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Nor yours,” she said softly. “But it was hell for me, too.”

His heart clenched from her words. “Tell me your side.”

Kate took a deep, shaky breath, her chest pressing into his as she straightened up and leaned back a little.

“I think I need a drink,” she said. “You?”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

Kate dropped her hands from his neck and scooted away, picking up the phone and dialing room service. “Yes. Room 314. Sauvignon Blanc. Mm-hm. Chilled. And beignets. A basketful. Thank you.”

***

After ordering, Kate stood and walked to the windows, opening the sheer curtains and looking at the intricate wrought iron balcony of the house across the street. It was painted mint green, but peeling badly in several places to show rust and darkness underneath.
Why don’t they just strip the paint?
she wondered.
Why don’t they strip the paint and clean off the rust and in the end they’d have a beautiful dark gray balcony instead of something that looked messy and forgotten?

Because stripping away the paint was an arduous process. It was easier to throw another coat of paint on the rust and pretend it was beautiful.

Getting to the heart of any matter is always arduous
, she thought.
And getting to the heart of the matter when it’s a matter of the heart is even more painful.