‘I kissed a girl.’
‘Hmmhmm.’
‘You don’t sound that surprised,’ Adam said. ‘I was kind of expecting a bigger reaction than that.’ Was it wrong he was disappointed? Even the dog had more of an effect on Martin.
‘It was Kitty, right?’
‘How did you guess?’
Martin had the good grace to laugh. ‘It’s not much of a detective story. She’s the only woman you’ve come into contact with in weeks, if you don’t count your mother, her elderly housekeeper, or the sister-in-law you claim to hate.’ He steepled his fingers beneath his chin, scrutinising Adam. ‘So, how was it?’
Amazing? Glorious? There didn’t seem to be a word to describe it that didn’t end up in clusterfuck. ‘It was good.’ He shrugged, trying to look casual.
Martin didn’t look convinced. ‘OK, and then what happened?’
‘My brother arrived in a helicopter and I spent the rest of the time ignoring her.’
Martin shook his head, clearly exasperated. ‘So let’s talk this through for a moment. The first time you met this girl, you shouted at her for crying over a deer. You proceeded to ignore her and then chew her out again for taking her eye off your nephew for a minute.’ He stopped to take a breath, his eyes still on Adam. ‘The last time we spoke you were going to apologise to her, which I assume you did, if you ended up kissing. Wait, this kiss, it was consensual, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, it was consensual.’ Adam felt the back of his neck heat up. ‘It was as consensual as hell.’ Jesus, just thinking about it made his heart race all over again. The way her lips were so soft and smooth, the way she’d looked at him as he’d slowly unzipped her jacket. Her eyes wide and trusting, full of wonder, as though the sun was shining right from him.
‘OK, so you kissed, consensually, and then you ignored her. Is that it or have I missed anything?’
Adam wanted to hang his head at the description. ‘When you put it like that I sound like an asshole.’
‘Sound like?’ Martin raised his eyebrows. ‘If I wasn’t your therapist and bound by confidentiality, I’d go out and warn the poor girl off you.’
‘I’m doing a pretty good job of that all by myself,’ Adam muttered.
&n
bsp; ‘Except you’re not, are you?’ Martin pointed out. ‘Because she clearly hasn’t been put off by your attitude. You’d been your usual miserable, taciturn self, and she still wanted to kiss you.’
Adam swallowed, feeling an ache at the pit of his stomach. The sort of hunger that food could never sate. ‘I really have fucked everything up, haven’t I?’ he said quietly. ‘My life, my work, even this poor girl. I’m like Midas in reverse, everything I touch turns to shit.’ Even with his eyes wide open, he could picture Kitty’s face as he left her standing there in the snow. The shock that moulded her features as he stalked away from her.
‘That’s not true though, is it?’ Martin said. ‘It’s just another example of negative thinking. If you reframe the events of the past few months, you’ll see that you’ve made a positive difference in lots of people’s lives. Take your nephew, for example. What would have happened if you hadn’t been there when he fell into the lake? He could have died, but thanks to you he’s perfectly fine.’
Adam shrugged. ‘I guess.’
‘And that boy in Colombia, what about him?’
‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
‘OK, then let’s talk about something else,’ Martin said smoothly. ‘You’ve spent your life looking for the truth, staked your personal reputation on it. So what do you think the truth really is here?’
‘What do you mean?’ Adam frowned. ‘I just told you everything.’
‘I want you to look inside yourself. Try to work out why you keep blowing so hot and cold with this girl.’
Adam blinked for a moment, trying to work out what Martin was getting at. ‘I guess I blow hot because I’m attracted to her, and cold because I don’t want to be.’
‘Why don’t you want to be?’
Adam’s mind was blank. He blinked a couple of times, trying to work out why he couldn’t order his thoughts. ‘I don’t know…’ Why didn’t he want to get close to her? What was it that stopped him? Her youth? She wasn’t that young. Her job? She was Jonas’s nanny, but that didn’t seem to matter. The fact she lived so far away from Mountain’s Reach? Surely that should be a plus.
‘Maybe I think she’s too good for me,’ he postured. ‘Maybe I don’t want to hurt her.’
‘Go deeper still,’ Martin urged. ‘What is it you feel when I mentioned you getting close to her?’