‘It isn’t your fault.’ Her hand shook slightly inside his as she gave a shake of her head. ‘You can’t possibly understand, and I can’t explain, either,’ she added emotionally.
Those golden eyes narrowed. ‘Why can’t you?’
‘It isn’t possible.’
His jaw tightened. ‘I repeat, why not?’
‘Because it isn’t my story to tell.’
Rafe had already guessed as much, just as he now believed this story had something to do with whatever had happened to the Palitov family nineteen years ago. When Nina’s mother had died, and Dmitri Palitov had been involved in the car accident that had resulted in his being in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
The timing of those two events, just weeks apart, and Nina’s refusal to talk about them, made Rafe wonder if they might actually be linked by more than just Dmitri’s distraction at the loss of his wife.
And it mattered to him, Rafe realised. Knowing, what kept the beautiful and talented Nina hidden away from the world mattered to him.
As did the woman herself?
The only thing that mattered at the moment was learning why, whatever might have happened nineteen years ago, Nina continued to allow her life to be so restricted.
Why Dmitri Palitov kept his daughter so protected and sheltered he was in danger of suffocating her.
Rafe had even wondered, as he had allowed his imagination free rein the night before, and having found no actual proof of Anna Palitov’s death, if she hadn’t just chosen to leave her husband and daughter nineteen years ago. It would certainly go a long way to explaining why Dmitri had become so determined not to lose Nina too.
Nina’s smile was sad as she saw the frustrated anger in Rafe’s expression; the flash of temper in those amazing golden eyes, chiselled lips thinned as he obviously raged an inner battle with his impatience at her refusal to talk to him, to tell him, the reason she refused to break away from her father’s protection.
Nina had no actual memories of what had happened nineteen years ago. She had been five years old at the time, and only knew what had really happened because her father had explained it to her when she was ten, old enough to understand that horrendous sequence of events that had shaped their lives.
And Nina could still remember her father’s pain that day, as if it had been just minutes ago rather than five years.
Oh, Nina had been fully aware that her mother had disappeared from her life when she was five. She had cried over it, had pleaded and thrown temper tantrums as she demanded to know where her mother had gone. A demand her father had assuaged by assuring her that her mother hadn’t wanted to leave them, that she’d had no choice.
But it had been another five years before her father had explained exactly why Anna had left them.
Kidnapped.
Ransomed.
A ransom Dmitri had gladly paid in his desire to have his beloved wife returned to him, as he had also complied with the kidnappers’ demand that he not inform the police or the press of the kidnapping, or his wife would die.
The payment of that ransom hadn’t stopped the kidnappers from killing their hostage, anyway. From killing Nina’s kind and beautiful mother, and Dmitri’s beloved wife.
Or stopped Nina’s father from hunting down the three men responsible.
And when he finally found those three men her father had contacted them and arranged to meet with them, only for their two cars to be involved in an accident that had resulted in two of those three men being killed outright, and putting Dmitri in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
And Nina had always had her doubts as to how that accident had occurred, had always suspected—but never dared ask—that her father had intended those three men to die that day, as retribution for taking his beloved Anna’s life.
Which was why Nina knew she could never explain, never tell anyone else about the events of nineteen years ago, without also implicating her father in the death of at least two of the men who had taken Anna from them both. She had always shied away from asking what had become of the third man.
She couldn’t explain that to Rafe. She wouldn’t. Even if it meant that she now had to allow Rafe, a man she liked and was so attracted to, to walk away from her without a single backward glance.
She drew in a deep, controlling breath before forcing a smile to her lips. ‘I think it’s time I was leaving.’
Rafe had had an idea that was where all Nina’s concentrated thought was going to lead. ‘You’re running away again, Nina,’ he reproved gently.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed without apology.
He frowned. ‘You don’t have to leave.’
‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘I really think that I do.’