A Debt Paid in Passion

by Dani Collins

  “I’ll always love him,” she said with a self-conscious shrug.

  The words rocked him onto his heels, like the back draft from a semitruck that nearly flattened him.

  “In a friend way. That’s all it ever was. A friend thing. Do you really need all the gory details?”

  “I do, yes,” he said through lips that felt stiff and cold. He wondered how he’d kept his wine from spilling, because he’d forgotten he held the glass. He moved to set it on an end table before giving Sirena his full attention, still reeling with shock when really, it wasn’t as if people living together was a scandal. He just hadn’t realized she had been so deeply involved with anyone. Ever.

  When he lifted his gaze to prompt her into continuing, a shadow of persecution clouded her expression.

  “It was a lonely time in my life. Amber was in Canada, my family had left for Australia. Stephan was the first boy who’d ever noticed me—”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Raoul interjected.

  “The first boy I’d ever noticed had noticed me, then. Maybe there were crushes before that, but I wasn’t allowed to go out when I was living at home—not even to spend the night at Amber’s, in case we snuck out to a party. My stepmother wasn’t having a pregnant teenager on her watch, so there were chores and a curfew and a little sister to babysit. When I enrolled at college, Stephan was the first boy I had the opportunity to spend time with. He was nice and I was romantic enough to spin it into more than it was.” She shrugged again, looking as though she wanted to end there.

  “It was obviously more if he proposed.”

  “That was impulse on his part. I decided to quit my degree and go with the business certificate so I could start earning proper money, rather than temping and doing transcription around my courses. He was afraid I’d meet someone else and I realized I wanted to, so we broke up.”

  Raoul felt a shred of pity for the man’s desperate measure that hadn’t paid off. At the same time, he was relieved, which unsettled him. He saw nothing but misery and remorse in her, though. “A puppy love relationship isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Why do you feel guilty?” he asked.

  “Because I hurt him. Part of me wonders if I wasn’t using him because I was broke and didn’t have anywhere else to turn. I didn’t mean to lead him on, but I did.”

  The buzzer announced David with their meals.

  Raoul turned to let him up, but all he could think was, You used me. Do you feel bad about that?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TYPICAL OF ANGELO’S welcoming charm as a restaurateur, he had sent along a single white rose with a silk ribbon tied to the stem. We’ve missed you, the tag read.

  Sirena stifled a pang of wistfulness as she picked up the budding flower from where it sat next to her plate and searched for a hint of scent in the tightly closed petals.

  David had brought the basket of chinaware and scrumptious smells to the table beside the pool, setting it out in a way she imagined he’d done for countless of Raoul’s paramours. Everything glittered, from the silver to the candles flames to the stars and city lights winking in the warm night air. Raoul set relaxing acoustic guitar music to come through the outdoor speakers and arrived with their glasses.

  His brows went up with silent inquiry.

  “Fast asleep,” Sirena answered. She had known Lucy would be, but checking on her had been a timely excuse to leave Raoul’s intense presence. She wasn’t sure she was ready to face him again.

  A distant beep sounded, signaling that David had left the apartment. They were alone again. Round two, she thought and reached for the wine Raoul set above her knife tip. He had topped up her glass, bringing the temperature of the pinot grigio down a degree so it soothed her throat as she drank.

  She hesitated to start eating, even though the food was Angelo’s typical appetizing fare of creamy pasta, bright peppers and fragrant basil. This wasn’t like all those other times when she and Raoul had a tablet or laptop between them and she had chewed between typing and answering calls. They’d never stood on ceremony while working, but this was anything but casual. More than ever, she was aware of Raoul’s potent masculinity, his quiet habits of sharp observation, his undeniable air of command.

  And she was hyperaware of her dolled-up attire, the way even Angelo seemed to know this was different and had added the extra touch of silver and china.

  This felt like a date.

  “Problem?” Raoul asked.

  She shook her head, chastising herself for falling into old fantasies of romance. “Just thinking I should put this in water,” she said, gesturing to the rose.

  “It can wait until we’ve eaten,” he said.

  He seemed to be waiting for her to start and that made her nervous. She searched for a neutral topic to break what felt like a tense silence. He spoke first.

  “Why didn’t you go to Australia with your family?”

  Oh, hell, they were going there, were they? It wasn’t enough to pry open the oyster, making her feel as though her protective shell was snapped in half and left with jagged edges. No, he wanted to poke a finger into her vulnerable center and see if there was a pearl in there, one glossed over for years, but gritty as obsidian at its heart.

  She licked sauce from the corner of her mouth, stating plainly, “I wasn’t invited.”

  He lowered his fork as his brilliant mind absorbed what was a logical and sensible answer, yet didn’t make sense at all. He frowned. “Why weren’t you invited?”

  She held back a rude snort at a question she’d never been able to answer. Picking up the napkin off her lap, she dried her lips, wondering if she’d be able to get through this plate of food when her appetite was fading so quickly.

  “I had just started school,” she said, offering the excuse Faye, her stepmother, had used. “My father had given me some money toward tuition, about the same amount as airfare. It didn’t make sense to throw it away.”

  “So you were given a choice between school and going with them?”

  “No.” She couldn’t help the bluster of resentment that hardened the word. Old, angry tension started clenching up her insides and she had to make a conscious effort not to let it take her over. Picking up her fork, she deflected the subject a little.

  “This is why I was looking forward to dinner with Amber. She knows my history with my stepmother and lets me vent about whatever is bothering me, without my having to lay the groundwork and examine how much is my fault and whether I’m being paranoid. Amber takes my side, which is refreshing, whereas if I try to explain it all to you—” she waved a hand toward him, feeling herself getting worked up, but unable to stop it “—you’ll be like Stephan and say maybe Faye didn’t mean it that way, that I’m being oversensitive and her reasons make sense and I’m misinterpreting. Her reasons always make sense, Raoul. That’s the beauty of her dictatorship.”

  Oh, God, shut up, Sirena.

  She clenched her teeth, intending to drop the subject, but she couldn’t hide the way her hand trembled as she tried to twirl noodles onto the tines of her fork.

  “Why don’t you give me an example,” he suggested in a tone that echoed with reasonability, as though he were trying to talk a crazy person off a window ledge.

  Sirena crammed too big a bite into her mouth, but he waited her out, saying nothing as she chewed and swallowed. The pasta went down like a lump of coal, acrid and coarse.

  “For instance,” she said tightly, “when I was so pregnant and swollen I could hardly get myself out of bed, worried I would die, I asked if my sister could come and was told that my father’s plumbing business had fallen off and Ali had exams and the doctors were keeping an eye on Faye’s thyroid so the timing really didn’t work.”

  She glanced up to see a frozen expression on his face. “You should have called me.”

  A pang of anguish struck. She’d been tempted a million times, but replied, “The people who were supposed to love and care about me wouldn’t come. What was the point in asking
you?”

  He jerked back as if she’d thrown her pasta in his face.

  She looked away, trying to hide the fact she was growing teary over old conflicts that would never be resolved. Her stepmother cared nothing for her while she, Sirena, loved her father and sister. There was nothing that could be done except manage the situation.

  After a few seconds, he inquired in a stiff tone, “What about Amber? Why didn’t you call her, if you’re such good friends?”

  “She’s in a wheelchair.” She cleared the huskiness from her throat. “Which isn’t to say she wouldn’t have been a help, but my flat is a walk-up and she has other health problems. That’s what brought her to London. She’s seeing a specialist then heading straight home.”

  His silence rang with pointed surprise. “I really don’t know anything about you.”

  She wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes until he asked, “Your father wasn’t worried about you?”

  “Of course, but he remarried because he didn’t know what to do with a little girl. He wasn’t about to play midwife to a grown woman.”

  “And your sister? She can’t make her own decisions?”

  Sirena let out a poignant sigh, bristling at his judgment because if he didn’t understand Ali’s vulnerability and how much she needed support, he’d never understand why she’d taken his money for the young woman.

  “Ali’s young for her age. She struggles in school, so exams are a real issue for her. Pitting her against her mother has never seemed right, no matter how much I’ve wanted to. I adore her like I can’t even tell you and I miss her terribly. I practically raised her. Faye wouldn’t change a nappy if I was around to do it. Homework was me, running flash cards and spelling lists. The questions about puberty and sex and buying her first bra all came to me. But they left nearly eight years ago and I haven’t seen her since. Faye had been cooking up the move the whole time I was applying to school, never mentioning it until my plans were sealed. Tell me that’s not small-minded and hurtful.”

  “You could have gone to see them.”

  “Oh, with all my spare time working two jobs while studying? Or do you mean after you hired me? Go all the way to Australia for one of those generous single weeks you’d allow me? Every time I asked for more than five days you’d get an expression on your face like you were passing a kidney stone. I tried taking a stretch after that trade fair in Tokyo, but the database melted down in Brussels, remember? I had to cancel.”

  A muscle ticked in his cheek. “You might have explained the circumstances.”

  “To what end, Raoul? You never once showed the least bit of interest in my private life. You wanted an extension of your laptop, not a living, breathing woman.”

  “Because you were my employee,” he bit out, pushing away from the table in a minor explosion.

  She’d seen him reach the limit of his patience, but usually within the context of a business deal going south. To have that aggressive male energy aimed at her made her sit very still, but he wasn’t throwing his anger at her. He paced to the edge of the pool, where he shoved his hands into his pockets and scowled into the eerie glow of the blue-green depths.

  “You have no idea what it’s like to lust after your coworker, knowing that’s the one person off-limits.”

  I beg to differ, she thought, but swallowed it back because... She shook her head. “How can you say something like that when you made it quite clear—”

  “I know what I said that day. Stop throwing it in my face,” he growled. “Why do you think I let it go so far so fast in Oxshott? I’d been thinking about it for two solid years. And the next day—” he gestured in frustration “—the very next day, I found you’d been stealing. You betrayed my trust and you used me. What the hell was I supposed to say? Admit you’d hurt me? It was too humiliating.”

  She’d hurt him?

  No. She didn’t let herself believe it, not after all these months of scouring the joy and tenderness from her memories, reframing it as a meaningless one-afternoon stand. Maybe in her mind their day in Oxshott had been special, but all he was saying was that he’d had sexual feelings for her while she’d been employed by him. That was only a fraction more personal than being handy. His ego had been damaged, not his heart.

  “I was trying to behave like a professional as well,” she said thinly. “Not dragging my personal life into the office. I don’t see the point in sharing it now.” She plucked her napkin from her lap and dropped it beside her plate. “You still don’t care and I still can’t see my family.”

  “What makes you think I don’t care?” he swung around to challenge.

  His naked look of strong emotion was a spear straight into her heart. She averted her gaze, tempted to dissect what sort of feelings underpinned his intense question, but refusing to. That way lay madness.

  “Don’t,” she said through a tight throat. “You hate me and I’m fine with that because I hate you, too.” Liar, a voice whispered in her head, but she ignored it along with the hiss of his sharp inhale. “Let’s just keep things as honest as possible. For Lucy’s sake.”

  It was hard to look at him, but she made herself do it. Made herself look him in the eye and face his hatred with stillness and calm while she wrapped tight inner arms around her writhing soul.

  “I wish it was that simple.” He surged forward to grip the back of his chair. “I want to hate you, but now I understand why you felt you couldn’t come to me. You didn’t know I was acting uninterested to curb my attraction, but it was there all along.”

  She recoiled, swinging from disbelief to heart-pounding excitement to intense hurt that he had treated her the way he had regardless of having feelings for her. They weren’t very strong if he could behave like that, were they?

  Speaking very carefully, crushing her icy fingers together in her lap, she stated the obvious. “Lust is not caring, Raoul.”

  He straightened to an arrogant height.

  “No, listen,” she rushed on, fearing he thought she was begging for affection. “I didn’t think one hookup meant we were getting married and living happily ever after. I’m just saying I thought you had some respect and regard for me. But even a dismissal slip would have been better than having me arrested without speaking to me. That was...”

  She faltered. He was staring at her with an expression that had gone stony. Steeling herself, she forced herself to continue, even though her voice thinned.

  “Discovering I was pregnant, knowing they’d take the baby from me in prison—” She stood in a shaken need to retreat, very afraid she was going to start to cry as the memories closed in. “Even my stepmother didn’t go that far to hurt me.”

  “I didn’t know you were pregnant,” he reminded her ferociously.

  “Exactly! And if you did, you would have gone easy for the baby’s sake, not mine. You didn’t care about me. Not one bit.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RAOUL FELT AS though he was pacing in London’s infamous fog. The walls of his penthouse were clear enough, the sky beyond the windows dull with a high ceiling, but his mind wouldn’t grasp a lucid concept. He kept replaying everything Sirena had said last night, which had him writhing in a miasma of regret and agitation.

  Lucy squirmed in his hold.

  He paused to look at her, certain she must be picking up his tension. That’s why she was so unsettled. He was pacing one end of his home to the other trying to soothe her, but neither of them was finding any peace.

  How peaceful would Sirena have felt pacing a twelve-by-twelve cell?

  His stomach churned.

  He hadn’t let himself dwell on that picture when he’d been trying to put her away, but now he couldn’t get it out of his head. Vibrant Sirena who craned her neck with excited curiosity from the airport to the business center in every city they visited, locked in a cage of gray brick and cold bars.

  You hate me and I’m fine with that because I hate you, too.

/>   “What are you doing in here?”

  Her voice startled him, causing a ripple of pleasure-pain down his spine. He blinked, becoming aware he’d wandered into the small flat off the main one. It was meant for a housekeeper or nanny, but stood empty because his maid service came daily to his city residence.

  “Just something different for her to look at.” He stopped rubbing Lucy’s back and changed her position so she could see her mother. “She’s fussy.”

  Sirena’s brow crinkled as she took in the rumpled clothes he’d been wearing since their unfinished dinner by the pool.

  His neutral expression felt too heavy on his cheekbones, but he balked at letting her see the more complex emotions writhing in him—uncertainty and yearning that went beyond the simply sexual. Pain. There was a searing throb inside him he couldn’t seem to identify or ease.

  “Have you been up all night? You should have brought her to me.” She came forward to take the baby and was greeted with rooting kisses all over her face. She laughed with tender surprise, a sound that his angry attempt to jail her would have silenced forever. His heart shriveled in his chest.

  “Did Daddy forget to feed you?” she murmured as she moved to the sofa.

  “I tried a few minutes ago. She wasn’t interested.” His voice rasped.

  She flinched at his rough tone, and flicked him an uncertain glance. “Giving him a hard time, are you?” She shrugged out of one side of her robe and dropped the strap of her tank top down her arm to expose her breast.

  He had walked in on her feeding so many times she was no longer self-conscious about it. He didn’t think of it as sexual, but seeing her feed their daughter affected him. It was the softness that overcame Sirena. Her fingers gently swirled Lucy’s dark hair into whorls as the baby relaxed and made greedy noises. Her expression brimmed with such maternal love his breastbone ached.

  He hadn’t known she was pregnant when he’d pushed for jail time, but she had. She must have been terrified. While he, the first person she should have been able to rely on, had been the last person she would ever consider calling.