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‘And why a party?’ she prompted. ‘Is that something you do every time you acquire a company? If so, I should imagine you’d have an events coordinator on staff.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Only that you buy so many businesses, it would make sense.’
‘And how do you know what businesses I acquire?’
Heat flamed her cheeks as her guilty secret—how often she googled him—flooded her. ‘You think you’re the only one whose reputation precedes them? Or do you believe I’d come to a meeting in the middle of nowhere with a man I barely know without doing at least a hint of research?’
‘With a man you barely know? That’s not how I would categorise our relationship.’
‘No?’ She responded breathlessly, leaning forward a little until her ankle gave a dull throb of pain and she was forced to stay exactly where she was. ‘Then how would you describe this?’
‘Not having seen each other for many years does not change how well we know each other. How well we understand each other.’
She bit down on her lip. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘And a lot has happened since,’ he agreed, moving closer, eyes boring into hers, probing her, reading her. ‘But have you ever forgotten?’
She gasped, the question lancing her with its directness, with its importance. ‘Graciano—’
How could she answer? Danger surrounded her.
Think of Annie!
She had to do what was right for their daughter.
‘You taught me so many lessons, Alicia, I have found it impossible to forget you.’
Her heart was beating so hard and fast it was all she could hear in her ears. ‘What lessons?’
‘How self-serving people can be, for starters. Even the beautiful, sweet-seeming ones.’ He brushed his thumb over her jaw. ‘Perhaps them most of all.’
She shivered, wrenching her face away, angered that even then, when his manner was derisive, his touch remained incendiary. ‘What about me was self-serving?’
‘Your silence, for one thing.’
She squeezed her eyes shut, because he was right. She’d listened to her father turn on Graciano and eviscerate him, to threaten to call the police and press charges for sexual assault, listened to her father ripping shreds off the man she’d loved, and she’d said nothing. She’d been mute, struck silent by the awful, mortifying position she’d found herself in. But then, when her father had threatened to go to the police if she ever contacted Graciano again, she’d closed off her heart, knowing she had to protect the man from the awful crime her father wanted to hang around his neck. Only when it had been imperative to speak to him had she taken that risk—not for herself, not because she’d missed him with all of herself, but because he’d had a right to know they’d made a baby. And deep down, because she’d believed he would be able to fix everything. Her heart strangled to remember the confused, terrified teenager she’d been then.
‘Not everyone is as strong as you,’ she said after a long, pained pause. ‘My father was all I had—’
If anything, that seemed to make Graciano angrier. He made a dark sound of frustration and moved closer, crouching down beside her so their eyes were level.
‘Your father accused me of raping you,’ he reminded her, and the anguish in the depths of his eyes took her breath away. The accusation still had the power to hurt him. And little wonder! ‘You said nothing to correct him. You let him think that of me.’
Shame sucked all the life from her cheeks. ‘I told him the truth later. Afterwards.’
His eyes narrowed. Sceptically? ‘Not that morning—not when it mattered.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘He was so angry.’
‘He had no right. We knew what we were doing.’
‘We were little more than children.’
‘So? What does that mean? Do you believe we made a mistake?’
How could she agree to that when Annie was the result? And even if there’d been no Annie, Alicia couldn’t bring herself to regret anything about that night; it was only the morning she had wished, many times, to change.
