Page 30 of The Perfect Secret
He pushed his chair back and ignored the shooting pain running up and down his leg from the sudden movement. “You pumped my daughter for information while the two of you were alone?”
Hannah’s eyes widened. Her hands clamped her silverware hard enough for Dan to see her knuckles whiten. “Whoa, wait a second. I didn’t pump her for information.”
He rose, nostrils flared. His heart beat hard, and spots formed behind his eyes. “What, she told you the information out of the blue?”
Hannah stood and leaned toward him, but he backed away. He didn’t want to be near her right now. What else did she know?
“It wasn’t out of the blue. Tess asked me about my family. I told her my parents divorced, and my mom died a few years ago. Tess said hers did too, which I knew. She mentioned, on her own, you hurt your leg in the accident, which you hinted at earlier. There was nopumpingfor information.”
Her air quotes would have been cute if he weren’t angry and he paced from the dining table to the sofa and back again, trying to fill his lungs with air, while ignoring the pain in his leg. He didn’t know how to get out of this argument without talking about things he didn’t want to discuss with her. Things he couldn’t discuss with her, given what he knew about her brother.
He stopped next to his seat. Her cheeks were red, her neck splotchy. She was angry too. Somehow, knowing her emotions helped cool his anger and allowed rational thought in. Analyzing what she’d said, he realized maybe it wasn’t as much of aproblem as he thought. She knew when it happened. Big deal. He rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, I may have overreacted just now.”
As the words exited his mouth, it was apparent that was the wrong thing to say. If her eyes could shoot lasers, he would duck.
“You think? Don’t get me started on the Fort Knox storing your personal information.” She pushed past him into the living room. “We’ve dated for almost three weeks and I know next to nothing about you. You clam up every time I start to get close. You freak out at the thought of Tess telling me anything.” She stood in his personal space and dared him to avoid her gaze. “You’re my boyfriend. What is the point of my getting to know your daughter if you won’t let me know you?”
She was furious and she was beautiful. Her chest heaved, drawing attention to her cleavage, framed by the dark blue V-neck sweater that hugged her curves. Her creamy skin—other than her neck, which was mottled from emotion—glowed. Not that he wanted to make her angry, but, man, she was amazing when she was.
She was also right.
It was that thought which made him swallow. He needed to move forward with care. Because he sensed this was a turning point. He had a choice to make and he’d better choose wisely. He was her boyfriend, which made her his girlfriend. His girlfriend deserved answers. “You’re right.”
Those two words acted like a pin touching an over-inflated balloon. Her anger disappeared. A part of him was sorry to see it go.
“What would you like to know?” He lowered himself into the chair. His anxiety rose as he gripped the edge of the table, waiting for her response. He’d meant the question, but it was a big one, filled with many possible scenarios.
“Tell me about your wife.” He must have shown his sorrow, because she followed up quickly. “I don’t mean the painful parts, but there must be something you can tell me—what you loved about her, what kind of mom she was, her favorite color. I need something to make her human, otherwise she’s this fantastical being I can never hope to come close to.”
Of course. If the roles were reversed, he’d want the same thing. “I don’t need you to be like her. I like you as you are.”
Memories flooded through him. Hannah and the apartment disappeared, replaced by scenes from his old life. “We met in college—UMass.” In his mind, he envisioned the campus, the rolling hills surrounding it, the college town nearby. “She was a film major and I was an accounting major. We met at a party one night and were together from then on. She was sweet with a typical artist personality. She doted on Tess. She was a terrible cook. I mean, burned-water bad.”
“So that’s why you’re a good one?”
A weight lifted from his chest as he remembered the first time Beth cooked for him—smoky apartment, charred food, nervous smiles, tears. “I didn’t like the idea of starvation—it’s a painful way to go.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”
He reached for her hand. It was soft and smooth and grounded him in the present. “What else do you want to know?”
“Would you tell me about the accident? I can’t keep feeling like I have to tiptoe around every possible mention of it.”
He didn’t realize his hand was clenched until she started to massage it. God, if he’d hurt her…but he hadn’t. He blinked and loosened his grip. “It was a drunk driver. We drove through an intersection and he t-boned us. On Beth’s side. I was driving.” He closed his eyes, images of the crash flashing through his mind, sounds of squealing tires, crumpling metal and shattering glass piercing his eardrums.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“And your leg?”
“Shattered in six places, held together by screws, plates and a lot of luck.” Smells of the hospital replaced the garlicky scent of the London broil and he wrinkled his nose. “I didn’t mean to make you feel the way you did. I get focused on moving forward and I don’t like to dwell on the past. But I know you need information—”
“It’s not information as much as I need to know you. Yes, the information helps, but it’s also the intangible stuff I need.”
He pulled her close. She leaned against him and rested against his chest. She was warm in his arms and he nuzzled her hair. “Boyfriend, huh?” he asked.
She angled back to look at him. “Does the word bother you?”