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Cristiano looked down at the man with a sneer. “If I ever hear that you’ve attacked any woman ever again—”
“Never, ever, I swear,” Mervin cried. Stumbling to his feet, he hurried into the building with one final terrified glance back.
As Matthews stacked the few boxes into the SUV’s trunk, Cristiano calmly climbed into the back seat beside her and the baby. Matthews closed the trunk with a bang. Two minutes later, they were driving north through the streets of Manhattan.
Her heart was still pounding. “What did you do to him?”
Cristiano shrugged. “I asked him to apologize.”
“You just...asked?”
“I asked nicely.”
She thought about pushing the issue, then decided she didn’t want to know. She hadn’t seen visible signs of injury. That was the best she could hope for—and that the man had been sincere when he’d said he’d never try to force a kiss on any woman again. She took a deep breath.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t care about the clothes. But the pictures of my family mean the world to me.”
He looked at her, then set his jaw. “I’m surprised you even care about your family after they turned their backs on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“They left you and Jack to struggle alone.”
Hallie blinked at him in surprise, and said gently, “They didn’t have a choice. They died five years ago.”
Cristiano’s eyes widened. “Died?”
She swallowed over the lump in her throat. It was still hard to speak of it. “Back home, in West Virginia. I grew up in a tiny village in the mountains. I was nineteen, still living at home, working the overnight shift at a grocery store in a nearby town. A fire had burned much of the forest the previous summer. After a week of hard rain, one night a flash flood came down the mountain and ripped our cabin off its foundation. If I’d been sleeping in my bed, I would have died with my parents and brother.” She looked down. “For a long time, I wished I had.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Blinking back tears, Hallie looked blindly out her window. “I came home at dawn and found fire trucks where my house had been. It had floated down the river, knocked to one side, crushed into wood. They found my family later...”
She couldn’t go on, remembering how she’d felt at nineteen when her whole world had fallen apart, when she’d lost her home and everyone she loved without warning.
Suddenly she felt Cristiano’s hand over her own.
With an intake of breath, she looked up. His eyes were black as jet.
“My mother died when I was eighteen,” he said quietly. “The night she kicked me out, I decided if she still wanted her lover even after he beat her, if she cared about him more than me, then fine, I’d go. But at three in the morning, I went back. I found the house on fire.”
“Arson?” Hallie breathed.
He shook his head, his lips twisting. “Nothing so deliberate. Her lover had been smoking in bed. He passed out drunk, and they both burned to death.” He gave her a crooked smile. “It’s funny, really. Your family died of water. Mine of fire.”
“Funny,” she said over the lump in her throat. All this time she’d hated Cristiano, believing him arrogant and ruthless and cold. All of which he was. But she’d never stopped to ask why.
“I’m sorry.” She twined her hand in his, trying in turn to offer comfort. “You know how it feels to lose family, too. To lose a home.”
For a moment, he looked at her. Then he turned, pulling his hand away. Lights moved over them in patterns as they drove toward Midtown.
When the SUV pulled up to the grand porte cohere of the Campania Hotel, Cristiano lifted the baby’s carrier from the back seat. Holding the handle with his powerful arm, he turned back to Hallie, extending his other hand to help her out of the car.
Nervously she put her hand in his. Just feeling his palm against hers as he helped her out made her shiver from her scalp to her toes.
He held her hand as they walked through the lobby with its soaring ceilings and elegant midcentury furniture. The space was filled with glamorous people, hotel guests and patrons of the lobby bar or the jazz club. She saw a sexy sheikh, pouting models and starlets.
All of them turned to stare at Cristiano as he passed. Then their gazes slid in confusion to Hallie, makeup-free and wearing a limp cotton sundress. Even more shocking was the baby carrier hanging from Cristiano’s arm.
