“Hardly. Unless sharks are getting medical training these days.”
He smiled a little, just a quirk of one side of his mouth. Then he said, “I donated a kidney to someone. My brother.”
She could tell it had cost him a lot to say it. And she could feel the weight of a long and sad story dragging the words down. This was not a story with a happy ending, she sensed.
“That’s pretty incredible. And scary. Your brother was lucky you were a match,” she offered, deeply uncertain about what to say.
He’d crossed his arms across his chest, the classic “locked off” signal in body language. She didn’t need it to know she was deep in territory he normally kept very private.
“Yeah. Well, not really. We were twins. Perfect match.”
His face was so carefully blank, but she could tell. There was a lot of anger and pain pent up in this man, and she guessed why.
“He died?” There was no other explanation for Jack referring to his brother in the past tense.
“Yeah.”
“What was his name?”
“Robbie. Or Robert, according to Mom.”
She was totally at sea. And she just knew she was going to say the wrong thing any second now. But she also knew she was being given a very privileged insight into Jack’s life. No one at work had ever gossiped about this stuff, and she knew absolutely that he didn’t talk about it. Normally.
But this wasn’t a normal situation, as she was beginning to appreciate more and more with each passing moment.
“I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” she volunteered. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose someone so close to you. Especially a twin. Was he a writer like you?”
He barked out a bitter little laugh, and she could see so clearly the anger inside him.
I bet you blame the world for Robbie being gone. I bet you blame God, Buddha, modern medicine and anyone else who comes to mind. But most of all, I bet you blame yourself.
“He was a doctor. A pediatrician. He just loved kids, and even though it cut him up when he couldn’t help someone, he always stayed in there, fighting away. But them’s the breaks, right? Fate, luck, destiny. Whatever. The doctor dies, the writer lives.”
The words could have peeled paint. She just let the anger wash over her. It wasn’t for her, anyway.
He ran a hand over his face, almost as though he was removing a mask or wiping something away.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Of course, it did. In fact, it was probably what shaped his life. She cocked her head to one side, considering. All her preconceptions, and observations, and judgments reorganized themselves and settled into a new pattern to accommodate this information, and she suddenly understood why Jack shied away from commitment, and drove a sports car, and skated by on the surface of things: he already had a world of pain to deal with, and he just didn’t have the room, or the time, or the inclination to handle any more.
She blinked, and it was as if she was seeing him with new eyes. The lines around his mouth weren’t all from smiling and laughing. The spark in those bright blue eyes of his was as much about covering as it was about charming. She felt an enormous desire to cross the space between them and take him in her arms. She actually swallowed at the intensity of it. She wanted to cradle his head on her breast, and soothe him, and tell him that one day he would be reconciled to his brother’s death, but first he had to let himself feel it.
It was a bone-deep longing, and it was so powerful she actually sat on her hands, in case they reached out toward him of their own accord. Jack would be horrified if she offered him comfort. In fact, she knew with a crystal-clear prescience that he was going to regret ever having said a word once they were out of this elevator.
And what could she offer him, anyway? They weren’t even friends. They didn’t even like each other.
But despite all that, she found herself talking. Perhaps because she couldn’t offer him comfort, she instead offered him something of herself so he wouldn’t feel so exposed.
“I’m the biggest regret of my father’s life. He wanted a boy so badly, but my mom died just after I was born. I was his one chance. So Harry tried to turn me into a boy for a while, but I hated the mountains, and I was too scared of falling when he took me climbing. And then one time he had to turn back from an expedition he’d taken me on because I got sick. And that was it. He just kind of…wrote me off.”
They were the most honest and painful words she’d ever spoken. In fact, she wondered if she’d even thought any of this through so clearly before. Even as the words tumbled out, she understood why she never acknowledged this stuff: it was like taking her skin off and letting the world see all her fears and ugly places.
Her mind swung around to that damned unanswered invitation for her father to watch her compete at the finals in just over two weeks’ time. Why had she put herself in a position where he could write her off yet again?
Jack was looking at her strangely. “Your dad’s not Harry Marsden, the explorer?” he asked, amazed.
She simply nodded.
“I never knew,” he said.
“I don’t exactly have T-shirts made up.”
He studied her face appraisingly. “You look like him.”
“Not enough, apparently.”
A silence, then Jack said, “Thanks.”
He held her eyes, and it was the most open and honest contact they’d ever shared. It felt like a fresh start. She smiled, and he smiled back, and all of a sudden all of her lust rolled over her, but this time it was tinged with a desire to ease his unhappiness, to do something without considering the merits and worrying about the consequences.
Could he read her thoughts? It seemed he could, because his eyes dropped to her breasts. She liked that, liked that he’d noticed her that way. She felt her heart skip into overdrive. Had his eyes darkened? Was she getting the message from him that she thought she was? She wasn’t sure. Doubt assailed her. He was so much more experienced than her. For Pete’s sake, he’d slept with half the building. What would he want with her?
“Claire.”
It was an invitation. Wasn’t it? She wanted it to be. Very badly. Because she hadn’t been this hot for someone for a long time. But he was just sitting there, opposite her. What was he thinking? Should she…should she make the first move? Tentative, she leaned forward, placing a hand in front of herself so she could lean even farther across the space that separated her from him.
His eyes were locked on hers, and she could see something come to life in them. He looked hungry and sexy and very intent. He leaned forward. There was an excruciating moment, a moment between breaths, where she waited for his lips to touch hers. And then they were kissing, tentatively at first, no other part of their bodies touching. His lips were warm, and he tasted of mints and she felt a shimmering something unfolding inside her.
