“Are you all right?” she asked.
He nodded.
“She’s gone.”
“Thank you.” He didn’t say anything more, leaving the door open for her to ask the inevitable questions.
Kerri eyed his drink with something akin to longing, then went to the fridge and concentrated on pouring orange juice into the largest glass in the cupboard. Her cheeks were slightly flushed.
Damn it, why wasn’t she asking about Lisa?
Do you really want her to? What are you going to tell
her if she does?
He didn’t know how to explain the Lisa situation without making things worse, especially after Catherine’s damning statements. Catherine was wrong, of course; Kerri was strong and capable, nothing like Lisa, but that wouldn’t mean anything if Kerri refused to believe him.
Then there was his ability to explain. Lisa was a difficult topic. His family didn’t understand exactly what had happened—only that she was dead and that Ethan had been under suspicion but had managed to clear his name. They’d never doubted his innocence, but everyone had their own interpretation of the event and he’d never bothered to correct them. Moving on was preferable to letting one event—no matter how traumatic it had been at the time—color the rest of his life.
The gulf he’d felt earlier after his mother’s party seemed wider now. He wanted to grab Kerri and make love to her until she forgot everything, but that was hardly the solution. They couldn’t just have sex every time there was a problem.
Taking a deep breath, he returned to the kitchen to finish prepping for dinner. A decent meal would help mellow them out some, make it easier to talk without getting too wound up.
The chicken Parmesan came out okay. It wasn’t his best—he’d left it in the oven a little too long, thanks to Catherine’s visit—but the special breading and sauce tasted fine. He served it with green salad and a basket of warm bread.
Kerri toyed with the tomatoes and had a few bites of chicken. Ethan polished off two big pieces of bread and chicken, then decided he didn’t want the salad after all.
When he put his fork down, the place was quiet.
“You don’t want to ask me anything?” Ethan asked finally.
“Do I have to comment on what happened?” Kerri straightened her utensils. “Catherine left. I think she’s upset about the situation with her hus—with Jacob—and the problems at TLD and his taunt about her going to jail probably made her snap. Don’t hold it against her.”
He leaned back. “Why are you defending her after what she said?”
“Well, she’s your sister-in-law.”
“I don’t give a damn if she’s my Siamese twin. She had no right to talk to you that way.”
“She’s family, and a permanent part of your life, regardless of what Jacob did.”
“What about you? You don’t think you deserve better?” Don’t you think you’re more permanent than Catherine?
Kerri shrugged. “I want respect and some objectivity, but it’s hard to expect that from a distraught and abandoned wife. What I really don’t want is to create a rift between the two of you.”
“She created the rift, not you.”
Kerri shook her head and glanced away.
Could she even hear what she was saying? Did she still think that she was just some minor blip in his life? Or was that how she viewed him, and grilling him about Lisa or raging about Catherine was just too much work for something so transient?
“Don’t you want to know about Lisa?” he asked harshly.
She turned her head back around to look straight into his eyes. “No.”
Sudden fury exploded inside him. She wanted everything between them to be temporary, with a nice thick wall to keep them separate, so that it’d be easier when one of them walked. She didn’t want to know anything about him beyond what she already knew.
Fuck that. He’d smash that damned wall. He’d incinerate her resistance and hesitation.