Kitty frowned. ‘Well, it’s a country across the Atlantic —’
His laughter cut through the air. ‘Not about the country. Tell me about you. What were you like as a little girl?’
This wasn’t the usual post one-night stand conversation. Not that this was the usual one-night stand, either. It happened in the morning for a start. Kitty closed her eyes, savouring the sensation of Adam’s body pressed to hers. She really needed to stop overthinking this.
She turned to him, a quizzical look on her face. ‘Why do you want to know?’
He looked almost childlike in his embarrassment. ‘I made a list of the things I wanted to ask you.’ He coughed hard. ‘My therapist suggested it.’
She tried to swallow down the laugh that tried to escape from her chest. ‘He did? Why?’
‘I told him I liked you. He suggested I try to be your friend. As you can see, that’s working out really well right now.’
This time her laughter exploded, and he joined in, pulling her against him to feel his chuckles. ‘Jesus, what a mess,’ he said, finally getting back under control.
‘But a beautiful mess, though.’ She ran her palm over his jaw, as if to emphasise the point. ‘OK, let’s start again. What do you want to know?’
‘Let’s start with your family. Tell me about them.’
For a moment he reminded her of the man he was on the big screen. The documentary maker, not the sexy guy lying in bed with her. His interest was genuine, his scrutiny warm.
‘I’m the youngest of four sisters. We were brought up in a big house near Hampstead Heath – that’s in the north-west of London. At first it was the six of us, my mum, my dad and my sisters, but when I was ten my mum died in an accident.’
Adam kissed her shoulder again, his hand stroking softly on her stomach. ‘I’m sorry.’
She swallowed hard. ‘I really think it’s possible to miss somebody you can’t remember that well. I know I missed her dreadfully as a teenager, or the concept of her at least. My sisters were wonderful, they did all they could, but there’s no love like a mother’s.’
Her mouth felt dry from the words. Memories of that day fourteen years ago were still just below the surface – the merest rummage and they flew back up again. She’d been at a friend’s house when the accident happened, could still remember her mother’s best friend, Hugh, coming to pick her up, his face solemn. She hadn’t realised her world was about to fall apart when he took her hand and led her down the steps. That her life would be divided into two – before and after Mum. She’d gone from being the much-loved baby of the family, to a loose thread, even if her sisters did their best to take care of her.
Adam squeezed her hand gently, as though he was giving her strength. He didn’t seem to mind that she was baring her soul to him – maybe because he was used to it. Not that he usually filmed documentaries in bed, did he?
For a moment she wondered who else he’d had in his bed, but the thought made her stomach lurch.
She took a deep breath, shaking off her melancholy. ‘But we were lucky. Before she died we had the perfect life. We laughed, we lived, we did a lot as children. We skated and we played and we argued a lot.’
‘You said there were four of you?’
‘That’s right. I’m the youngest.’
‘Four sisters. Wow, I can’t even imagine…’
‘My poor dad never really knew what to do with us. Sometimes we’d be shouting at each other and he’d open his study door, peer around then scurry back inside. We wouldn’t see him for the rest of the day. I don’t think he ever imagined he’d be bringing us all up without a wife by his side. Plus he was as upset at her absence as the rest of us.’
‘He loved her.’
‘He did,’ Kitty agreed. ‘Theirs was a true romance. He was a stuffy professor; she was an actress who caught his eye. The two of them were like chalk and cheese and yet somehow they worked. They brought out the best in each other.’ Her sister had written a play about it, casting their parents as star-crossed lovers. Except the crossed star in this case happened to be an old uninsured white van, that her mum’s car ploughed into.
She wasn’t sure whether he wanted to hear all this, but she was telling him anyway. It felt good to talk about her family for a change. In LA nobody seemed interested in where you came from – it was where you were going to that counted. Nostalgia was for wimps.
‘Are your sisters still in London?’
‘Cesca is for some of the time. She’s the second youngest. But she travels a lot with her boyfriend, he’s in the business too.’
She didn’t need to clarify what business. Anybody who worked in Hollywood knew what she was talking about.
‘What about the others?’
‘Well Lucy, that’s the eldest, she lives in Scotland. And Juliet lives in Maryland.’