Forgiven but Not Forgotten?

Siena felt movement and then Andreas was sitting down beside her. His fingers were on her chin and he was forcing her to look at him. Her belly somersaulted at the look in his eyes. It was burning.

‘You’re telling me that you didn’t set out to seduce me? That it wasn’t just boredom? And that you only denounced me out of fear of what your father would do?’

Siena swallowed. Shame filled her belly. She whispered, ‘Yes. I was a coward. I chose to protect my own sister over you… But I had no idea how far my father would go.’

Andreas let her chin go and stood up, his whole body vibrating with tension—or anger. Siena couldn’t make out which.

And then he exploded, ‘Theos, Siena. You wilfully ruined my life just because you were too scared to stand up to your father?’

Siena stood up. It was as if a lead weight was making her belly plummet. She should have expected this, but still her head swam and her stomach churned. ‘I’m sorry, Andreas…so sorry. I went looking for you that night to try and explain…’

Suddenly Siena’s powers of speech failed her. All she could see was Andreas’s eyes, burning into her, scorching her. With a soft cry she felt the world fall away, and only heard the faintest of guttural curses before everything went black.

CHAPTER NINE

ANDREAS STOOD WATCHING Siena’s sleeping form on the bed. He’d only just managed to catch her before she crumpled to the floor, and he cursed himself for lashing out. Emotions had roiled in his gut. He’d been so angry—incandescent—to learn the truth of what had happened. If it was the truth.

A small part of him wanted to insist that she was lying—making it up, thinking on her feet—but he’d seen the ashy pallor of her face. The way her eyes had looked inward, not even seeing him. No one could have faked that.

The magnitude of what this meant, how it changed things, was impossible to take in. If it was the truth.

Andreas threw off his jacket and dropped it to a nearby chair, where he sat down and pulled at his bow-tie. He’d taken off Siena’s shoes and covered her with a blanket. From here he could see that perfect profile, the shape of her body, and he felt the inevitable beat of desire. It had surged into his blood as soon as he’d seen her again, as if it had merely lain dormant.

His fists clenched. The thing was, could he believe her? Andreas’s mind went back to that cataclysmic evening, and when he thought about it now, without the haze of anger and rage, he could remember that Siena had been icy, yes, but there had been something else in her eyes. Terror?

Her father had had a tight grip on her arm. Too tight. He’d forgotten that detail. And her father had fed her the words: ‘You would never kiss someone like him, would you?’

Andreas felt disgust. She’d been a day away from eighteen. Innocent. Naïve. Terrified of her father. And not for herself, for her vulnerable sister.

Questions piled on top of questions.

Andreas frowned as another wisp of a memory returned. He’d been called to his boss’s office after DePiero’s henchmen had laid into him, and had had to explain what had happened.

Andreas had been so angry at his own pathetic naïvety when he should have known better that he’d lashed out. Tried to make it seem, at least to himself, as if he might have had some control over the situation. At one point they’d heard a noise outside and Andreas had gone to the door, which had been ajar. He’d looked out and thought he was seeing things when a flash of ballgown disappeared around a corner.

Had that been Siena? Looking for him? Andreas frowned deeper, trying to remember what he’d said, and it came back in all its brutal clarity: ‘I’d never have touched her if I’d known she was so poisonous…’

He could laugh now. As if he’d had a choice! As if he’d have been able to stop himself from touching her! She’d enthralled him then and she enthralled him today. He was incapable of not touching her if she was within feet of him.

Uneasiness prickled over Andreas’s skin. Without the anger and rage he’d clung onto for so long he felt stripped bare and made raw by all these revelations. And yet one thing was immutable: now that Siena was back in his life he was not about to let her go again easily.

* * *

When Siena woke she was completely disorientated. She had no idea who or where she was. And then details started emerging. She was in a huge bed and what looked like a misty dawn light was coming through the open curtains. She could see only sky.

She looked around and saw a palatial room, rococo design. She frowned. How did she know it was rococo? She was covered in a soft blanket and her head felt sore. Siena raised it and winced when her hair tugged. She pulled it free of the band, loosening it.

She pulled back the blanket and saw she was in a white shirt and black skirt. It all came rushing back. The reception. Seeing Andreas. Him pulling her out, bringing her here. All her words tumbling out. She’d told him…everything. He’d been angry. And she’d fainted. Siena was disgusted with herself.

Siena put a hand over her eyes, as if that could stop the painful recollections. Slowly she sat up and pushed the blanket aside, stumbled on jelly legs to the bathroom. When she saw herself in the mirror she made a face. She looked wan and washed out, her hair all over the place. She felt sticky in her uniform. She saw the shower and longed to feel clean again, so she stripped off and turned on the powerful spray, stepped under the teeming water.

Andreas. She shivered. After washing herself thoroughly Siena stepped out and dried herself off. It was time to face Andreas in the cold light of day.

* * *

When Siena emerged into the main reception room of the sumptuous suite she still wasn’t prepared to see Andreas sitting at a table, drinking coffee and eating some breakfast. She’d dressed in her shirt and skirt, leaving off the bow-tie and shoes. She was barefoot and felt self-conscious now—which was ridiculous when this man knew every inch of her body in intimate detail.

Andreas lowered his paper and stood up. A chivalrous gesture that caught at Siena somewhere vulnerable. She moved forward, her heart thumping against her breastbone. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was husky. ‘I don’t know what came over me… Thank you for letting me sleep.’