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Had she fired off a text just after she’d left his bed?
Was she coming back?
‘Jordan?’ he checked, seemingly oh-so-casually. ‘I thought you were going to speak with Beatrice about a permanent role?’
‘I did, but she wasn’t interested.’
‘So she formally turned it down?’
‘Beatrice took herself out of the running. I spoke to her straight after you did.’ Jordan was head-down and writing in margins. ‘But, no. She prefers short-term contracts, she said.’
Julius was looking at last night through different eyes now, realising Beatrice had known all along that she was leaving. The whole ‘I have to talk to my partner’ thing had been purely to provoke a reaction from him.
Well, she certainly had.
He should feel played, and yet he did not.
Used? No.
He just sat there trying to make sense of last night, and frowned in irritation when Jordan spoke on, interrupting his thoughts.
‘I don’t think that’s all there was to it, though,’ Jordan said, but offered no more.
It was hard not to prompt his PA, because he wouldn’t usually take such a deep interest in a temp, but when Jordan went back to her writing it was clear that if he wanted to know more then he had no choice but to ask.
‘What, then?’
‘I don’t think she wanted the hassle of the enhanced security check.’
Julius hadnotbeen expecting that. ‘What?’
‘Her initial clearance flagged a name-change at nineteen.’ Jordan glanced up, perhaps thinking she was being scrutinised. ‘But Beatrice was fully cleared for basic access, sir. There’s been no breach...’
‘Of course not.’ He shook his head. ‘What does her name-change have to do with things?’
‘She was schooled in Trebordi.’ Jordan gave him a look that he presumed was supposed to say it all.
‘Sicily?’ he said.
‘She was raised in the convent at Trebordi—it’s like Di Dio Bellanisiá,’ she said, citing their national equivalent.
Julius felt his blood run cold.
Di Dio Bellanisiá was a convent infamous for its baby wheel, though it was maintained there now only for sentimental purposes and history, not for its original purpose. He had visited it, even spoken with some families who had a parent or grandparent who had been raised there.
Still, on occasion a baby was left there... Abandoned.
‘I don’t think she wanted anyone raking through her past. I can’t say I blame her.’ Jordan suddenly winced. ‘Oh!’
‘Jordan?’
‘It’s nothing, sir.’
‘Don’t do that,’ he warned. ‘There’s nothing more irritating than someone saying,Oh, it’s nothing...’
They’d had this conversation before, so it wasn’t anything new. Usually it was caused by Julius’s irritation at something Jordan had said, followed by boredom when she actually told him about thenothingthat had suddenly occurred to her...
This wasn’t nothing, though.
