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‘Why did he not leave when you were a child, like the other families?’
‘My father is a functioning alcoholic,’ he stated flatly. ‘He’s the only drunk I’ve ever met who drinks his way through a bar with a book in his hand. Any hopes or ambitions were subverted by the bottom of a bottle.’
‘Not all of them,’ she countered, her heart in her throat. Nico had been raised by an alcoholic? Oh, the poor, poor child. ‘He had hopes and ambitions for you.’
His eyes still held hers, but the light contained in them had been snuffed out. ‘Those ambitions were not of the present. He would come home drunk in the middle of the night—I would be awake, waiting to make sure he had walked back safely—and tell me that he wanted a different life for me. He would say that if I worked hard and studied hard I would be able to leave the town and do anything I wanted.’
‘He was right.’
‘Yes, he was right,’ he conceded. ‘And it would sound idyllic—except he would be delivering these drunken lectures after I had spent the day taking myself to school and back, washing, cleaning and feeding myself because there was no thought in his head of doing those things for me.’
Rosa’s eyes widened. ‘You had to fend for yourself?’
‘Always. I do not remember it ever being different.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘I could build a fire at five and was given housekeeping money when I was seven.’
* * *
Witnessing the horror in Rosa’s eyes, Nico wished he could take back his words. He didn’t even know why he was revealing so much. It was those damn unwavering eyes of hers. They contained far too much warmth. A man could throw himself into that swirling caramel if he wasn’t careful.
‘It wasn’t as bad as I am making it sound,’ he retracted, feeling an inordinate amount of guilt at his disloyalty. His father was not a bad man—something he had recognised even as a small child. ‘There was an elderly woman who lived quite close by. I think she felt sorry for me. Sometimes she would bring a pot of stew to our house. She would never come in. Just leave it on the doorstep.’
Even now, decades on, he could still taste that stew. Even now, decades on, having dined in the world’s finest restaurants and been catered for by the world’s finest chefs, he had never tasted anything as good.
‘My father took care of me as best he could,’ he explained quietly, not sure why he felt the need to make her understand, only knowing he did not want Rosa to think badly of the man who had raised him. ‘I know that by today’s standards he neglected me, but I never felt it. I am certain if I had not been around he would have drunk himself into an early grave.’
Rosa’s hand covered his—just a light pressure, but enough to sear his skin.
‘You do not need to explain your father to me, Nico,’ she said, staring at him with eyes that contained a mixture of pity and...was that envy? Surely not? ‘It took guts for him to keep you. He must love you very much.’
He wanted to move his hand, snatch it away, but the warmth transmuted from her skin acted like glue, binding them together.
Nico did not want her sympathy, or empathy, or whatever it was seeping from her. All he wanted was to hear her throaty laugh and watch those caramel eyes darken into chocolate as he took possession of her.
He could not remove his hand.
The easy, yet sexually charged atmosphere that had been swirling between them for days had tightened. The air was so thick it almost resembled a misty fog.
But this was so much more than mere sexual tension.
What the hell was he doing? He was supposed to be laying the path to seduction, not unbuttoning about things that rarely passed from his lips.
Slowly, he pulled his hand away. He wanted her hands to rest on him in passion, not sympathy.
‘After my mother died of pneumonia my father had a duty to raise me.’
‘But he could have absolved himself from that responsibility,’ she contradicted with a flick of her ponytail.
‘My father, for all his faults, would never have absolved himself from his responsibilities.’
‘Then he is a better man than a lot of parents.’
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what her comment meant, to probe the reason for the clouding of those eyes. But he did not want to hear it. Getting to know each other better did not mean learning each other’s intimate secrets. The only intimacy he wanted from Rosa was in the bedroom.
He flashed a grin. ‘It’s getting late. Fancy a game of Scrabble before bed?’
* * *
Rosa did not trust Nico’s grin. It was too...fake—as if he were a marionette having its strings pulled.
