Chapter 16
Her sympathy at his croaking voice was quickly overtaken by confusion. He was looking at her as if he didn’t know her. His eyes were so narrowed she could hardly see them beneath his eyebrows. The two faint lines on either side of his mouth were now sharp creases. One hand held a lit cigarette. “What?” she said.
He held up a newspaper, folded to the picture of her and Penny.
“Well, of course I didn’t talk to that man,” she said reasonably, not understanding his anger. “You can see he surprised us outside the gym.”
“Look closer, sweetheart.” He pushed the paper into her chest and stalked into her living room, taking a drag on his cigarette. When she could pull her eyes away from the way he filled her apartment, she looked down at the paper.
“Has Superman Met His Kryptonite? Ellen Hunter spills: Kane Fielding may finally have met his match in this arsonist. According to her, the great Fielding empire is on the point of crumbling. The company will not be rebuilding the factory in Bristol, NH, for lack of funds.”
“God,” she said, letting the paper fall. The man behind Penny, of course, listening in. Probably calling a friend outside to wait for them. She sank to the armchair.
“Don’t look so sorry for yourself!” he shouted, striding over to her. “Do you know what shit I’ve had to wade through today, to convince those people I’m not going to close the mill? How much did they give you to buy that prize-winner?”
“Nothing, for heaven’s sake, Kane!” she exclaimed, leaning back as he towered over her.
“Oh, great, you blew up my life for free. Great.” He waved the cigarette at her; the ash was threatening to fall.
“I didn’t say anything to them!” she tried to say, but he was already interrupting her.
“If this was a public company, you would have just sunk the entire stock! What the hell—”
“I didn’t talk to the press!” she shouted over him. “Do you hear me? I—didn’t—talk—to the press!” She stopped leaning back in the seat, sat up straight so her head was about at the level of his waist, and glared up the long length of him. “Could you move, please? You need an ashtray.”
He did back up but snarled, “I’m not staying.”
“Well,” she said over her shoulder, swallowing the hurt his words evoked, looking in the kitchen for a saucer that she didn’t care about too much, “that would be a shame, because I was looking forward to you coming back. I didn’t realize you left your brains in New Hampshire.” She gave him the saucer; he snatched it, and then went over to the window and opened it to smoke, which at least showed some small consideration.
Ellen, trying to ignore all the smoke in the air, picked up the newspaper. “Come on, Kane,” she said, a bit more calmly. “I’d never do that to you. Come on.”
He stubbed the cigarette out on the brick outside the window (she appreciated this saving of her saucer) and came over to the sofa, sitting down so heavily he pushed it back a couple of inches. He scraped both hands through his hair, then covered his face with them and let out a long, low roar that she was sure could be heard on the street outside. Still with his face covered, he said, “Then how did they know?”
“I was at the gym with Penny.” She sat next to him. “I was worried about you, and I was telling her some of why I was. This man came and sat behind Penny; we didn’t realize he was listening in.”
Abruptly he stood again and began pacing the few steps around the sofa. “Don’t you see?” he said, not looking at her as he paced. “You can’t just go anywhere you like and talk about the company like that! People make decisions based on this shit. We’re talking about a hundred jobs, Ellen.”
She stayed where she was. With him on his feet she hardly had any room to stand anyway. “I’m really sorry, Kane. But I wasn’t ‘talking in public,’ I was talking to my best friend. Quietly, at a counter where we were barely a foot apart. I didn’t think they’d go to those lengths to hear us.”
He’d got another cigarette out, caught it between his teeth. She must have made a face, because he growled, “I’m not going to light it,” and started pacing again. When he got over to the kitchen table, she thought it might be safe to go to him.
She could see he was fighting to keep his anger. “Then why the hell didn’t you call me today?” he said.
“I knew you’d be busy. I didn’t look at the papers. I knew the picture would be there, and I didn’t want to see it.”
He silently paced a few more times. Then, “Did you tell her about Thea?” he ground out, and she knew that this scared him more than any of the rest of it.
“Well, yes—”
“Goddammit!” he shouted, throwing his hands up. “Now that’ll be tomorrow’s headline!”
“Kane, you spent all day at a hospital. I’m surprised no one took your picture then. I told her about Thea over the weekend, not yesterday.”
Kane was breathing hard, his throat sounding overused and scratched. The cigarette had disappeared. His legs stretched out in front of him where he leaned against the kitchen table. Ellen put her hand on his arm, dared to get closer to him.
He looked at her, finally seeming to see her, and the intensity of his black gaze made her own breath catch.
“I’m warning you now,” he said. “I’m going to kiss you. Real hard.”
