Eve Devon - It’s In His Kiss

There was a flash of surprise in his eyes, but she couldn’t afford to let this go. Not if there was a chance he was struggling and had no one else to lean on. If Sephy had to step up and be there for him, well, hadn’t she had already implied she would, by agreeing to Ethan’s plan to help his brother all those months ago?

‘Ethan trusts me,’ Ryan said. He took a sip of his cappuccino, set it down on the hammered aluminium surface of the café table and added sombrely, ‘I understand why you might not.’

‘I’ll admit that this isn’t entirely comfortable territory for me.’

‘Trust me, it’s no picnic for me either. You think I want my ex stopping by to check I’m getting over a breakup simply because she doesn’t know me well enough to know whether or not I’ll relapse?’

‘Do you know yourself well enough to know whether or not you’ll relapse?’ she shot back.

Ryan laughed and the laughter seemed to relax something in him. ‘You know, I really never imagined you acting as my conscience. Although I admit you’re much prettier than the one I have.’

Again with the flirting and again she hoped it was simply a defence mechanism.

‘How about instead of seeing me as your conscience,’ she asked carefully, ‘you see me as a friend who has a vested interest in making sure you’re okay?’

‘How about you let me take you to dinner tonight and we discuss further how okay I am?’ Ryan replied, without missing a beat.

Sephy’s latte went down the wrong way. She hadn’t got this wrong. He was totally flirting with her. As she grabbed the napkin he held out to her, she blinked back her watering eyes, took in his giant grin and dragged in a steadying breath.

‘Ryan, I didn’t come here for a date. I came to check you were okay. For Daisy.’

At the mention of their daughter his face turned serious. ‘I’m not going to mess that up.’

‘Okay. Well, that’s good, then.’

‘So it’s a “no” to dinner?’

‘You’ve only just stopped seeing Michelle.’

‘Usually a woman thinks it’s a bonus when the man she accepts a dinner invitation from is single.’

‘I am not going to go out to dinner with you.’

She tried not to worry that she was making things harder for him, not easier. Luke had told her Ryan wasn’t her responsibility, but if she wanted him to have a good relationship with Daisy, he kind of was.

Sephy glanced to his hands holding his cup and making it look small. They were nice hands. They were hands that had travelled over every inch of her body, she remembered, taking a quick sip of coffee.

But they weren’t Luke’s hands, is that what it came down to?

Surreptitiously she swept her gaze over Ryan. The man managed a gym. He worked out. What was the matter with her that when she looked objectively at his body she didn’t see it in those banners sexing up her lingerie line?

‘You know, I thought it would be hard to see you like this,’ Ryan said, breaking into her inventory of his model looks.

‘This?’ she asked, hoping he wasn’t about to call her on her looking him over and use it to up the flirting.

‘You’re so different from how you were when we were –’

Oh. She couldn’t help the smile. ‘You mean when we were the ultimate cliché?’

He laughed. ‘I guess we were. The poor little rich kids running around town partying.’

‘It would be easier to look back on and not cringe if we had been much younger than we were.’ Sephy cleared her throat and raised her gaze to his. ‘We stayed with each other longer than we should have, Ryan. We fell into a lifestyle and had no one to pull us out of it.’

‘I guess having Daisy finally pulled you out of it,’ he said, nodding as he stared down at his coffee.

‘Having her made me grow up, yes.’

‘I wish I could tell you that if I’d stuck around I’d have grown up too.’

‘Forget it; it’s all in the past.’

This time Ryan’s smile was wry. ‘You always were quick to forgive people their sins.’

She’d had to be. How else would she have survived being the one King who showed no aptitude for the family company KPC? She’d had to understand her father and how his emotional connection to the business translated to those who didn’t share that, in order to forgive him enough to have any kind of relationship with him at all.

‘If it makes you feel better, I didn’t forgive you overnight,’ she told Ryan, her voice gentle.

‘It does. And who knows, maybe you’re starting to see how much I’ve changed.’

‘You don’t have to show me. You have to show Daisy.’

‘I will. But maybe I want to show you too.’

‘Ryan –’

‘What?’ His eyes searched hers. ‘That ship has sailed?’

‘I don’t want there to be any confusion.’ Getting mixed up with Ryan would massively complicate the relationship she wanted him to have with Daisy.

‘Is there someone in your life at the moment?’

She closed her eyes and saw Luke and felt the shock of that right down to her toes.

That was so completely messed up she didn’t even know what to do with it.

When she opened her eyes it was to see Ryan staring at her with a tenacity that she remembered.

Without thinking it through, other than to realise that Ryan believing she was already involved with someone would help make things less messy, she answered, ‘Yes.’

‘Is he good with Daisy?’ he asked.

Sephy grasped her glass of coffee and let the residual warmth steady her. ‘You haven’t yet earned the right to ask that question.’

‘That’s fair. Is he good for you?’

‘He’s – yes.’

‘You don’t sound too sure.’

‘I am sure.’ The last thing she needed was for Ryan to see her as a project to take on, to help keep his addiction at bay, or otherwise.

‘Is it Luke Jackson?’

Sephy’s latte glass clattered back down to the table. ‘I –’ She tried again, ‘what makes you think that?’

‘He came into the gym soon after it opened. Got the feeling he wasn’t checking out the premises so much as checking on the manager.’

She would kill Luke. ‘Did he say something to you?’

‘We exchanged a few pleasantries.’

‘A few…What the hell does that mean?’

‘It means he was being a good friend to you and Daisy.’

Sephy didn’t know what to say.

Ryan folded his arms and leaned forward. ‘Don’t tell me you’re still not used to people paying attention and looking out for you?’

‘Something like that,’ she cleared her throat. ‘It must be a novelty for you too.’

He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment and Sephy wondered if he was thinking about his parents and how ill equipped they were to deal with his gambling addiction – to deal with their sons in any way. Ryan was lucky he had his brother, Ethan, on his side.

‘I guess we’ll both have to try and get used to it,’ Ryan murmured.

‘I guess we will,’ Sephy answered.

‘So is it Luke?’

Maybe she should have listened to Nora all those months ago when her sister had told her to, for once, take having Ryan back living near her and Daisy to its worst-case scenario and properly decide if that was something she could handle before she said yes to Ethan helping him relocate.

Because what she couldn’t handle was Ryan deciding he wanted back into her life in any other capacity than being Daisy’s dad. He’d left her when she was at her most vulnerable, and even though she had truly forgiven him, she wasn’t about to forget all the small-town whisperings she had endured, or how he had made her feel like she sucked at relationships and wasn’t a safe bet as a partner in life.