AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gypsy caught his eyes. ‘Not for a long time.’
He arched a brow and asked, ‘Secrets of a hell-raising youth?’
Gypsy hid the dart of pain and said, ‘Hardly.’
A delicious coil of tension settled in her belly as she took Rico in; he was so tall and broad. His face all planes and shadows and hollows.
On an impulse, she blurted out, ‘What happened to your nose?’
Rico stiffened. She could see his hand tighten on his glass, but then he said, ‘My stepfather, the day I left Buenos Aires…He left me with a token of his affection, and a constant reminder that your own flesh and blood is your only real family.’
Gypsy remembered Isobel telling her how Rico had nearly had to be hospitalised.
‘Was he responsible for the scars on your back too?’ She’d noticed the faint silvery lines criss-crossing his back one morning when Rico had got up to go back to his own room, and she’d felt them while making love, but she hadn’t had the nerve to ask about them. Until now.
Rico’s mouth was a thin line. ‘Yes, more of my stepfather’s legacy for not being his biological son. It’s hard to get out of the way of a belt when you’re small…’
Sheer horror tightened her gut, and she had a sudden stark understanding of how important it was for him to be there for Lola.
Gypsy went close and reached up her hand to touch his jaw. Her voice was husky. ‘If I’d been there I would have stepped in the way, so he’d hit me instead.’
She looked up at him. A part of her couldn’t believe what she’d just said, and another part felt fiercely that she’d meant every word. Even now anger bubbled low to think of anyone beating Rico, or hurting him.
Realisation hit her like a thunderbolt. God, she’d fallen for him. There was no luxury of falling about it. She was already deeply and profoundly in love with this man.
To her relief, before Rico might see something of her realisation and her reaction, he took the champagne and put it down before taking her hand.
His voice sounded rough, and impacted upon her somewhere very raw. ‘We should go downstairs. The grand opening will be any minute now, and I have a speech to make.’
Feeling as though the earth had shifted on its axis, Gypsy followed Rico out, her hand tightly clasped in his. All the way down in the lift she looked resolutely at the floor, terrified that if she looked into his eyes he’d know immediately.
Rico stared at the elevator door
on the way down, Gypsy’s hand in his. He was still reeling from her simple assertion that if she’d been there she would have taken the blows for him. He knew she’d been sincere because she’d looked shocked once the words were out—as if she couldn’t believe she’d said them.
The only other person who knew the extent of what Rico had been through at the hands of his stepfather was Rafael, because he’d suffered too—albeit not to the same extent—and many times Rico had felt that Rafael wanted to say something similar. That if he could have borne the brunt of that man’s anger he would have. But he’d never articulated it the way Gypsy just had, with such sweet simplicity.
Taking a deep breath just before the doors opened, Rico gripped Gypsy’s hand more tightly momentarily, and she squeezed him back in silent communication. His chest expanded, the door opened, and they stepped out and into the melee.
Rico had made his speech and was now back at Gypsy’s side, holding her hand again. A guilty part of her revelled in this newly proprietorial touch and she grimaced inwardly. She could never have imagined this—wanting to be claimed so publicly by him.
They barely needed to circulate, as a constant stream of people came to him. The only time he crossed the room it was to another couple, and Rico slapped the man on his back playfully. He introduced the handsome man and his very pregnant wife to Gypsy. ‘I’d like you to meet some newlywed friends of mine—Leo Parnassus and his wife Angel.’
The wife smiled shyly, one hand on her large bump. Gypsy asked how far along she was, and they started to chat about pregnancy and birth. She could feel Rico tense by her side, and when the couple had moved on he turned to her and said, ‘I don’t know anything about your pregnancy, or the birth…’
Guilt rose up, so much more poignant now, and immediately fearing some kind of reprisal Gypsy took her hand from his. ‘I’m sorry…I didn’t think…’ she started.
But Rico took her hand again and shook his head. ‘No, it’s not about that. I’m not angry about that…not any more. But I’d like you to tell me some time, OK?’
Gypsy nodded, feeling herself fall even further into the chasm. But just at that moment, with absolutely no sense of foreboding whatsoever, she heard someone near them declare shrilly, ‘Oh, my God! Alexandra Bastion, is that you?’
Chapter Eleven
GYPSY’S blood went cold. Unbeknownst to her, her hand had tightened painfully on Rico’s. The woman came over and grabbed Gypsy’s arm. Gypsy recognised her through the fog of shock. They’d gone to school together—a remote and very exclusive boarding school in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The furthest place her father had been able to find to send her.
‘Alexandra—I don’t believe it! It’s been—what?—seven years since we left that place? How are you? What have you been up to?’
The woman’s eyes went appreciatively to Rico. Clearly she was looking for an introduction. But Gypsy was incapable of speaking, and suddenly, on top of this shock, she knew the taste of the champagne was making itself felt and that she was going to be sick.
