‘There was a period in my life after I learnt I would never drive again professionally that I...’ His sooty lashes swept downwards, concealing his eyes from her as he delivered a dry smile. ‘Let’s just say that adrenaline is addictive and I took some risks.’
Anna, recognising an understatement when she heard it, went icy cold. The images the comment evoked made the hairs on her nape stand on end.
‘I had taken delivery of a new car that day and... Was I trying to prove something?’
It seemed to Anna, who watched as he shrugged, his lips curving into a self-contemptuous smile as he considered the motivation of his younger self, that he was almost talking to himself, asking himself the questions, not her.
‘Well, either way, I took a tight bend too fast—something an amateur or a boy racer would do—and ended in a river. I took a blow to the head and lost consciousness.’
The blow to the head had resulted in the bleed on the brain that had necessitated the doctors operating to relieve the pressure. The full, utter selfishness of his action had been brought home to him when Angel told him later that the doctors had been unable to confirm until he had woken up with the mother of all headaches that there would be no permanent brain damage.
Anna pressed a hand to her stomach and swallowed. Her reaction to this story was physical.
‘But you did get out.’ Stupid question, Anna. He was sitting here looking very much alive. In fact the most alive person she had ever met; his vitality had a combustible quality.
For once he let her stupidity pass without comment. ‘Paul happened to be following behind. We’d been friends at school but lost touch and gone in different directions. If we hadn’t then bumped into each other in the casino the previous evening, who knows? He saw it all and didn’t hesitate. He dived in and fished me out.’
Anna released a shuddering breath and abandoned her hunched defensive position. It was hardly surprising, given the story, that he had been so stubborn in championing his friend.
‘That was brave of him.’
The dark brooding expression in his silvered eyes became gently mocking as they swept her face. ‘I thought he was a monster?’
‘Not a monster, just selfish and cruel, but even monsters are capable of bravery on occasion, I admit that. Your friend saved your life.’ And had been milking it ever since, she speculated, finding charity hard to come by when it came to this man. ‘But he almost took Rosie’s.’
Cesare arched a brow, his stormy grey eyes narrowing to slits. ‘Isn’t that a little dramatic? Broken hearts are rarely fatal.’
His mockery hit her on the raw and the bitter words were out before she could check them. ‘When a bottle of painkillers and half a bottle of vodka are involved they can be.’
An awful realisation hit Cesare. ‘Your cousin attempted to take her life?’
Regretting her words, Anna leaned towards him, reaching out in a gesture of unconscious fluttering appeal. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. Nobody knows. Not her parents, not anyone,’ she told him urgently.
She appeared to think it likely that he was about to expose her cousin’s secret. Cesare swallowed the insult and tore his eyes off the fluttering hand that had somehow got itself sandwiched between his two.
How did that happen?
As the small hand curled tight within his, Cesare was conscious of an emotional response shaking loose in his belly. It was anger, he decided, anger that the older cousin had selfishly placed this burden of secrecy on Anna’s shoulders. Admittedly Rosie had been young at the time but that meant that Anna had been even younger.
Her eyes remained on his but Cesare had the impression it was not him she was seeing as she began to recite in a strange monotone flatness a story that he assumed she had never told anyone.
‘I was still living at home. Rosie had her first flat. I was really envious,’ she recalled with a sad reminiscent smile. ‘I’d arranged to go that night to pick up some...’ She shook her head and slid a sideways glance at Cesare; his expression told her nothing. ‘That doesn’t matter, but she’d forgotten I was coming and...’ Her voice faded as she saw the scene again, the pills scattered over the table, the vodka spilled. The air had been thick with a sour smell—Rosie had been violently sick at one point, a circumstance which, according to the staff in the casualty department, had saved her from any long-term damage.
It was while she had sat with Rosie in the hospital cubicle, a thin curtain separating them from the chaos of a busy Saturday night of an inner-city casualty unit, waiting for the psychiatric consult the hospital insisted on before they would discharge her, that she heard the full story. Rosie had known it was wrong because he was married but she loved him and he loved her. He had told her so often and he was so wonderful.