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His fingers, moving in a sensual sweep down her spine, stilled. ‘Your stepfather?’
Astonished eyes flew to his face. ‘How on earth did you know it was him?’
‘A couple of things you’ve said.’
And he’d remembered?Do not go there, Maya, do not start seeing what you want to see.He’s observant, that’s all. A skill that had helped make him a respected name in the world of finance. Her Internet research had revealed that about him, also that the respect came tinged with a healthy dose of fear; he had a reputation for total ruthlessness.
He was certainly a ruthlessly efficient lover.
‘Edward seemed nice, kind, caring before they were married, but afterwards he changed, at least when Mum wasn’t around, towards me and Beatrice. I was so afraid of him—’
Beside her she could feel Samuele stiffen, and he swore and said something harsh in his mother tongue.
‘No...no...’ she said, laying a pacific hand against his heaving chest. ‘There was nothing physical and it was only little things at first. Everything I did he mocked, like a birthday card I made for Mum once. He looked at it and laughed and threw it in the bin saying that I couldn’t give her that sort of rubbish.’
Samuele’s big strong hand came to cover hers, his fingers sliding in between hers. She smiled her gratitude; the warm pressure was comforting.
‘He chipped away at my self-esteem until in the end I didn’t have any, no confidence at all. He used to say the only thing I had going for me was a pretty face and when I started getting teenage acne he had an absolute field day!’ She felt Samuele’s fingers tighten around her own. ‘I would dread him coming in and finding something about me to laugh at. I wanted so badly to be invisible and I eventually became a grey little mouse scared of her own shadow.
‘I don’t know what would have happened if it wasn’t for Beatrice. She was tougher than me, and she gave as good as she got, so he didn’t pick on her as much. Mum had it bad too. He wanted a child that washischild, and she went through cycle after cycle of IVF to try and please him. It affected her health terribly but he acted as if he was the injured party.
‘Maybe that was when she started to see what he really was, and she began actually listening to what Bea and I told her, and believing us. I will always remember the expression on his face when he arrived home and she’d packed his bags.
‘I saw a therapist.’ She glanced at him to see how he took this. There were still some very outdated views out there about mental health.
‘That’s really good,’ Samuele said, struggling to keep the burning anger that was consuming him from his voice at the picture she’d painted that he knew only hinted at the true extent of all she had suffered. The need to reach out and comfort her was alien to him and he wasn’t quite sure what to do. ‘Did it help?’
‘It did help, yes, but Mum still tries to compensate. She feels guilty that she didn’t see what he was doing. I hate that she and Bea still feel like that, as though I’m weak or fragile and they have to protect me.’
‘So you became the unbreakable Maya Monk.’ In her bold, bright colours and her hit-the-world-head-on attitude. But underneath all that armour, she was the little girl who had been the victim of a coercive, controlling bully.
She was, he decided, the strongest person he had ever met.
Maya blinked, realising with a sense of shock just how much she had told him, more than she had ever admitted outside the therapist’s office, probably more than she had admitted inside it too!
‘I suppose I should get up,’ she said, suddenly feeling shy and exposed...althoughexposedwas a funny word to use when he had seen every little bit of her, loved every little bit of her.
It was moments like this, when everything felt perfect, that she often heard Edward’s voice telling her she wasn’t good enough, that she didn’t deserve to be loved by anyone.
She listened and there was nothing.
She rolled back to Samuele and took his face between her hands. ‘Thank you!’ she said fiercely.
‘For what?’
You made me believe that I’m worth loving.
There was a quizzical furrow in his brow as he studied her face and tried to interpret her silence. ‘The gallery opening will be hard for you, won’t it?’
‘I’ll be fine.’
He recognised her factory-setting response for what it was—a cover for the fact that she was not all right at all. He felt guilty for the times he had taken it at face value because it had suited him to do so.
‘You’ll be fine, I know, and I’ll be there for you tonight. You won’t be alone because I will be with you every step of the way. Oh, and if youreallywant to say thank you, I can think of several ways...’
She gave a sultry smile. ‘So can I.’
‘I haven’t seen anyone older than nine years old literally press their nose to the window like that before.’
