The Art of Inheriting Secrets(71)

I laughed. “With her palette she could deconstruct it in three seconds, no matter what you put in it.”

“Perhaps. You haven’t tasted it yet.”

“What can I do?”

“I’ll have you chopping in a minute.” On his phone, he touched an app, and music wafted out of the speaker in the living room, something low and jazzy. “Good?”

“Yeah.” I accepted the glass of water he poured and drank a long swallow. “I’m easy with music. Not much I don’t like.”

He set me to chopping carrots, onions, and garlic while he washed chicken breasts and broke a generous knob of ginger from a larger hand. “What do you choose when you’re alone?”

“Depends on my mood, of course.” I sliced a carrot with a very sharp knife and, in surprise, examined the blade. “Messermeister!”

“Restaurant family, remember?”

“Ah, of course.” I started on a second carrot. “So, music. I love Leonard Cohen, but he’s not the guy you want on in the background when you’re working or whatever.”

“Brilliant. I’ve studied his poetry, of course, but never heard him sing.”

“My mom loved him. She had a taste for dark themes, sad music—all that regret, you know—and Cohen has this great, deep voice, rumbly, raw, but it’s the words that make his songs. He was such an old, old soul, especially about relationships.”

He started to peel the ginger, but his hair was in his eyes, and in a gesture that had the stamp of a million repetitions, he reached up and tied it back from his face using just the hair, then washed his hands and picked up the ginger. I smiled.

“What?”

“It seems like your hair drives you crazy.”

“A little. But”—he lifted a brow—“the girls like it.”

“Mmm.” I crunched a bit of carrot. “Not all, surely?”

He minced the skinned ginger expertly, his fingers curled to avoid chopping them off, the ginger moving swiftly, cleanly beneath the knife. He dropped half the slices into the water simmering on the stove. “My ex-wife hated long hair, and I originally let it grow to”—he paused—“infuriate her.”

“What happened there, Samir?”

He shook his head. The light came straight down from overhead, skimmed down his strong nose, illuminated his brow. “I was young. She was very polished, very beautiful, from a very wealthy British Indian family. She dazzled me.” He scraped the ginger into a small bowl, then crushed a handful of garlic cloves. “Do you mind a lot of garlic?”

I laughed. “You can add an entire head of garlic, and I won’t mind.”

He smiled that sunny, beautiful smile. “I knew I liked you.”

My carrots were finished, and I ran the knife through the top layer of the onion, peeling it away. “You were dazzled, and . . . ?”

“Do you really want to hear this right now?”

Seriously, I said, “Kind of. Before I’m so lost in you that I can’t turn around.”

“She is not a consideration. Trust me.”

“That’s not the concern.” I settled the onion on the cutting board and sliced off the ends. “Large or small dice?”

“Large.” His eyes were sober, deep, as they rested on my face. “Then what?”

“You spent a year reading yourself through your broken heart. Maybe that left a wound. Maybe you won’t get around it.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.” Tossing the meat into a pile on a plate, he said, “She loved me for the book I wrote, not for me. Or maybe she wanted to be connected to the young and upcoming Indian writer—it made her look good to have me on her arm.”

“You would look good on anyone’s arm.” I plucked a carrot wheel from the pile. “Seeing that you are a god among men.”

His lips quirked, and he pointed the knife at me. “There’s that.” He shook his head, and a single curl fell down along his cheekbone. “Anyway. The next two books failed spectacularly, and she lost interest.” Pouring oil into a heavy skillet, he added, “I was more humiliated than brokenhearted. We didn’t like each other very much by the end.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“But if that had not happened, I would not have been here, and we would not have met.” He leaned over the counter, very close. “I would have hated that.”

I lifted my chin so that our lips connected, and the kiss was sweet, deep, lingering. “Me too.”

Still close, he said, “Did that make you feel better?”

“Yes.”

He smiled. “Good.”

The pot on the stove sent out an evocative scent, and he bent in and smelled it closely, stirred it, moved it off the burner. I peered around him to catalogue the spices, grinning when he caught me. Deftly, he tossed tea into the pot and glanced at the clock on the wall.

Then, like a dancer humming to the music under his breath, he tossed the ginger and onions in the big skillet and stirred; added garlic, sending the scent into the air; then added the chicken and a handful of frozen peas, stirring, stirring, his mouth pursed in a way that I knew I would think about. Watching him, I felt suddenly breathless with both gratitude and terror. What had I done, allowing myself to fall?