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Faith was still waiting for an answer, though. He swallowed down the last gulp of his whisky, enjoying the slight burn in his throat. ‘After my mother left...my father checked out of life,’ he said bluntly. ‘He didn’t care about anything any more. Not even the scandal my mother left behind. The estate suffered.’ He shrugged. ‘When he died, he left us with nothing but our name.’
‘And you fought back from that.’ Faith’s eyes were wide as she watched him. ‘You built up the estate, the business...’
‘I saved the family name,’ he corrected her. ‘The rest was incidental.’
‘It meant that much to you. The name, I mean.’
‘Yes.’ He glanced away. ‘It was all I had left, after all.’
She was silent for a long moment, but when he looked back her gaze was still fixed on him. Her teeth bit down on her lip, a flash of white in the dim lamplight of the darkening hotel room, and he wondered what it was she wanted to say. And whether she’d decide to say it.
‘My father,’ she said finally. ‘He was—is—the world’s most charming man. But...he gambled. Still does, I imagine. He...lost. A lot. Even if he’d never admit it. Life had to go on as if everything was normal, like we were as good as—better than—everyone else. Even if we couldn’t afford to buy my school uniform. That’s one of the reasons I moved away. I didn’t want to watch him destroy himself, or our family.’
The words caught him in the chest, and it took him a moment to identify why. That was, he realised, the first real thing she’d ever told him about herself. He knew about the tours she’d led, the people she’d met. He knew her opinion on subjects as varied as clothes and theatre and London traffic.
And now he knew something of her. A small token, before she left him.
It wasn’t enough.
‘Didn’t you ever want to just give up?’ Faith asked. ‘Just walk away from it all and start a new life?’
Had he? He couldn’t remember. It had never seemed an option. From the moment he’d inherited the title, he knew exactly what he needed to do and he just got on with it. Besides... ‘How could I? Sylvia was only ten, and we had nothing...I couldn’t leave.’
Faith’s smile was sad. ‘No. No, of course you couldn’t.’
Tipping the last drops of whisky down her throat, she placed her glass on the coffee table. Dominic stared at her lips and the way her tongue darted out to catch the last drop of liquid from them. He wanted to kiss her. And he knew, just knew, from the way she leant into him, close enough to touch, that she wouldn’t pull away. She wouldn’t say no, wouldn’t pull any of her self-defence moves on him. She’d let him kiss her, and then what? He’d take her to bed, just to let her leave him in a few days’ time? She wasn’t going to stay. And he was already in too deep. He couldn’t risk falling any further. Not after Kat.
‘You never did tell me the real reason you left Italy,’ he said. Maybe now she knew some of his secrets, his truths, she’d be willing to share some of her own. Let him in enough that he could stop worrying about her lies.
Faith pulled back, wrapping her arms around her knees. Suddenly, even though she still sat on the same sofa, she felt miles further away. How bad was her truth that she couldn’t let it near him?
‘That day we met, at the airport,’ she said, her voice slow.
‘I remember,’ he said drily. As if he would ever forget.
‘I’d just found out that the company I worked for had gone bankrupt. I got everyone in my tour group sorted out with flights and hotels but I...I was stranded. Until you offered me this job.’
‘Until you demanded it, you mean.’ She was telling the truth, he was sure. But he was equally certain that there was more, something she was still hiding.
‘Hey, I’m doing a good job, aren’t I?’
‘You’re doing an incredible job,’ he said, and she looked up, wide eyes surprised. ‘I just wish you’d stop lying to me and let me see the real you.’ He got to his feet, ignoring her alarmed stare. ‘You should get some sleep. Goodnight, Faith.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘HOW ABOUT THIS one?’ Sylvia asked, and Faith glanced up from the racks of overpriced, over-decorated dresses to shake her head at Dominic’s sister for the tenth time that morning. And they were only on the second shop. Faith sighed. Dominic hadn’t been kidding when he’d said this would be exhausting.
Sylvia hung the dress back on the rail with a clatter of metal on metal. ‘You know, this would be a lot easier if you could tell me what you’re looking for.’
