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CHAPTER ELEVEN
THENEXTTIMEhe stopped the motorbike it was not at the base of his penthouse, but in a small, crowded area with buildings so close they were like teeth in an overcrowded mouth. Alejandro cut the engine but didn’t speak for a moment, so she looked around, watching as a guy slowly approached the window of an idling car.
Two women dressed in revealing outfits watched from across the narrow street.
‘Where are we?’
Her question seemed to rouse him. ‘My past.’
Curiosity sparked. ‘Oh?’
‘Let me show you something.’
Anything. She caught the word just in time, proud of herself for finally not saying the first thing that popped into her head. He secured the helmets then laced his fingers through hers, pulling her close to his side. She loved the way it felt there. Just right. They fitted together as though they’d been designed—somehow, she caught the thought before it could go any further, terminating it and turning to him with a bright smile. ‘I can smell the sea.’
‘It’s not far from here.’
‘Did you go swimming much as a child? Play pirates at the seashore?’
Her tone was light, but when she glanced up at his face, she stopped walking. There was a tension there that broke her heart. ‘Alejandro? What is it?’
He seemed to rouse himself, turning to face her. ‘I haven’t been back here in a long time.’
Her brows drew together. ‘Then why—?’
‘You said you want to understand me.’
She nodded slowly, a tic in her heart making her aware that it was moving too fast. ‘But not if it’s hurting you to show me.’
Surprise flashed in his eyes. He looked away. A cat scampered across the footpath in front of them, jet black, barely discernible for how dark the street was. Alejandro wrapped his arm around her shoulders, holding her closer, leading her further up the street. It was quiet—no signs of nightlife, but they weren’t alone. There were more scantily clad women lined up against the walls, and the men she saw looked as though they were out of it. A sense of danger prickled along her skin, but when she was with Alejandro, she felt safe. Completely and utterly.
‘This is where I spent the first twelve years of my life. In this tenement, two small rooms—a kitchen and sofa in one, a bedroom in the other. I slept on the sofa. There was a shared bathroom, used by everyone on our floor.’
Sympathy filled Sienna’s eyes. She wrapped her arm around his waist, running her fingers over his side, and she waited. He’d brought her here after all. It wasn’t to block her questions.
‘The area has been cleaned up considerably since then, believe it or not.’ They looked in unison towards a car that was drawing to a stop near the women. One approached the window, spoke for a moment, then came around to the front passenger side. She stepped in, and the car drove down the street.
‘If this is “cleaned up”, what was it like when you were a boy?’
‘Gangs ran everything. The streets were filled with drugs and prostitutes, brothels in every building.’ He started to walk, drawing her with him. ‘My mother fought so hard, she wanted to get away from it all. She got a job working as a waitress, but once she had me, with no support, her options dried up—she turned to prostitution because she could not see another choice. Her life had not been easy—she’d grown up rough, so coming back here, falling in with the gangs, it must have seemed like her only option. She worked out of our apartment.’
Sienna gasped. She had gathered that he was ‘self-made’ from the research she’d done, but she hadn’t imagined his start in life to be quite so tough as this.
‘The gang she worked for controlled her life. Who she saw, what she did. She was only sixteen when I was born.’
Sienna gasped again. ‘Oh, Alejandro.’ It was no longer enough to stand with her arm around his waist. She moved to the front of him, wrapping both arms behind his back, lifting up onto the tips of her toes and kissing the base of his throat. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s a long time ago now.’
‘You said you lived here until you were twelve,’ she said quietly after a moment, trying not to cry, but her mouth was filling with the sting of tears and her eyes hurt like hell. ‘What happened? Where did you go after that?’
His lips curled in a derisive half-smile, and then it fell, leaving his expression empty, blanked, a mask of determination that couldn’t quite hide all his pain. ‘The streets. My mother died. If I wanted to continue living in the apartment—paid for by the gang who’d used her—I had to agree to work for them. If there was one thing I’d learned growing up and seeing the way my mother was treated, it was that nobody was going to have that kind of control over my life. I would not work for anyone. I would not live in fear of anyone.’
Sienna couldn’t stop a tear from rolling down her cheek, but she angled her face away, knowing he wouldn’t want her sympathy even as it was pouring out of her.
‘I moved to the city centre. I stole food. I lived rough. I learned to fight. I grew up damned fast.’ His laugh was hoarse, as though his throat were lined with acid. Sienna closed her eyes, shivering to imagine a young boy, only twelve, living that kind of life. Now he turned to face her, looking into her eyes, and what she saw in his expression made her heart thump to a stop. He was still that twelve-year-old boy—fully grown now, but his experiences haunted him, dogged him, and turned him into the man he was today. Uber-successful, determined, but alone. No emotional commitments, he wasn’t close to anyone. Except Luca.
And now she was making him lie to his best friend. A hint of guilt stole through her, because she was a grown woman and shouldn’t have felt the need to hide the truth from her brother-in-law, but, damn it, she wanted this experience to be hers, just hers. Nobody else needed to know. It wasn’t as if he had any reason to share the details of this relationship, anyway. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d fill anyone in—even Luca—on the intricacies of his personal life.
