Knowing You by Maureen Child

Author:Maureen Child
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466891036
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER TWELVE

NICK PUSHED THE END button on the cordless black phone, but he didn’t set it back into its cradle. Instead, he held on to it as if it were still a link to his brother. His family. To someone outside this chrome-and-mirrored nightmare that was his home.

He glanced around the room, his gaze drifting across the black leather couch, the glass coffee table, and the bizarre alienlike artificial flower arrangement the decorator had picked out. There wasn’t a rounded corner or a soft spot in the whole place. Even his bed was a futuristic slab surrounded by tall silver spires.

And he hated it all.

Instantly a memory of Paul’s comfortable home leaped into his mind. Funny, how he’d never noticed before just how well Paul had done. Before, Nick had always been too busy enjoying his own life to think about his twin’s. Now that he didn’t have a damn thing to think about, he had more than enough time to realize that Paul was doing way better than he was.

And this god-awful apartment just defined their differences.

Nick couldn’t remember ever actually liking the place. But then, until recently, he hadn’t spent much time here. And in the last few weeks he’d spent entirely too much time here.

Jumping to his feet, he tossed the phone onto the couch as he passed it on the way to the terrace. He stepped through the French doors and instantly squinted into the rising wind.

Three floors below his condo, cars streamed along the street; people strolled and talked and laughed. Restaurants shone brightly in the darkness, lamplight lying like scattered gold pebbles on the ground. The sounds of traffic were muffled three floors up, and the silence was empty.

What he missed was the sound of the ocean. The steady, rhythmic slap of waves on the shore, sounding like a heartbeat. Here in San Jose, the night sounds were so different from Chandler. Here the streets were lit up and people were out on the town half the night. In Chandler, there was … quiet. There was time to think—even when you didn’t really want to be doing any thinking. And at home there was the ocean. Wild, untamed by docks and jetties and tourists on their Ski-Doos.

But he hadn’t lived in Chandler in years. Why was it suddenly sounding so damn great again? Nick bent down, leaned his forearms on the iron railing, and told himself he was really slipping.

“What is wrong with this picture?” he asked himself, his own voice sounding way too loud in the stillness. “Paul’s in bed with some babe, Stevie’s out on the town, and Nick Candellano is sitting home alone.”

Shaking his head, he straightened up, curled his fingers around the cold, damp iron, and tightened his grip. Stevie. Who was she seeing? Why did he care? It wasn’t any of his business what Stevie did. Hell, she’d made it plain enough that they were in the past. He knew it as well as she did. But even after

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