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‘I’m not disputing that, but I’m guessing the money played a part. If life has been tough for you, perhaps, along with having to deal with a parent who couldn’t cope, you’ve also had to deal with financial problems that kept you awake at night?’
Sophie shrugged and then nodded.
The distance between them seemed to have closed. Had he dragged his chair closer to hers? Had she somehow edged hers closer to his? Their knees were almost touching. When she glanced down she could see the strain of his jeans, pulled taut over his muscular thighs.
This was where a lack of experience got a girl. One minute she had been happily plodding along, content in her own inertia, and then just like that along came Alessio and everything was suddenly tossed into the air.
Her head was suddenly filled with should-haves, and she felt tears prick the back of her eyes.
She was horrified. She never cried. She wasn’t a crier—because what was the point of crying over stuff that couldn’t be changed? And the past could never be changed.
She stood up and shambled towards the sink with her mug. She began washing it, just for something to do. With her back to him, she was unaware of him behind her until she felt his hands on her shoulders, drawing her round to look at him.
‘I’ve upset you,’ he said roughly.
‘No!’
‘If I had had any idea of what was going on I would have been here in a hurry, whether my father wanted it or not.’
‘Of course.’
‘You’re not being paid to carry someone else’s stress on your shoulders. Even if it’s something you’ve been accustomed to doing. How is your mother now? Your sister? Time must have moved on for all of you. But is there anything I can do to help financially?’
The utter kindness of his gesture was too much.
Overwhelmed and wrong-footed by the very fact that she had opened up to someone about her past, Sophie felt one treacherous tear slip down her cheek. Mortified, she tried to shake her head free, but his grip tightened.
‘You can cry,’ he said gruffly.
She shot him a wobbly smile. ‘Is that an order from my new boss?’
‘I’m not your new boss.’
‘You...you’ve just said...’
‘You will always only ever answer to my father. And...off the record...there’s no need for the old man to think that anything’s changed on that front.’
Sophie nodded jerkily and drew in a deep breath to steady her nerves.
‘Your mother and sister?’ Alessio went back to what he had asked her before they were side-tracked. ‘Anything I can do?’
‘Thank you, but everything is under control. Thanks to the pay I’ve been receiving here,’ Sophie admitted, letting another confidence slip through the net. ‘My mother is settled in a little place by the coast, where she’s made some friends and got a life for herself. After everything was sorted and the bills and debts paid I managed to get the mortgage there right down. And my sister... I can help her too. She’s an aspiring actress.’
‘An actress and a nurse?’ Alessio mused. ‘I’m getting the picture.’
Sophie brushed the tear from her cheek, and this time her smile was rueful but genuine. She stepped back, and was relieved when he released her and also stepped back. But the atmosphere had shifted, and when their eyes met there was a charge in the air that hadn’t been there before. It slithered, electric and dangerous, barely visible butthere. She knew that her heart had picked up pace and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his dark, intent stare.
Alessio couldn’t remember the last time any woman had had this effect on him. In truth, he had encouraged confidences in a way he was not accustomed to doing. He was a man who didn’t rush into caveman protective mode at the sight of tears. In fact a crying woman had the effect of making his teeth snap together with impatience, and it wasn’t because he was hard-hearted. It was because female tears were usually, in his experience, a prelude to pleading for a relationship Alessio had always made sure to warn against from the beginning.
He could understand how Sophie had learned life lessons from what she had described of her childhood and adolescence.
He had learned his own.
The past was a country Alessio tried his best not to revisit. What was the point? But being here, back in the house in which he had grown up, which he was now tasked to save, was bringing back memories of the past.
Memories of happier times before his mother had died.
Times before the shutters had come down, separating him from his father with a wall that had ended up too solid to climb.
