things growing up. But you try telling a woman that. Chances are she’ll give everyone botulism.’
‘I imagine the closest she’ll get to hurting anyone would be killing you when she finds out about all this.’ Cassie’s brow furrowed into tiny lines. ‘Provocation. Any jury would let her off.’
He ignored her little joke. ‘Look, I want to give her the magical day she always talked about growing up—the whole meringue dress and rose petals shindig. But I’d like to get to the end of it without a trip to the emergency department or fending off an insurance claim.’
The frown deepened. ‘Are you always this negative?’
Negative? Him? ‘You don’t know my sister. I prefer to see it as realistic. Plan for the worst, and so on.’
‘And hope for what? The saying is: plan for the worst and hope for the best, right?’ She pierced him with those eyes.
Hope that this marriage-fest would be over soon and he could get on with his life, guilt-free.
He watched Cassie take a long slow lick of a drip down the side of her hand and swallow the coriander and minty goodness. The way her tongue dipped across her suntanned flesh, the curl of a lock of hair framing her face, the light in her eyes as she caught him watching—a guilty twinkle. God.
His groin tightened.
Hope for what, indeed? A taste of her?
What? No way. No way. Na-ah. Pretty, yes. Attractive, even. But more than looking he couldn’t—wouldn’t—contemplate.
He ignored it. Tried to ignore it. Tried, too, to shake off the unnerving feeling that when she looked at him she saw a whole lot more than he wanted her to see.
Luckily, he was heading to Iceland tomorrow afternoon. The great thing about his job was that he was never anywhere for long. Guaranteed to stop any kind of meshing of minds. Meshing of bodies he could do—that didn’t take too much investment. ‘Hope that I can find a caterer who cuts me a bit of slack and stops talking in a foreign language about food stations.’
At this her eyes twinkled some more. ‘My mum used to say that often things you’re looking for are right in front of you. Which is usually the case for me—things I want are way too often in front of me, in a shop window display begging to be bought. Now, talking of mothers, what about the mother-of-the-bride? Is she likely to want to give her opinion too? Father?’
He felt his shoulders snap up at the mention of the woman who’d given birth to him and his sister, the blackness that filled that corner of his heart. She’d been no mother. Or the subsequent string of women who’d tried in vain to create the one thing he’d craved but had always had ripped away. Connection. Connection—like Lizzie was trying to create with Callum. He felt the blackness rise—that would mean putting his heart on the line again. No way. ‘It’s just the two of us.’
Pink patches took up residence on her cheeks, seeping down her neck in a rush. ‘Oh. Okay. I’m sorry if I’ve overstepped—’
‘Don’t be. Now, are we done here?’ He waved a pen-scribble action towards the door and a waiter nodded and disappeared for the bill. He needed space.
‘I guess.’ She looked a little put out at his brutal tone, and it might have been easy to clear the air—easy, maybe, for someone else. But hearts on sleeves was messy. Messy wasn’t his thing.
While they waited for the bill he searched for something uncontroversial to cut through the heavy silence. Which was, after all, his fault. ‘So what made you go into catering?’
‘You mean my sister didn’t give you the low-down of my life already?’
‘Your sister’s pretty protective where you’re concerned.’
‘She’s lovely and everything, just sometimes a little stifling.’ Fiddling with her bag, Cassie gave a gentle smile. ‘Make that a lot stifling. Like you, maybe? With Lizzie?’
He felt the guilt shimmer through him. ‘No. I don’t stifle; it’s hard to stifle when you’re not even in the same country for most of the year. I’m always on the road shooting or editing. I’m not here enough, so she tells me. But I was asking about you and your career choice.’
Hell, he didn’t need to have his relationships analysed. He knew he was bad at them. That was what this whole wedding food thing was about—making amends. Being the better guy. The better brother. Trying to create a happy medium between work and life. Instead of work and work...and work. Which until now had been his life.
Cassie shrugged her delicate shoulders as another curl fell from the chopsticks. And now his imagination ran riot with a few too many scenarios of that vivid red spilling over his bed, his back...
Whoa. Not a good idea.
She carried on chatting in her sing-song voice. ‘Bottom line—I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I left school so I dabbled in a few things, none of them particularly successful, but everything came back to how much I loved food. Eating, cooking, and I get a kick out of making food for other people to enjoy. My mum said it was my nurturing side. My sisters think it’s all about the praise and attention. Oh, such amazing flavours, Cassie...what adorable presentation, Cassie...you’re so clever, Cassie... And you’ve got to admit, you can’t beat a bit of adulation, right? Mr Award-winning Film-man.’
‘I’m more proud about the films than the awards. It’s the craft I love, not the praise. The interesting and sometimes reluctant subjects...’
Her laugh rang through the evening air. ‘My shy sister, a subject. She’d love that idea. Not. I can’t believe you persuaded her to even be in one of your films.’
‘It was for a good cause. They wanted to promote their charity work. Seemed a good trade-off for a fly-on-the-wall of their lives.’
In all his conversations with Sasha she’d missed out a lot of details. Like Cassie’s hotness. Her irritating habit of telling people how to live their lives. Her scattiness. The humour. The hotness. ‘She was definitely one of my more challenging interviewees. I had to work hard to get information out of her. But now I know a little about her life, about your dad.’
‘Oh. Right. My dad? My dad.’ Cassie swallowed her shock, but her eyes widened. ‘You just come out and say it. Like that? Most people tiptoe...no, actually, most people don’t mention it at all. Is that your media thing? Catch her off guard, throw in a curveball?’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘Are there hidden cameras?’
‘Not at all.’ He almost laughed at the thought. The stiffening of her back and the eye contact dodge wasn’t lost on him, though; clearly, this was a subject she wasn’t comfortable discussing. And who could blame her? He hadn’t meant to stray into such difficult territory. And now he was here he didn’t know how to reverse.
Her voice rose again. ‘Wow. Well, that’s another skeleton out of the cupboard then, but I think everyone knows that story now—it was front page for long enough. Your direct approach doesn’t surprise me, though, Mr Brennan. Nor does it affect me—if that was your intention.’
Liar. She was a tight bundle of gelignite that looked about to explode at any moment.
Her father’s betrayal by his business partner and subsequent suicide had been pretty high
