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Rico leant forward. ‘Gypsy, either you tell me something about yourself or fifteen months of living together is going to get very tired, very quickly. And if that’s your plan then give it up—because it won’t work. You owe me.’
She bit her lip and played with her napkin, feeling as though she was about to walk into a chasm with no bottom in sight. ‘My father…He never liked my hair left curly.’ She was trembling now. She’d never spoken of her father to anyone.
‘He was a fool,’ Rico growled softly.
Gypsy flicked him a glance and looked away again, somehow heartened by the glint in his eye. It reminded her of an expression he had sometimes when looking at Lola. ‘He used to tell me I looked like the gypsies that lived at the side of the road…so if we ever went out in public he’d insist I had it straightened.’
‘Even as a child?’
Gypsy nodded.
‘What about your mother? What did she think?’
Gypsy tensed perceptibly, but even Agneta coming in to take away the starters and deliver their main course didn’t divert Rico’s attention. He merely repeated the question when they were alone again.
Gypsy looked at him. ‘My mother got ill when I was six, and I went to live with my father.’ She didn’t think it worth mentioning that the least of her mother’s worries at that time had been the state of Gypsy’s hair.
Rico put down his fork. ‘They weren’t married?’
Gypsy shook her head.
‘Tell me about her.’
Gypsy thought back and let a small smile play around her mouth, unaware of how Rico’s gaze dropped there for a moment. ‘She was Irish…and poor. Very naïve—too naïve. My father was her boss; he seduced her, and promised her all sorts of things, but when she fell pregnant he didn’t want to know.’
Rico asked sharply, ‘How do you know that?’
Gypsy looked at him, not really understanding the vehemence behind his question but suspecting something had hit close to his own experience. ‘I guess I don’t, for certain. But I know my mother kept him informed of our whereabouts and he never showed up or helped us financially. It became more obvious when she got ill and wanted him to take me in. He refused at first.’ Gypsy couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice. ‘He took me once he’d had a paternity test done, of course.’
She focused back on Rico and asked, ‘Did something similar happen to you?’
Rico held a delicate wine glass in one hand, twirling it in long fingers. She could sense his tension.
He didn’t look at her, but said, ‘Something like that. My mother had an affair with a rich Greek tycoon, and when she fell pregnant he ran home. She was forced into a marriage of convenience to save her family’s reputation before it became common knowledge that she was pregnant.’
He looked at her. ‘Except that’s not exactly how it happened.’ He went on, ‘I left to find my father when I was sixteen, determined to confront him for leaving us. When I eventually found him, here on Zakynthos, he had lost nearly everything and had less than a year to live. He’d always believed that my mother had had a miscarriage. He told me that he’d begged her to marry him, but that after the supposed miscarriage she’d told him to leave and never come back.’
His mouth was a grim line. ‘So all those years were wasted; he thought I’d never been born, and I believed he’d not wanted to know me. And my stepfather had made my life hell because I reminded him every day of another man in my mother’s bed.’
Gypsy felt emotion rising up. ‘Rico…I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how bittersweet it must have been to meet your father only to lose him again.’
Rico laughed harshly. ‘Don’t get too romantic about it. He was a bitter old man by the time I got to him, and the best thing he did for me was leave me his ailing taverna—which I did up and sold on at a profit a few years later.’ He inclined his head. ‘And I changed my name, so at least I gave him that in death.’
Gypsy couldn’t meet his eye; in many respects they’d trod a very similar path. She felt as if a huge lump was constricting her throat, but managed to get out, ‘I can see why you were so angry to find out about Lola…I truly wouldn’t have kept her from you if I’d thought I could trust you.’
‘And why couldn’t you trust me, Gypsy?’ he asked silkily.
She looked at him. ‘I still don’t know that I can. From the moment you came back into my life…our lives…you’ve dominated and controlled. I grew up with someone who lived his life like that, and I know a little of what it’s like to be resented for being there. I didn’t want to risk putting Lola through that.’
His eyes glittered dark grey in the gathering dusk. ‘I
t would seem as if we’re at something of an impasse. You admit you can’t trust me, and I’m not sure that I can forgive you for keeping me from Lola.’
Gypsy tried a wry smile, but it came out skewed. ‘We only have to endure this for fifteen months and then you can get on with your life.’ That damned lump was back in her throat. ‘You can find someone who can match your exacting standards of moral behaviour.’
Rico reacted viscerally to the fact he’d just revealed so much about his past and to that provocative statement—even though he hated himself for reacting. He reached out to take her chin, drawing her face around to his. She wouldn’t avoid him. He felt her clench her jaw against his hand, and even that had a hot spiral of desire rushing through him. ‘You won’t be going anywhere until we’ve dealt with this desire between us, Gypsy. Unfinished business, you could call it.’
Gypsy tried to pull her chin away, but couldn’t. She gritted out, ‘Well, let’s go to bed now and get it over with, shall we?’
