‘I emailed my mother and got a reply warning me about the dangers of disposable nappies.’
‘Their loss.’
And so it was, she realised as those two simple words sliced through the complex emotions she felt about her upbringing and pulverised the resentment and the pain. Finn was right. Her parents would never know her or him and they would never know their grandson, and that was their loss.
It wasn’t her fault that they’d been so undeserving of the role. However much she might have wondered over the years what she’d done wrong or what she could have done differently, the answer to that was nothing. The responsibility for her well-being had been entirely theirs.
Well, she was done with them and with looking back. She had to look forward. Her family was Josh now. Maybe even Finn too, who was perceptive and clever, who’d just shone a spotlight on the knotted mess of emotion she’d lived with for years and unravelled it in an instant and who was not a man to be underestimated. In any department.
Feeling strangely lightheaded while at the same time all warm and fuzzy, Georgie sat back and watched as he drained his glass, her gaze snagging on the strong column of his throat and the tantalising wedge of flesh that his open-necked shirt revealed.
‘So what was growing up like for you?’ she asked with a touch of huskiness that she cleared with a tiny cough. ‘It must have been tough not having a mother around.’
As he lowered his glass she saw a shadow pass over his face and a flash of bleakness in the depths of his eyes. ‘It wasn’t the easiest of times.’
‘Before that?’
‘I don’t really remember.’
‘How did your father cope?’
‘As well as could be expected.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I’d rather not.’
Fair enough. She was more than happy to back off. The afternoon was far too sunny for such sombre conversation and there was no need to push a topic that was clearly off limits. She and Finn had plenty of time to talk about histories and dreams. Years, in fact, she thought, the reality of what she’d agreed to hitting her suddenly and making her head swim for a moment. ‘Will you tell me about your business, then?’
‘Which bit of it?’
‘Well, how did it come about?’ she asked, thinking that, honestly, getting him to open up was like trying to get blood from a stone.
‘When I was eighteen and had left school I started working behind the bar of a club in the centre of the city.’
‘I bet you were good at it.’ With his darkly devastating looks and brooding charisma she had no doubt that people—well, women mainly—would have been tripping over themselves to be served by him.
‘I was,’ he said with the glimmer of a smile, the tension she could see gripping his shoulders easing a little. ‘I was very good at it. And more importantly I got a massive kick out of it.’
‘You didn’t want to go to university?’
‘I had a place at Oxford to read Maths but I gave it up.’
‘That was brave.’ University for her had been a lifeline and she’d loved it.
‘It was the arrogance of youth.’
‘Which in your case was justified.’
‘So it turned out. Six months later the club had become a go-to destination and hit all the A-lists. Soon after that the manager, who also owned it, fell ill. He had to take some time off and I stepped in. I started doing the books, figured out where savings could be made and margins improved, and wound up increasing the profits by fifty per cent. When it eventually came up for sale I bought it. I worked bloody hard and I expanded and diversified and things went from there.’
Admiration and awe surged through her. ‘And you did it all on your own.’
‘With the support of my father,’ he said, his mouth twisting slightly as his smile faded. ‘He lent me the money to buy the club in the first place, and gave me endless advice. He was an accountant and very shrewd.’
‘You must miss him.’
He didn’t answer, just looked so tortured for a moment that it tugged on her heartstrings. ‘Was it quick?’