then, why would he? It wasn’t conversation he wanted.
He cleared the plates a second time, and while he was gone Kate had a mini-meltdown, remembering her mother’s words. Make it romantic. How did a person turn a contract into something romantic? Move heaven and hell. How? What was the trigger? What would it take to make him love her?
And then he was back, carrying a tray. On the tray was a plate piled high with cookies of some kind and two exquisite boxes—one pink, one purple—decorated with fluttery fairies, shimmering with glitter, finished off with gauzy bows.
‘Whoopie pies,’ Scott said, depositing the tray in front of Kate and taking the seat beside her.
Unable to stop herself, Kate reached for one of the boxes, ran suddenly trembling fingers over the top, pulled the end of the ribbon through her fingertips.
‘Do you like those boxes?’ Scott asked.
She looked at him, said nothing.
‘They’re for Maeve and Molly. Because…’ He shrugged, blushed. ‘Well, you know… I spoke to them about baking whoopie pies and I… Well, since I didn’t know when I was going to see them again, and I was baking anyway, I thought they… Ah, hell, I thought they’d like them. That’s all. And I saw the boxes in a store near my office, so I…’ He cleared his throat. ‘I bought them. No big deal.’
Nice and defiant. Still blushing.
And everything surged in Kate—wrenching at her heart, racing through her blood, shattering every thought in her brain…flooding her with absolute crazy love. She was insanely, wildly in love with him.
She couldn’t pretend any more. Not for one more moment.
And the next moment of her life started precisely now.
‘Hugo,’ she said.
SCOTT REELED BACK in his chair. ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘I don’t know, Scott. Why don’t you tell me what he has to do with you, with us, or indeed with anything? Because you’ve told me precious little so far. So—Hugo.’
‘Oh, I get it. Is this—? This is about…about Play Time. Stopping Play Time, right?’
‘Yes, Scott, it is.’
‘But…why? What was so bad? Do you want to…to go back and start again?’
‘No.’
He blinked. ‘Okay, then, let’s skip it altogether and just go upstairs and—’
‘Hugo,’ Kate said again.
He tried to smile, but didn’t nail it. ‘You don’t know what I was going to suggest.’
Kate didn’t bother even trying to smile. ‘The fact that you said we should go upstairs—to bed, no doubt—tells me all I need to know. It tells me we don’t have a relationship.’
‘Sure we do.’
‘No, Scott, we don’t. We have a contract.’
‘You’re the one who wanted the contract.’
‘Semantics. With or without the signed piece of paper, we have an arrangement. An arrangement is not a relationship. And if you’re happy with that then I’m calling “Hugo”. As in enough. No more Play Time. No more anything.’
Scott shoved a hand into his hair. ‘Kate, if it’s the subject of my brother that’s bothering you—’
‘Didn’t you listen? Hugo—as in I’m finished.’
‘—he has nothing to do with us.’ Right over the top of her. ‘I never thought you’d meet him.’
‘Well, I did meet him, Scott, so how about you explain now?’
Silence. Scott’s jaw tightened.
‘Scott?’
‘You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, Kate. I’m sure you worked it all out the night of the architect awards. Why do you need to wring the words out of me?’
Kate stared at him.
He stared back.
And then he shoved both his hands into his hair. ‘Dammit—all right. It’s no big deal.’
He took a moment. Placed his hands on the table, palms down. Very specific. Controlling them.
‘Very simply: my brother was the perfect child. Better than me at school, better than me at sport, better than me at everything. My parents let me know it in a thousand ways when we were growing up. And when Hugo hit the doctor target…? Big bonus points, there. Now he’s hit all the personal targets too—getting married, providing grandchildren. Long story short—Hugo is family all the way. And I’m…not. I’m number two. All the way.’
Kate reached for his hand but Scott pulled it back, out of the touch zone.
‘All the way,’ he repeated. ‘Want an example, Kate? What about that time I was in the Whitsundays, goofing off, teaching holidaymakers to sail, making a fool of myself over a girl who didn’t love me? What do you think my brother was doing?’ But the question was rhetorical. ‘He was one-upping me spectacularly by sailing solo around the world.’
‘So what?’ Kate asked, but it was hard to get that out because she wanted to cry.
‘So what?’ Scott laughed—harsh and awful. ‘So sailing was my thing. Why did he have to take that too? I swear, if he knew I liked cooking he’d go and get himself a publishing deal for a cookbook.’
‘Hugo didn’t win the architecture prize. You did.’
‘Wait until next year’s awards,’ Scott said. ‘He’ll pull a rabbit out of someone’s hat.’
‘Exactly, Scott! Out of someone else’s hat! Unlike you, wearing your own hat. Because you can’t tell me you simply follow blindly—not your parents, not your brother, not anyone. Otherwise you’d be a doctor like the rest of your family—you’re certainly smart enough.’
‘There’s no mystery there, Kate. I just wanted to be an architect.’
‘I know that. And I know why. Because it’s you. Creativity—and order. The perfect career for you! And I think your brother hates how good you are at it. Because you can bet that although you could be a doctor if you wanted to—’
‘Not as good as Hugo.’
‘Maybe…maybe not—but you could be some kind of doctor. Hugo, however, could never be any kind of
