“Why would you be in trouble for that?” she whispered, choking back a laugh.
His mouth twitched. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it before, so I wasn’t sure.”
He kissed her once more and stood. Ellie and Cyril glanced over at them cautiously.
“It’s all right. The coast is clear,” Jacob said before he politely bid them a good and fruitful afternoon. Harper noticed that a slight smile lingered on his lips as he walked away, as if he thought his behavior a little funny, but was pleased, anyway.
The doors shut behind him. Harper had only the pleasant pressure remaining on her lips from his kiss and Cyril’s comically stunned expression to assure herself that it’d all really hap
pened.
twenty-eight
Ellie had a shift waitressing at her restaurant early that afternoon, so she had to leave soon after their lunch, which they ate poolside. Marianne heard the girl saying she was planning on walking to a bus stop, and insisted that a driver would take her—a proposal that seemed very agreeable to Ellie.
“So. You and Jacob,” Cyril stated with a significant glance once they were alone on the terrace. They sipped coffee in the idyllic setting while the Pacific provided them with a cool, pleasant breeze.
Harper raised her brows. “What about Jacob and me?”
“Don’t play coy with me. It’s beneath you.”
Harper laughed. “You don’t know me well enough to know if it’s beneath me or not.”
“I imagine Jacob would think it’s beneath you. He hates false modesty and artifice.”
“I’m not so sure Jacob knows me all that well, either,” Harper murmured. Or maybe he does, but it’s a mystery as to how he does. She noticed Cyril’s incredulous look.
“I’ve never seen him act this way around a woman. Never,” he stated flatly. “For a man who is usually so guarded, to become so transparent—”
“I’d hardly call him transparent,” Harper scoffed, setting down her coffee cup.
“Compared to what he’s usually like, he’s positively see-through.”
Harper laughed it off. Cyril had only seen Jacob and she together a few brief times, after all. But then, she began to really absorb Cyril’s statement and all of its ramifications.
“I wish I did know more about him,” she mused after a moment. “Do you know much about his childhood?”
“I assume it was crap,” Cyril stated bluntly. “I’m not sure what happened to his biological parents, but he was in the foster care system. He didn’t get adopted until he was nearly an adult. He hardly ever talks about it, and doesn’t respond well to hints and prods for him to do so.” He rolled his pale blue eyes. “Trust me on that score.”
“I know that he got a scholarship to MIT and served in army intelligence for several years.”
“His history is much better known once he got closer to adulthood. It’s his origins that are murky. I’m not sure how he’s managed to keep prying eyes out of his deep past, but then again . . . he is Jacob Latimer. He can do almost anything, including sweep his past clean.”
“Sweep his past clean,” she repeated slowly. “That’s an interesting thing to say.”
“Interesting, maybe, but not uncommon. That girl who just left us is the exception, from my experience,” Cyril said, making a gesture toward the terrace doors where Ellie had just made her exit. He held up a package of clove cigarettes with a questioning look. Harper nodded her agreement for him to smoke.
“What do you mean about Ellie being the exception?”
“Most people want to deny a difficult past. It’s unusual, for a person to be as forthcoming and refreshingly honest as Ellie is,” Cyril mused as he lifted the cigarette to his mouth. He took a draw, his expression thoughtful. “Most want to transform into someone new. Forget. I do my fair share of intentional forgetting every day.”
“You sound like Jacob.”
He shrugged, smoke expanding around his mouth. “We couldn’t be more different, and yet we’re two of a kind, as well.”
“Did you know him in South Carolina? Jacob?” she prompted when he gave her a blank look.
“No, I met him at Tahoe Shores when we became neighbors.” He flicked some ashes onto a china saucer. “Does it really matter? That you know about his past?”