Discomfort clawed at her innards. Alessandro didn’t know the subtle ways in which her foster father had undermined her over the years. How did she explain something so complex? Explain that something so important had been shredded by stealth over time? By subtle comments and control?
‘There’s physical force, but then there’s the more emotional kind...’ Her throat tightened, shame silencing her. She hated her powerlessness, her lack of real strength.
The remnants of his smile faded as he watched her struggle to finish her sentence. ‘Your supposed debt to Susan?’
It wasn’t ‘supposed’. Susan had cared for Katie. She was the first—the only—person to have done that.
Katie had gone to them when she was almost two, when Susan had finally got Brian to agree to fostering after they’d spent years trying for children of their own. But Brian had never agreed to adoption, and there’d always been the threat that Katie could be sent back into the care system.
In truth, Brian was as controlling of Susan as he was of Katie. It was only that Susan seemed mostly blind to it.
‘She’s vulnerable.’ She glanced at Alessandro. ‘She’s in a wheelchair now. She can’t be left alone for long.’
As Susan’s neurological disease progressed, she lived in her own world, safe in the grounds of the estate. A world Katie cared for with her.
‘It would kill her to have to leave White Oaks.’ Katie had to keep it secure for Susan until the end. ‘It’s her life.’
She loved her gentle foster mother dearly. Susan had welcomed her, and they’d spent so much time together sheltered on the estate... Though over the last decade their roles had slowly reversed. Katie now read to Susan, kept her company and comfortable. She’d do almost anything for her.
But Katie couldn’t talk to Susan about how bad things had become financially, or about Brian’s insane plan—she was too fragile to be burdened with that. For a while now Katie h
ad been shielding Susan from several problems Brian had wrought.
‘So, if Carl gets you, White Oaks stays safe for Susan.’ Alessandro summed it up bluntly. ‘But why does Carl want you?’
She flinched, hit by a hot flash of embarrassment. Yeah, she was hardly catch of the day. ‘You don’t think he finds me attractive?’ she mumbled, knowing her face was blushing beetroot.
He had the grace to shoot her a rueful look. ‘If he actually wanted you he wouldn’t woo you with an ultimatum like this.’
‘Maybe he can’t get anyone else to say yes to him? Maybe he thinks he’ll get an obedient wife?’ she said bitterly. ‘This way he’ll be able to control me. He’s used to getting what he wants, however he has to do it.’
Alessandro stepped towards her, the whisker of a smile in his eyes. ‘And you think I’m different?’
A hot fury built within her. ‘I’m sure you’re used to getting what you want. Fortunately you don’t want me.’
He blinked and that smile fully resurfaced. ‘How do you know I don’t want you?’
She laughed bitterly. ‘You never so much as looked at me.’
‘If I recall, the last time we met you were little more than a child. It would have been unacceptable in every way if I’d looked at you then.’ He angled his head. ‘But I’m looking at you now.’
As if that was going to make any difference!
‘Don’t bother,’ she snapped. ‘You have hundreds of gorgeous women you really want. All of them. At once—’ She broke off, realising she’d got herself into a quagmire of excruciating embarrassment.
‘Hundreds at once?’ he echoed with mild incredulity.
‘Oh, whatever.’ She shook off his amusement. ‘You know you don’t need to threaten a woman to get your way with her. You don’t need to use blackmail—emotional or otherwise.’
‘But that’s what Brian does to you.’ All amusement had dropped from his expression.
She drew in a deep breath and sighed. ‘He’s used to me doing what he says.’
Because she’d always worked to keep the peace, for Susan. But in asking this of her Brian had gone too far. It wasn’t a business deal he’d arranged, it was marriage—intimate and personal. And Brian’s brutal response to her refusal had horrified her. So she’d decided to figure out a deal of her own with the one man Brian despised. The only man she’d been able to think of.
‘But you’re not his daughter,’ Alessandro said.
‘Thank you for that reminder,’ she said stiffly, swallowing back the burn of pain.