coffees. ‘My fault, I’m afraid. Universities weren’t quite so family friendly back then. My grandparents pulled her out of school when she got pregnant.’
‘She never went back? Finished?’
‘I think child-rearing and being the wife of an up-and-coming executive rather took over her life.’ His eyes dimmed. ‘She sacrificed a lot for me.’
‘You’re her son.’
‘I’m still grateful.’
She didn’t want to give him points for being a decent human being. Or respond to his openness. She wanted to keep on loathing him as a handsome narcissist. ‘Do you tell her that?’
He glanced up at her and she found herself drawn to the innate curiosity in his bottomless eyes. Opening up in a way she normally wouldn’t have risked. ‘The first thing I regretted when I lost Mum was not telling her all the obvious things. Not thanking her.’
For life. For opportunity. For all the love. Every day.
His eyes softened. ‘She knows.’
Was he talking about his mother or hers? Either way, it was hard not to believe all that solid confidence. He didn’t understand. How could he? Plus, Aiden Moore’s business was none of hers, and vice versa.
She handed him a menu. ‘So were you serious about a toasted—?’
‘Are you a natural blonde?’ he asked at the same time. The menu froze in her fingers. But he hurried on, as if realising how badly she was about to take that question. ‘It’s your eyes...I thought blonde hair and brown eyes was genetically impossible. Like all ginger cats being male.’
Her frost eased just a little and she finished delivering the menu to his side of the table.
His eyes grazed over the part of her visible above the table before settling back on hers. ‘Unless they’re contacts?’
‘I’ve had both since birth. And I’ve met a female ginger cat, too. It happens.’
Kyle’s old ginge was a female. One of the things that let her get so close to him was how loving he was of that cat. Turned out how people treated animals wasn’t automatically a sign of how they’d treat people. Just another relationship myth.
Like the one about love being unconditional.
Or equal.
She opened the menu and studied the columns.
* * *
Aiden took his cue from Natasha, but he knew what was on the menu and he didn’t really care what he had. The meeting before theirs had been a luncheon so he wasn’t hungry. At least not for food.
Information he was greedy for.
Her mother was dead. That explained why the woman wasn’t hovering on the scene discouraging her daughter from dating a man twice her age. Maybe it explained the vulnerability in her gaze, too. But one personal fact wasn’t nearly enough.
He’d work his way slowly to what he really wanted to know.
‘Have you been a glass-blower all your life?’
She didn’t look old enough to have had time to become a master at her craft. With her sunglasses holding her shaggy hair back from her lightly made-up face, she looked early twenties. Fresh. Almost innocent.
But looks could be deceiving. She was old enough to have a reputation for excellence in art circles and old enough to have worked out that there were faster ways to make money than selling vases when you looked as good as she did.
‘Twelve years. We went to a glassworks when I was in school and I grew fascinated. I started as a hobby then took it up professionally when I left school.’
‘No tertiary study?’
Her chin came up. ‘Nothing formal. I was too busy getting my studio up and running.’
‘It’s a good space,’ he hinted. ‘Arts grants must be pretty decent these days.’
Her lips thinned. ‘I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had one for years.’
He studied her closely. ‘You’re fully self-sustainable just on your sales?’
‘I traded pieces for studio space until I was established enough to sell commercially.’
‘So somewhere there’s a crazy Tash Sinclair collector with a house full of glass seahorses?’
She shrugged. ‘He had empty commercial space and I had investment potential. Our boats rose together.’
‘Ah, a patron.’ Of course.
Her eyes darkened for a heartbeat, then flicked away. ‘At the time. Now he’s the mayor.’
Kyle Jardine. He knew the man. Big fish, small pond. Always a little bit too pleased with himself given what little he’d actually achieved in life—mid-level public office. Exactly the sort of man to be suckered by a hot, intriguing gold-digger.
‘A notable patron.’
Her lips twisted. ‘Notable enough to drop his support the moment he had candidacy.’
Ironic that an opportunist should find herself so treated. And now she was working up his father to fill the vacancy for sucker?
She flicked back her hair. ‘Except him cutting me free made me discover that I could stand on my own. So, yes, I’ve been self-sufficient for two years now. I own my studio thanks to him, I own my house, thanks to Mum, and I make my rates and put something better than fast-boil noodles on the table at night thanks to my seven-day-a-week glass habit.’
‘And thanks to your reputation. Your pieces don’t come cheap.’
She shifted in her seat but held his eyes. ‘As you’re about to find out.’
He chuckled and then asked something off-script. Something just because he was curious. ‘It doesn’t bother you that Jardine got rich on your talent? Then cut you loose?’
She looked as if she wanted to say a whole lot more on the subject but thought better of it. ‘He can only sell them once. I can make a new one every week. Besides—’ she smiled at the woman who came to take her order ‘—when you’re an artist, every single piece you sell is going to make someone else more money than it made you. Nature of the beast. It doesn’t pay to get attached.’
Did that go for people as well? Was that a survival tactic in her world?
She turned to order. All-day breakfast. Totally unapologetic that it was nearly four o’clock. He ordered something small and a second coffee. This was going to be an interesting meal.
‘So why the fascination with nature?’ All those sea creatures and birds and stormy colours.
She considered him and then shrugged. ‘I make what the glass tells me to. Usually it’s something natural.’
‘“The
