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Listening to Nico, hearing the ragged sincerity in his voice and seeing the urgency in his dark gaze, Grace felt her heart swell but with that came a warning voice of caution.
This wasn’t love.
This was attraction. This was lust. He didn’t want her back in the office. He wanted her back in his bed and he had come here because he had thought she was entertaining some guy.
The fact that he was jealous...well, Grace had to admit that that did something to her, sent little shivers racing up and down her spine. As did the way his eyes were burning into her.
Little did he know that he had nothing to be jealous about. She breathed in deeply.
‘You have nothing to be jealous about.’
‘I don’t?’ Long, lush lashes dropped to conceal his expression but there was a glitter in his eyes when he next looked at her.
‘Tommy is...my brother.’
Afterwards, Grace would try and recapture in her head the sequence of expressions that flitted across Nico’s face at that revelation but overwhelmingly it was one of utter stupefaction.
His mouth dropped open and for a few seconds he looked as though that sharp mind of his had been completely emptied.
‘Sorry?’
‘Tommy’s my brother.’
‘But you haven’t got a brother.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We... I thought...we shared...you would have told me if you had a brother.’
Nico felt that unexpected revelation like the force of a runaway train barrelling into him at full speed. It knocked him for six.
A brother?
He’d thought he knew her. Thought he knew her as well as she knew him. He’d shared more with her than he ever had with anyone in his life before. When he thought back to their time together on the island, before, even, he could see a trail of confidences left behind him. Barely acknowledged, just slipped into conversation in passing. He’d told her things he’d never told anyone. And yet, it had not been returned. No like for like.
It felt like treachery and it hurt.
Grace’s throat constricted. How could she explain that talking about her childhood had felt dangerous? How could she tell him that she’d been so scared of turning him off her that she’d edited herself to be the person she’d thought he wanted? Someone who was in it just for the fun? That she’d held her private life close to herself because, in her head, she could envision him running a mile if she shared things that overstepped the boundaries between them?
How could she explain that she had made a mistake?
In a rush, she began talking.
She was suddenly desperate to wipe that shocked look from his face. She didn’t care if he’d come here just to ask her for a few repeat performances in the sack. She wanted that look on his faceto go awaybecause it made something inside her tighten with a pain she had never felt before.
‘Tommy...yes, Tommy’s my brother. I’ve been looking after him, really, for...all his life.’ She paused, licked her dry lips and ran her fingers through her hair but she kept looking at him, trying to gauge what he was thinking. ‘I never knew my dad,’ she said jerkily. ‘It was just me and Mum and then Tommy came along. Just the three of us but the responsibility...well, it fell on my shoulders from as far back as I can remember. My mum...our mother...she wasn’t really into parenting. She was more into guys and having fun. When it came to taking responsibility for us...she just didn’t have it in her. She was lovely and carefree and, as I got older, it felt as though she was...younger than me in a lot of ways.’
‘You...have a mother...’
‘I do, Nico. I have one of those.’ Grace paused but he failed to fill the silence and so she ploughed on with the backstory she had withheld for such a long time. Nerves were skittering through her and she was perspiring.
‘Enlighten me.’ Nico’s voice was barely audible.
‘My mum had a couple of husbands. She was so young when she had us and she was always in search for the right guy, always being knocked back. All I can remember is taking care of her, picking her up when she was down. She didn’t like cooking, at least not the sort of stuff that kids should eat. We used to have pancakes for dinner and pizza for breakfast. Whatever came to hand. When I got old enough, I took over the business of making sure there was nutritious food on the table, at least most of the time.’
‘And your brother?’
Grace could scarcely hear him and the expression on his face, while not as shocked, was blank, which almost felt worse.
