ht say.
‘I’m sure I will.’
The waitress was back. ‘Would you like to see the dessert menu, sir?’
Looking up, he gave her his lazy smile. ‘No need. I already know what we want.’
‘How did you know I wanted the pear?’ asked Nia ten minutes later, scooping up the final mouthful of poached pear.
Watching her lick the spoon, he felt his groin tighten. Who needed dessert when you were going home with a woman like Nia?
He shrugged. ‘You love pears. Apples too. But there wasn’t anything with apples on the menu so…’
‘I suppose everyone is too health-conscious for puddings in LA.’ She glanced at his espresso. ‘Does it make you miss Scotland ever—all that wheatgrass and kale?’
It was an innocent question, but he felt his shoulders tense. ‘I miss the country,’ he said slowly. ‘The cities and the mountains, the history and the poetry.’
‘What about your family?’
What family?
He put down his coffee cup, the bitterness of his thoughts blotting out the rush of caffeine, feeling something shifting inside him. A mass of memories, pushing forward like water in a dam.
His grandparents had been the closest he’d had to a family, in that they had been related to him by blood and had let him live under their roof. But they were dead.
He had no idea where his parents were, and he had lost contact with Cam.
Not that Nia knew any of that. They had never talked about their families except in the broadest of brushstrokes. It hadn’t seemed relevant. It still wasn’t.
‘They had a farm, didn’t they?’ she asked.
He let her words fall into the comfortable hum of conversation coming from the other tables. He didn’t want to talk about the farm now—or ever, in fact. And especially not with Nia.
‘They sold it.’
She frowned. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Farming is such hard work right now. Some of our tenants are really struggling. Are they still local?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t have anyone here left to miss,’ he said lightly.
The dam was holding.
She squeezed his hand and some of his tension eased, and then his heart began beating into the silence inside his chest. That had been true then, but what about now?
What about Nia?
‘I thought you had family in England too?’ she said.
Her voice broke into his thoughts just as from across the room there was a burst of laughter. He felt suddenly irrationally angry.
‘What if I do? Why do you care?’ He shifted back in his seat. ‘This arrangement—’ he tossed the word towards her carelessly ‘—is about sex. I’m not in it for the pillow talk. Or any kind of talk, for that matter.’
She flinched as if he’d slapped her.
There was a long pause.
‘I see. Well, I’m sorry, Farlan, but I didn’t agree to any “arrangement” where you get to talk to me like that,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’ll let you finish your coffee in peace.’
Putting her napkin on the table, she reached for her bag.