“Is he still with his second wife?”
“Oh yes, they’re full on into the happy family thing. Married for twenty-seven years and going strong. Rita, my stepmother, is quite nice. Hard to believe she bred such douchebags.”
“You preferred your mother’s lifestyle to your father’s stable home life?”
“Lifestyle?” He raised his brows at the word, and Lia flushed, recognizing how unintentionally judgmental her use of the word sounded.
“I mean . . .”
“My mother is a warm, loving woman. I never lacked for anything, especially not love. Which, I’m sure you will agree, is the key ingredient to any happy family.”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”
“Not everybody has the same overwhelming drive to marry and have kids that you do, Lia. Some of us are actually quite happy to never go anywhere near the outdated institution of marriage.”
“You don’t think your parents’ divorce or your mother’s serial partners have contributed toward this belief?” She winced at her own question—she could perhaps have phrased it a bit more tactfully. But Brand surprised her by laughing heartily.
“God no, I would never look to my mother as any kind of model example when it comes to relationships. She’s an unapologetic train wreck at romance. I have known many happily married couples; my dad and Rita, my grandparents—on both sides, all sadly passed on now—friends, even my douchey half brothers, who have somehow managed to find awesome women willing to marry them, all happily married for years. I’m quite familiar with what marital bliss looks like. I just don’t want that for myself. I’m not willing to give up my work or my freedom for any woman.”
“And you don’t want children?”
“I’m too fucking selfish. My entire life would have to revolve around them, wouldn’t it? Around their wants and needs. I can’t imagine that. I like doing my own thing too much.”
Lia was aware that she was staring at him again, but she couldn’t help it. Daff had once held the same life philosophy, but her sister’s adamant anti-marriage stance had definitely hidden some pretty deep-rooted insecurities. Sam Brand didn’t look like a man with insecurities. He looked like a man who knew exactly what he wanted from life, and a wife and family were most definitely not in the cards.
“Um. Okay, so ten minutes?” she reminded. The interesting exchange had revealed so much more about Brand than she had learned over the course of the last week. She needed time to process.
“Yeah. See you then.” He nodded, his eyes already back on Trevor.
“Stay?” Sam knew he was pushing it asking her to stay, but she was tempted, he could see it in her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, then thought the better of it. Her eyes met his mutely for a long moment before she shook her head.
“You know I won’t.” He didn’t push her, merely nodded.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “After last night?”
“Completely over it,” she said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Do you have another date lined up?”
“Not going to tell you that, Brand,” she said, and it frustrated the hell out of him that she could be meeting some potential creep show tonight and he had no clue where she would be or with whom.
“Come on, sunshine. I just want you to be safe.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“So you do have a date?” She laughed, genuine amusement in the sound. It ended on that adorable little snort.
“Stop asking, Brand.”
“Will you call me? If you need help?” Another snort laugh.
“You don’t have a car,” she pointed out. “I’ll call Mason. Or Spencer.”
He swore beneath his breath, feeling completely useless and incapable of defending her if she needed him.
“Call me anyway, okay? I’ll see you around, sunshine.”
“Take care, Brand.” After hearing her use his first name the other day, he was desperate for her to say it again. But disappointingly, she’d stuck with Brand since then. He wanted to ask her to call him Sam but wasn’t sure how that would go over with her. She was such a prickly thing, with her weird rules and hang-ups about everything.
He moved into the cabin, still bothered by her infuriating stubbornness, rotating the shoulder and wrist on his weak arm. He had an appointment with a physiotherapist early next week and would have to arrange for a car or a driving service to take him to Knysna. He was delaying the task because he hoped to convince Lia to drive him. But now he wondered if he should keep a car on standby every day in case she needed him.
He missed her. Not only her presence in his bed, but her companionship as well. And that despite her adamant insistence that they not have a decent conversation. He had fucked up badly with her, handled a delicate situation tactlessly. It had been misguided and pointless to lie about his relationship with Lally in the first place, and he sorely regretted it now. Especially since it had cost him his fling, or whatever the fuck it was, with Lia.