Rebel's Bargain

‘You did quite a job of stopping him yourself.’ Orsino refused to dwell on what might have happened. ‘That was some move you made. Where did you learn it?’

‘Self-defence classes.’

‘I’m glad you never had to use what you learned before now.’

His hand drifted over the curve of her waist. But instead of supple softness Poppy was rigid beneath his touch.

She’d been on edge ever since that scene in the ballroom. Despite her quick thinking in dealing with her attacker, she’d worn the glazed look of someone in shock.

His stomach curdled. ‘You haven’t needed any self-defence moves before, have you?’

The silence stretched into a yawning chasm. Orsino felt her quiver.

‘Poppy?’ He tried to see her face but she turned into his shoulder, her breathing uneven against his flesh.

‘It wouldn’t have done much good. I was just a kid. I don’t think I’d have been a match for him.’

‘Him?’ Orsino’s grip hardened and he forced himself to relax, lifting his hand to stroke her hair, though his insides roiled in churning frenzy.

A shuddering sigh broke from her.

‘My father.’

His belly turned into a lump of frigid metal. ‘He beat you?’ Orsino could barely form the words. His hand stilled, caught in her long tresses.

‘Usually my mother. But if I got in the way …’ She shrugged. ‘That’s why she sent me away to school, to keep me safe. She sold off her jewellery and the last of her inheritance from her parents to fund my boarding school.’

‘I—’ He swallowed, searching for words that just wouldn’t come. He pulled her closer. The rapid thump of her heart revealed how much the memory cost her.

‘But why?’ He knew there were violent men in the world. Hell, he’d helped establish shelters for their victims. Yet he couldn’t get his head around the fact Poppy was a victim, too.

‘Because he was a vicious bully?’ Shakily she laughed, the wretched sound tearing strips from his heart.

‘My mother always made excuses, saying, “If only you’d known him in the old days”. Apparently things changed when he lost the family money through bad investments. He kept the estate, just, but not the money. That’s when he took to drink. And when he drank he got angry and took it out on her.’

‘And you.’ His body vibrated in a surge of furious energy that had no outlet. The thought of her defenceless and battered skewered him with a razor-sharp blade.

‘Only a couple of times.’

‘A couple of times too many.’

‘Oh, Orsino.’ He felt the spill of dampness from her lashes like a brand on his skin.

He wasn’t good with tears. He’d never been adept at dealing with feelings or offering comfort. He’d tried when her mother died but Poppy had turned away, closing in on herself, rejecting him. An ice-cold hand squeezed his innards at the memory.

Clumsily Orsino patted at her head, wishing he could ease the hurt he felt in her tightly held body.

‘Is that why you took up modelling so young?’ Given her intelligence he’d been surprised she hadn’t finished school.

She nodded against his shoulder. ‘I wanted to be independent as soon as I could.’ Her voice was husky with the tears she held in check. ‘That was my goal from as early as I could remember. Earn money to make a new home for myself and my mother. Away from him.’

‘But she stayed with him.’

‘She loved him. Despite it all, she still cared. But she promised me …’

‘What?’ Orsino bent his head to hear. Poppy’s voice was a mere drift of sound.

‘She promised that one day she’d leave him. When I broke into the big time and had enough to support her. We had such plans.’ Her voice wobbled with pain. ‘The fun we’d have together. Just simple things, you know, but special to us. Those dreams kept me going. I’d always promised myself I’d make it up to her for all she’d been through.’

Orsino’s heart dived at the throb of anguish in her scratchy voice.

‘But she didn’t leave him,’ Orsino said. Poppy had already been a rising star when he’d met her, yet she’d lived alone.

‘No. He was diagnosed with a terminal illness just when I thought I’d convinced her to come away. She stayed—said he needed her.’ The pain and incredulity in Poppy’s voice told their own tale.

Orsino knew the rest. Her father had died just before their whirlwind wedding then in a brutal blow Poppy’s mother had outlived her husband by a mere few months.

He digested what Poppy had just shared.

He’d known she was distraught when her mother died. That had been obvious even to a man who’d never known a parent’s love, whose mother was a vague memory and whose father was too caught up in business and his own pleasure to connect with his children.