by Lucy King
He ruthlessly ignored those memories clamouring to be let out of the cupboard he kept them locked in and nodded once. ‘Yes.’
Her eyes seemed to suddenly blaze. ‘Who?’
‘My father,’ he said, totally in control, his voice utterly devoid of emotion as he relayed the facts. ‘I grew up on the roughest estate in west London. We had virtually no money. Dad lost his job as a builder when he fell off a ladder on a construction site just after I was born. He never worked again. My mother was a cleaner. What little she brought in he drank, along with most of the benefits. When he’d had too much he threw things. Plates. Cups. Glasses. Anything he could lay his hands on. And when he’d run out of things to smash he took his frustrations out mainly on her, sometimes on me. Punches and kicks were his speciality.’
For a moment Kate didn’t say anything, and Theo could understand her silence. What he’d just told her, the implications of it, was a lot to process. ‘Did anyone know?’ she asked eventually, her voice oddly gruff.
‘No.’
‘Does anyone know?’
‘No.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He died,’ he said bluntly. ‘Five years ago.’ As the next of kin, he’d received the call. When he’d heard the news he’d felt nothing.
‘And your mother?’
‘She had a brain haemorrhage three years before that. Caused by him, I suspect, but the evidence was inconclusive.’
‘She stayed with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
His chest tightened for the briefest of moments and memory and emotion flared before he got a grip and shut both down. ‘I don’t know. Initially I assumed it was because she had no means of escape or subsequent support.’ But it hadn’t been because she’d refused every one of the many offers he’d made.
‘Is your early business success any coincidence?’
‘No.’
‘You made a lot of money fast.’
‘By the time I was sixteen I’d amassed enough to support us both. I had it all set up.’
‘What happened?’
‘She refused to come with me. She didn’t want to leave him.’
She stared at him in growing disbelief. ‘So you left on your own?’
‘Yes,’ he said bluntly, as a familiar dull stab of guilt hit him in the chest. ‘I realise I should have stayed.’
‘No. I don’t mean that,’ she said, suddenly so fierce that it sent a shaft of warmth burning through the ice inside him. ‘I mean, how could she not have gone with you?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said unflinchingly since he’d learned to live with the fact that that was a question to which he would never know the answer a long time ago.
‘I can’t imagine what your childhood must have been like,’ she said, her eyes filling with compassion that he neither wanted nor needed.
‘I wouldn’t ever want you to,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to.’
She went very still. ‘Is there any reason why they should?’
‘Abuse engenders abuse.’
She stared at him, growing paler, other emotions that he couldn’t begin to identify mingling with the compassion. ‘Not necessarily.’
‘The chances are high.’
‘But not inevitable, surely.’
‘It’s a risk I will never be willing to take.’
‘But—’
‘No, Kate,’ he interrupted, holding up a hand. ‘Don’t. I don’t want to discuss it. I just wanted to explain what happened earlier. And to reassure you that you are in no danger from me. You have nothing to fear. I will make sure of that. There is no need to refer to the subject again. It needn’t affect anything. It mustn’t. I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.’
* * *
Needn’t affect anything? Kate thought, watching Theo walk out and close the door behind him while she tried to process everything he’d just revealed. How could he possibly think that? How could he think any of it? Most of all, how could he ever believe that she had something to fear from him? She’d experienced many, many emotions since she’d met him, but fear hadn’t been one of them and never would be.
What he’d told her did affect things. Hugely. If he laboured under the heartbreaking impression that he might somehow be capable of harming her and the baby, it was no wonder he’d displayed such a lack of interest in and engagement with her pregnancy. And it certainly threw light on his fierce drive to succeed.
How had he ever got over his mother’s rejection? she wondered, her throat tight and her eyes stinging as she struggled to process everything he’d said. Perhaps he hadn’t. Did anyone? She’d learned to live without her mother, but her mother hadn’t had a choice. His had, and she’d abandoned him. He’d had no siblings. He’d been all alone.
How tough and determined he had to have been in order to survive. How strong and resilient. It would hardly be surprising if that need for self-preservation was still deeply ingrained. She had first-hand experience of how old habits died hard. What had happened clearly continued to affect him. The way he’d presented her with the facts with such little emotion had spoken volumes, and it tugged on her heartstrings.
So where did she go from here? Should she try and make him see that history didn’t have to repeat itself? That he posed no threat and that he could absolutely be a part of their child’s life? Or should she leave well alone? On the one hand, she owed it to their child to at least try, but on the other, Theo had made it very clear that the subject was closed, and it was far too sensitive an issue for her to bulldoze her way through.
Whatever the options, now was not the time to subject him to her amateur psychology, she knew. This deal he was pursuing might well be wrapped up in his sense of self-worth and the need to prove something, and now she understood a bit more about why, there was nothing she would do to jeopardise it. So no matter how much she thought he needed to talk to someone about the trauma he’d suffered, no matter how much she wished she could help, all she could do was pretend that the last half an hour hadn’t happened and carry on as if nothing had changed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE TERRACE OF the Villa San Michele, the venue for the Bridgemans’ golden wedding anniversary party, which was in full swing, had been spared no expense. Lights had been strung in and between the trees and around the railings. At one end, a buffet had been set up, the long wide trestle table laden with salads and cold meats and cheeses. A string quartet was playing something light and cheerful at the other, and in between a fountain tinkled with water that shimmered with gold dust. Earlier, boats sped across the lake that sparkled beneath the setting sun, delivering guests whose diamonds sparkled in the softening light and whose languages included English, Italian and who knew how many others. Now, champagne and conversation flowed and joy and sentimentality abounded.
It was absolutely the last place Theo wanted to be.
The noise was giving him a headache and the sense of suffocation that had dogged him all day was intensifying, tightening his collar and covering his skin in a cold sweat. He needed solitude. Time and space to deal with the fallout from last night. Because while he’d had no option but to share with Kate the basic details of his upbringing, he had the stomach-curdling feeling that by giving her a piece of himself he’d put into play something that couldn’t be stopped. Look at the plan he’d made for the free day they had tomorrow, which served no practical purpose and was in no way necessary other than to assuage the guilt he felt about the sacrifice she’d had to make this weekend because of him, which should not have bothered him but did.
He had the feeling impending doom was hurtling towards him, and for the first time in over a decade he was in the petrifying position of facing a situation for which he had no strategy.
If only he could block Kate out the way he blocked out anything that threatened his
peace of mind. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t had enough to focus on today with the intense all-day meetings he’d had with Daniel.
But he couldn’t. She invaded his thoughts without warning and he seemed to be constantly tuned to her frequency. Such as earlier this evening when he’d been standing on the terrace of the guest house, looking out over the lake as he waited for her to emerge. He’d left the house at daybreak after a sleepless night and hadn’t seen her since, and he’d been brooding about how she would now respond to him. Would she believe that she had nothing to fear from him? Or would she view him with doubt and suspicion?
His entire body had started prickling with awareness, alerting him to her presence behind him, and he’d experienced a rare moment of hesitation before turning. But her gaze had been clear and she’d been wearing a smile that had hit him in the solar plexus, and the relief that she seemed to be all right had been indescribable.
That awareness had not faded. At every second of every minute of the last couple of hours he’d instinctively known where Kate was when she wasn’t with him. The magnetic pull of her was irresistible and he was finding it increasingly hard to stop himself clamping her to his side and keeping there.
The way she’d called him darling and wrapped her arm around his waist when they’d been talking to the Bridgemans earlier hadn’t helped. Why had she done that? She hadn’t before. Didn’t she know how close to the edge of losing it he was? How sick and tired he was of fighting the desire he felt for her? How much he wanted another night, two, with her before they went their separate ways?
If she’d had any inkling how close this evening he’d been to grabbing her hand and hauling her back to the guest villa she’d have been shocked. She wouldn’t be sipping champagne and laughing as she chatted with an ease he could only envy. She’d be making arrangements to leave just as soon as was humanly possible. And he’d be cheering her on. Because he didn’t like the way she made him feel. He didn’t like the desire and the need slithering around inside him, rushing through his blood, making a mockery of his reason and battering his defences.
He particularly didn’t like the way the guy she was talking to was leaning towards her. Or looking at her, for that matter. As if he was dazzled. Had the man no respect? What the hell was he thinking? Kate was his fiancée. His.
And yet Theo couldn’t blame him for wanting to get close. She was blinding. The gold silk dress she had on was tight, which emphasised her phenomenal curves, and strapless, which revealed an expanse of sun-kissed skin that he ached to touch. It was knee-length and split to the thigh on one side, which left her lovely long legs exposed, and as for the stilettos she was wearing, well, those had him thinking of her naked beneath him with the spikes digging into his back.
The confidence she exuded tonight surrounded her like some kind of aura. She was enjoying herself, holding herself tall, as if she didn’t care any more about her height or what anyone thought of her. She was no longer afraid, he realised with a start. No longer ashamed. Was she aware of the seismic transformation she’d undergone? Did she know how mind-blowingly attractive she was?
He did.
And as she laughed at something the man she was talking to said, everything in Theo’s head disappeared beneath a wave of such intense desire it nearly took out his knees. The concern about what Kate might think of him... The terrifying notion that his grip on his control was weakening and that everything he’d spent so long building was about to implode... It all slipped away until all he was left with was a primitive need to claim and possess. And while on one level he realised he was allowing desire to surge and swell to such an extent it overwhelmed more complicated matters, on another he simply no longer cared.
* * *
Oh, dear Lord, Theo was coming over.
Up until this point Kate thought she’d been doing really rather well. Although she’d been aware of his gaze on her all evening, burning her up, making her unable to properly follow any of the conversations she’d been having, she’d just about managed to keep her cool.
How, though, she had no idea. She was by no means firing on all cylinders. She hadn’t slept well. She’d ached too hard for the boy Theo had been and the man he’d become. When she thought about what he must have suffered...well, she didn’t know and she wanted to, so after a few fitful hours she’d fired up her laptop and researched it, which had been a mistake because what she read tore at her heart.
She’d barely registered him leave the villa at dawn—she’d been in too much of a state—but she’d spent the rest of the morning in limbo, the hours dragging while her mind raced. She’d swum and sunbathed, caught up on the news and replied to a few emails, and then had lunch with Mrs Bridgeman, but she hadn’t been able to concentrate through any of it, not even her hostess’s cross-questioning about how she and Theo had met and her enthusiastic interest in their non-existent wedding plans, which somehow she’d managed to muddle her way through.
She hadn’t seen Theo until she’d found him waiting for her on the terrace of their villa earlier this evening. She’d noted the tension in the rigidity of his shoulders and the lines of his tall, powerful frame, and at that moment all she’d wanted to do was hug him. Comfort him. Which was absurd since he didn’t need her or anyone and she was supposed to be pretending last night hadn’t happened, but there it was.
And when he’d turned round, looking so darkly, smoulderingly handsome in his black dinner jacket and white shirt it had stolen her breath, it hadn’t been simple desire that thumped her in the gut. It had been something deeper and more intense. Something that grabbed hold of her heart and squeezed and made her think of that slippery slope she’d been so wary of. The lines that defined their relationship were blurring, and if she wasn’t very careful indeed she’d be careering headlong down it.
Assuming she wasn’t already, of course.
Worryingly, the fact that Theo had blackmailed her into this whole thing no longer seemed to matter quite as much as it once had. Those feelings she’d been so worried about had smashed through the flimsy dam of her resistance and were flowing through her, hot and fierce. And now he was striding towards her, his expression focused entirely on her, dark and forbidding, and her whole body was alive with anticipation. Shivers ran up and down her spine. Her pulse galloped. And she had the dizzying sinking feeling that she’d been waiting all evening for this moment, the moment he came to claim her.
With a murmured, ‘Excuse me,’ she moved away from the man she’d been talking to just as Theo came to a stop a foot in front of her. His eyes were dark and glittering with a hint of uncharacteristic wildness, and her mouth went dry.
‘Dance with me,’ he said, his voice so low and rough it was practically a growl.
Her pulse leapt, the tightly leashed hunger she could hear in his tone sending heat straight to her centre and detonating tiny explosions along her veins. ‘I don’t think that would be wise,’ she murmured, swallowing hard and thinking that quite apart from anything else she never knew what to do with her arms and always worried she’d fall flat on her face.
His gaze darkened. ‘I do.’
‘Because it would look good?’
‘No.’
‘Then why?’
‘Because I want to.’
Oh.
Well, so did she. Quite desperately. The sultry beat of the music that had replaced the string quartet was thudding through her body. The way he was looking at her was scrambling her senses. To hell with humiliating herself. She wanted to touch him in ways that were wholly inappropriate off the dance floor but entirely acceptable on it and the best thing was, he would never know. ‘Then let’s dance.’
Theo didn’t need telling twice. He held out a hand and she took it and he led her onto the dance floor. And as he drew her into the circle of his arms, nothing at that moment seemed as important as his hands on her back, searing th
rough the fabric of her dress and setting her on fire. Nor did anything seem as necessary as touching him. So she put her hands on his chest, the way his muscles tensed beneath her palms sending heat shooting through her, and slid them up and around his neck.
As they swayed in time to the music, she realised that the worst thing that could happen on a dance floor wasn’t falling flat on her face. It was losing her mind. Because she couldn’t help responding to the strength and hardness of his body and pressing closer. She couldn’t help wishing they were alone so that she could get him naked and touch some more.
So what was to be done?
If the feral look in his eye and the thick, hard length pressing insistently against her were anything to go by he wanted her as much as she wanted him. But ever since that no kissing, no touching condition she’d hit him with he’d been careful about where and how he touched her, which meant that unfortunately it was unlikely he’d simply haul her off to have his wicked way with her.
Did she have the guts to suggest it herself? What would he think if she did? Yes, he obviously wanted her but she’d never met anyone with such control. What if she indicated she’d like a repeat of that evening in his office and he turned her down? Maybe she should steal a kiss, she thought dazedly, staring at his mouth and feeling her lips tingle. He wouldn’t be able to reject that, not when they were in the possible presence of the person they were here to fool.
Fevered tension filled what little space there was between them, and the air sizzled and suddenly she couldn’t bear it any longer. His mouth was mere centimetres from hers and all she could think about was how it would feel on hers and how desperate she was to find out.
Desire swept through her, drowning out reason and common sense until all that was left was instinct. Helpless to stop herself, she lifted her face and moved her head forward and touched her lips to his and it was dizzying until she realised he’d gone utterly rigid and was not responding and that headiness turned to excoriating mortification.