He held her still. ‘Stay.’
‘No, I shouldn’t—’
‘Reliving the past was bound to resurrect bad memories for you. Don’t be distressed for needing a shoulder to lean on sometimes. We both know you’re strong when you need to be.’
Her laughter was harsh and one hundred per cent self-deprecating. This time when she pulled away, he let her. Rising on her knees, she brushed away the last of her tears and faced him. ‘Strong? If I was I wouldn’t have left it another three years after her death to finally seek answers. I wouldn’t be giving in to my father’s demands for a bribe just so I find out how my own mother died. That doesn’t make me strong!’
A muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘We try to find answers the best way we can.’
She spiked her fingers through her hair, bewilderment raging high. ‘I don’t know why you’re trying to make me feel better, Javier. If it hadn’t been for me, your mother would be resting in peace by now.’
One corner of his mouth lifted in a grim smile. ‘That was your father’s doing, not yours. I was hacked off when I lumped you in with him. You can’t be held accountable for his failures. For my part, trying to afford my mother some peace now doesn’t alter the fact that I left her with Fernando for years, distanced myself as far away as I could.’
‘You left because you wanted to make a better life for both of you,’ she countered.
‘Sí, but also because a part of me was disappointed that she wanted so very little for herself. That she was too weak to break away from his poisonous presence. No matter where she was in the world, she pined for him. It was a weakness I didn’t understand. So in the end, I left her to it. And she died alone.’
Tears she’d thought were long spent clogged her throat again. ‘So you’re saying we deserve this anguish we’re both going through?’
A heavy shrug. ‘We can accept our part in the theatre of our lives, even flog ourselves daily for it. But you can’t lose yourself because of it.’ His smile turned grimmer. ‘Or let those rightly responsible get away with it.’
A cold shiver went through her. She might have fooled herself into believing she’d found common ground with Javier. That the shoulder he’d lent her had come without strings. As she watched him reach for her, she knew how wrong she’d been.
He might understand her plight, might even empathise on some level, but he still held her responsible for a large degree of his unresolved issues with his father.
And for that, she would continue to pay with her body.
Heart slamming hard in her lungs, and desperate not to let him see how his final words had affected her, she slid her arms around his neck as he rose from the bed and headed to the large, marble-floored bathroom.
‘So...what now?’
‘We take a shower and then I take you for an early lunch.’
* * *
Javier couldn’t get to the bottom of his fury long enough to gain proper control of it. Hell, he could barely see past the red haze that crossed his vision each time he thought of what Olivio Nardozzi had, and continued to, put his daughter through.
He’d made love to Carla in the shower with an edge of rage he knew she’d felt. She’d been with him every step of the way, but he’d glimpsed the shaken look in her eyes afterwards as they’d dressed.
He’d known the other man was as self-centred and avaricious as they came, perhaps even more so than his own father—which was saying something—but he’d never imagined Olivio would put his own child through such raw turmoil.
As he navigated his sports car along the highway towards South Beach, he suppressed a crude curse. He’d spent the night mos
tly awake and had hated himself for it because he’d dreaded the morning would bring a repeat of Carla’s rejection three years ago. What he hadn’t expected was a wild swing in the opposite direction, a dropping of her guard and a complete baring of her soul that had left a previously unknown part of him touched and reeling. A part he didn’t want to examine, much as he didn’t want to examine the real reason he’d instigated this whole thing with Carla in the first place.
He glanced over at her, satisfaction pulsing through him that the subject of her and Angelis had finally been put to rest. Truth be told, now jealousy was no longer blinding him, he could see that Angelis had only ever been looking out for her. And three years ago, Carla hadn’t actually come right out and confessed that she was in love with her agent, had she? Looking back, he realised it was the deeper effect of her father’s actions that had fuelled his need for vengeance.
And even that need was dissipating.
She returned his gaze and he lost his train of thought as his eyes drifted over her.
Her stretchy cream dress ended a good few inches above her thighs, showing off her slim legs in a mouth-watering expanse of light golden flesh. The material skimmed her curves in a way that made his palms itch to follow each thread of cotton, and Javier was ridiculously jealous of the seat belt that rested between her breasts. As he watched, she twitched beneath his scrutiny, her hand lifting to tuck back the hair shifting in the breeze of his open-top car.
A different sort of turbulence attacked him, this time much lower in his body but equally insistent. And equally unsettling. Carla hadn’t been far off in her accusation that his sexual liaisons were fleeting at worst and a step above short term at best. He certainly didn’t crave any woman he dated after having her as many times as he’d had Carla in the last twelve hours. Yet, his body’s continual reaction to her threatened to reduce him to hormonal teenager status.
‘Are you going to spend the entire journey in silence?’ she asked, her voice a touch shaky, he knew, from the thick, aggressive vibes he was throwing out.
He opened his mouth to respond in a way that would ease her agitation—another first for him—but then his gaze touched on her bound wrist. ‘Your lawyers have been in touch about Blackwell’s trial?’ It wasn’t really a question that required an answer. He’d kept up to date on what was happening with the ex-trainer in Italy.