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AS HE drove back into the city Alicia tried to take in everything that had just happened. She could feel him looking at her.
‘When you said Raul Carro had been the cause of you going to Africa … you meant to get away from him?’
Alicia nodded. ‘It was so horrific. His poor wife … I still feel awful about it. I always will.’
‘But you didn’t know.’
‘It doesn’t matter; it feels even worse, he was such an operator. In a way, I’m actually glad Serena called his wife. She had to know, and he had to be found out.’
‘But he was in Africa?’
‘Yes, but not till the end. He came just days before I left.’ Disgust made her voice tight. ‘He barely recognized me and I could see already that he was making the move on various nurses.’
‘Do you still love him?’ Dante didn’t know why he’d asked the question or why his hands tightened on the steering wheel as he waited for Alicia’s answer. He glanced at her but she was looking straight ahead; she seemed to be locked in another place. He wanted to reach out and turn her face to him so that he could see her eyes—and read what? he asked himself angrily.
After a long moment she said, ‘No. And I don’t think I ever did, to be honest.’ Not now that I know what real love feels like … and it’s a million times more scary … Alicia felt as though she stood on moving tectonic plates—one false move and she’d disappear down into a crack for ever.
Dante’s hands tensed on the wheel again as another wave of relief flowed through him. When he’d found her gone and the note in the room, his insides had seized with panic. At the thought that she could just disappear like that, out of his life, gone. It had made him feel out of control. And that was before Derek had found him and told him what he’d found out. Which had made him feel even more out of control.
He flicked the woman beside him a glance. She was still here. And, he told himself, that was all that mattered because he needed her to maintain this precious respectability, which was now restored. When you’ve never let it bother you before? He shut out the voice and concentrated on the traffic.
That night they sat out on the balcony of their suite and shared an after dinner liqueur. Alicia felt very much as if they’d turned a corner, but to go where? Dante had apologized for judging her wrongly but she couldn’t really blame him in the first place as she hadn’t defended herself, not seeing the point. And, now that she had stayed, she felt as if her heart were visibly beating on her sleeve, plain for all to see.
‘What are you thinking about?’
Alicia blushed and choked slightly on her drink. She could just imagine the look on his face if she told him. Instead she shrugged. ‘Nothing in particular.’ She felt him turn more fully towards her and found herself tensing slightly.
‘Did you go to Africa to punish yourself?’
She jerked her head to look at him, eyes widening. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
His face was dark, unreadable and she felt naked, extremely vulnerable.
‘I was just wondering if part of your motivation for going there was in some way a reaction to what had happened.’
Alicia looked away from him again, out to the inky, starry darkness. Her mind whirled. She’d never thought of it like that, but had she chosen to go there as some sort of penance? At times, it certainly had felt like a punishment of sorts. She could feel him looking at her intently and desperately wanted his penetrating mind and gaze off her.
She shrugged slightly. ‘It certainly played a part in my reasons for going … but I hadn’t thought about it too much, to be honest.’ And for him to be the one to assess the psychology behind her reasons? Again, her head swirled and she felt unbelievably vulnerable. She took more than a sip from her drink and then turned to him, seizing on the first thing that came to mind to take his attention from her.
‘Will you tell me something about yourself …? It just feels a little funny … not really knowing anything about you.’ She’d been about to add on, After all, you’re going to be my niece or nephew’s uncle, but stopped herself in time, not wanting to open that can of worms.
He looked at her darkly. ‘What do you want to know?’
She shrugged, relieved that they’d moved off the subject of her. ‘I don’t know. How did you get to where you are now if you came from the streets … and what about your parents …?’
She held her breath. He looked away from her and she could see his jaw clench. When he spoke it was flat and emotionless, it made something go cold inside Alicia, because she recognized that it hid huge pain.
‘When my brother was one and I was six, my mother left us. My father had taken off long before that to God knows where, and Paolo’s father was another wastrel. We were taken into an orphanage but it closed down a few years later due to lack of funds. So we lived on the streets and carved a niche for ourselves there.’
‘You and your brother?’
He nodded.
‘How old were you then?’
‘Thirteen, fourteen.’
He was silent for so long then that Alicia thought he’d had enough and she opened her mouth to speak but then he said, ‘One day a man saw me doing some labour, helping to build a house. He called me over and offered me a job there and then.’ He glanced at her briefly. ‘I said I could only take it if I could bring my brother with me.’
