‘Why?’
Her fingers curled around her piece of bread. ‘Because...because no one deserves to go through what you did.’
Their drinks arrived and he took a healthy gulp of wine, exhaling in satisfaction as the fire in the alcohol temporarily replaced the fire of lust. ‘But I survived. Some would say I triumphed.’
‘But you’re still affected by it, aren’t you?’
He tensed. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Yesterday you didn’t want me to find out what your father had done. Clearly you’re still affected by what happened.’
‘Are we not all shaped by our pasts to some extent? You’re clearly steeped in the past and reacting to your own experiences.’
Her cheeks lost a bit of colour. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Yesterday you admitted your lack of judgement when it comes to dealing with people. I don’t need to be a genius to work out the root cause of it.’
Paling further, she shook her head. ‘I...I’m not...’
‘Tell me how you met Lowell?’ he asked before he could stop himself. ‘Of all the men you could’ve dated, why him?’
‘Because I didn’t have a crystal ball that could look into the future to see how things would turn out. And you say of all the men as if I had hundreds at my feet.’
He barely stopped himself from glancing up at her hair. The idea that no man had shown interest in her was laughable. ‘So he was the first man to show his interest?’ He tried to force a neutral tone and barely pulled it off.
‘He was charming; he paid me the right sort of attention...at the beginning. I believed I was making the right choice, that we had the same goals and that my feelings were reciprocated.’
Anger roiled through his belly. ‘Instead, he abandoned you shortly after you were married?’
Shocked eyes met his. ‘How did you know that?’
‘I’m a major shareholder in the company he tried to destroy. My brother dealt with the bulk of the investigation but I saw enough.’
Her gaze grew haunted, then it slid away and she reached for the glass of water. After a few sips she set the glass down. ‘So you know a great deal about me.’
‘Enough to know there are no mention of your parents anywhere on record. You take care of your in-laws but what about your own parents?’ he asked, eager to get away from the subject of dead spouses.
The earlier anguish he’d glimpsed returned. ‘I don’t have... I was placed in the foster system when I was one month old. My birth mother left me in front of the social security office with my first name and my date of birth pinned to my blanket. My birth date could be wrong because there was no birth certificate, although the doctors are fairly sure I was born in the month I was left but there were no hospital records so I don’t even know where I was born. So no, I have no record of who my parents are,’ she murmured in a voice ravaged with pain. ‘I’m the child no one wanted.’
His fingers tightened around his glass and he realised he was holding on tight so he wouldn’t reach out for her like she’d reached out for him.
Only he wanted to take her face between his hands and kiss away her pain. He wanted to rewind time, take a different track of conversation that was so far off what he’d come here for it was ludicrous. He should’ve stuck to business, facts, figures.
Not their painful personal pasts. And he should certainly not be sitting here, hanging onto that connection that stemmed from opening up and sharing his desolate history with her.
He wasn’t a sharer.
‘Perla—’
She forced a laugh. ‘How do we always end up on the personal when we vow never to again?’
‘We’re especially bad at pulling the forbidden out of each other.’
‘Or exceptionally good?’ she joked.
He stared at her. And just like that the madness descended again. He tried to shift away from it but it clawed into him, sank its merciless talons into his gut and held him down. Almost in slow motion, he watched her mouth part, her nostrils quiver delicately as she sucked in a desperate breath.
Theos!
She gave a distressed shake of her head and glanced down at the now powered down tablet. ‘The resort. We were discussing the resort,’ she said after clearing her throat.
He forced his mind on track. ‘Yes. I wanted to float the idea of you handling the pre-opening VIP events for the Bermuda resort on your own. If you agree to take on the task, you’ll have to work fast to organise it. The guests arrive at the resort at the end of next week.’