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It was the urgency in his voice that made her nod her agreement. She had not the faintest idea what could be so important. ‘I promise.’
‘Why did you really go out with Stephen on your birthday? And why did it end so badly?’
He might as well have stuck a pin in her. Slumping back, she closed her eyes.
‘Look at me,’ he commanded. ‘I need to know. It matters a great deal to me.’
‘Why?’ she whispered, keeping her eyes shut.
‘Because ever since you told me you slept with your ex it has felt as if my stomach has had acid thrown into it.’
She tried frantically to swallow away the brick that had lodged in her throat. Of all the things he could ask her, why this? And why now? And what the heck did he mean about acid?
‘You promised.’
His deep voice rumbled in her ear.
‘Please, Rosa. I need to know.’
‘I went out with Stephen because I was hurt that you stood me up. Actually, scratch that. I was devastated that you stood me up.’ There. She had dredged the words out.
She waited for him to respond, but after a few too many seconds of silence she opened her eyes. Nico, his face inches from her own, was staring at her with an intensity she had never seen before.
He slowly inclined his head. ‘Go on.’
‘It wasn’t just about you,’ she admitted with a sigh. ‘Although that was a big factor in it. I’d been feeling low—I’d made contact with my brother...’
‘You did what?’
‘I contacted my brother.’
‘You never told me.’
She shrugged helplessly. ‘You weren’t there to tell. And it was personal—not part of our deal, remember?’
It was Nico’s turn to close his eyes. ‘I remember.’
‘I’d convinced myself that now he was an adult he might want to get to know his big sister. So I wrote to him asking to meet up.’
‘What happened?’
‘He texted me back. He said he was very busy, but if he ever found the time he would get in touch.’ She expelled air through her nose and shook her head. ‘He blew me out. He didn’t want to know me any more than our mother did when she was alive.’
It was only when Rosa yelped that Nico realised he was squeezing her hand hard enough to cause her pain. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, removing it and placing it very carefully on her thigh.
Every time he heard about the callous treatment meted out to her by her so-called family he wanted to punch something to ease the rage that screamed through his blood.
He knew how much it must have cost her to write to her brother in the first place and what a low place she must have been in even to go down that route. He could only imagine the torment she’d suffered when her brother rejected her too.
What was wrong with these people? How could they treat their own flesh and blood with such cruel indifference?
Very soon he would tell her something that should ease the suffering caused by those bastards, tell her that his Australian investigator had found her great-aunt Myra and that Myra wanted to meet her. But first, selfish as he knew he was being, he needed to hear the rest of it.
‘How soon before your birthday did all this happen?’ He traced his fingers lightly over her hand, his chest constricting when he realised she had removed her wedding ring.
Its absence felt like a punch in the gut.
‘A week or so.’
A week. A whole week for it to fester before he had called on the day of her birthday and told her he wouldn’t be able to make it home. His cowardice at a time when she’d needed him had driven her into the arms of another.
No wonder she had removed her ring. He was only surprised she hadn’t removed it sooner. It would have been no more than he deserved.
‘I’m sorry. I should have been there.’
‘Why? How could you have known? It wasn’t—’
‘I know: it wasn’t part of our pact,’ he finished for her, before confessing, ‘I could have made it back if I had wanted to. I already knew a couple of days before your birthday that I wouldn’t be investing in the Moroccan site.’
‘Oh.’
The feeling of her shriveling next to him splintered through him like shattered glass. Any guilt he had felt was magnified by a hundred. ‘I kept dreaming of you.’
‘Oh?’
Nico laughed mirthlessly. He had known this evening would be difficult. He had also known the only way they could forge a future together—a proper future—was to lay all their cards on the table. Reading through the letters exchanged between his parents, learning of the strength of their devotion to each other and seeing the sheer honesty in the emotions on the page had been a revelation. Nothing had been held back between them.
