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“Did you sleep with me just to make it easier to seduce him?”
Her cheeks flashed bright red and for a moment she thought of lying. But why? She had lied to cover the truth of her dyslexia. He knew about that, now, so she might as well be honest. “No.”
Satisfaction glowed in his eyes. “You lied so I wouldn’t keep asking why you don’t like to read?”
“How did you find out?” She asked again, bringing their conversation back to the more pressing matter. “And hurry up, you’re running out of time.”
“How the hell have you kept it hidden for so long?” He asked instead.
Her blush deepened and she shrugged her slender shoulders. “Easy. No one expects much of me, intelligence wise. I’m a good time girl, just like you said.”
“That’s because you’ve made everyone believe that,” he reminded her.
“How did you find out?” She needed to know. What had she done wrong? She couldn’t slip up again.
“I found the school letters,” he murmured softly.
Claudia’s eyes fused together and he knew she knew what he was talking about. “I presumed he’d destroyed them.”
Stavros nodded, but that didn’t explain a thing. “Did he arrange for you to see an occupational therapist?”
Claudia turned away from him, unwilling to reveal what was clearly visible in her face. “No.”
“I don’t understand that. He never mentioned your disability.”
She winced at his use of that word, though it was, of course, the correct term.
“He wouldn’t have.” It was a shaking admission. “It wasn’t something he was proud of.”
Stavros moved closer but froze when she visibly stiffened.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” she said softly, finally shrugging out of her jacket and discarding it over the back of a nearby chair. “Dad’s gone. School’s out. I am as I am.”
“But why didn’t he enroll you in Occupational therapy?”
“It wouldn’t have helped.” She spun around, her eyes shining with the depth of her emotion. “My dyslexia isn’t your average, run of the mill disability. I’m not just slow. My brain doesn’t work. When it comes to reading and writing, I’m wired differently to you. I will never be able to read.” Her eyes bore into his for a long second and then slid away. “Is it any wonder the great Christopher La Roche wasn’t shouti
ng it from the rooftops?”
“I did not have long,” he said, the words graveled. “Between finding the letter and coming to London. But everything I saw on the internet said that dyslexia is a condition beyond the control of those who have it. That it is something one is born with. Your father wouldn’t have blamed you, asteraki.”
Claudia’s blood simmered furiously in her body. “You can talk to me about my father’s books. And his estate. You can talk to me about his disappointment in my mother and his fears I would be just like her; you can talk to me about your friendship with him. But when it comes to how he felt about me, you don’t get a say. You don’t know anything about that.”
“I know your father. I know that he loved you.”
“He hated me,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut at the heart-wrenching admission. “He hated me.”
“How can you say that?” Stavros demanded. “You are his daughter.”
“And I couldn’t read! Not even a little bit.” She moved closer to him, simply to show how serious she was. “I can’t read. You show me a book and I see a blur. My brain can’t decipher the shapes of letters at all. Any of the tricks people like me are taught and become able to master just don’t work. I’m essentially illiterate.”
Stavros nodded, not wanting to appear to undermine what she was saying. “And yet, there are still things you haven’t tried.”
She glared at him. “I’ve tried everything. Everything. After dad refused to enroll me in Occupational Therapy my headmistress became an expert in dyslexia. She studied all the techniques and worked on them with me. Nothing helped.”
“Why did he refuse?” Stavros honed-in on her statement, curiosity firing inside of him, warring with something else. Something he didn’t want to analyse. Christopher had been his closest friend and deserved his unswerving loyalty. Yet he paused, waiting for Claudia to explain.
“Why do you think?”
