Page 49 of Duty and Desire

“Yes, but you don’t want to tell me, so why don’t we leave it for the moment?”

Nick gave me an amused smile. “Can your writer’s brain cope with that? Not knowing?”

I gave another shrug. “I’ll have to deal with it.” I handed him a glass, then gestured to the couch. He sat, and I went to sit in the armchair.

“No. Sit here, next to me.”

I joined him, half twisting to face him, my arm along the back of the couch. “So where do we go from here?” I was enough of a realist to know we couldn’t simply pick up from where we’d left off.

There were still a few bridges left to reconstruct.

“You asked me a question out on the veranda.” Nick took a long drink from his glass, then set it down on the table. I waited, letting him take the lead. “You asked if I felt we had a connection.” His smile turned every thought in my head into a puddle of warm mushiness. “The answer is yes.”

Lord, I was as giddy as a spinning top.

“But as for where we go from here? You need to understand something.” He grabbed the glass and drank some more. “I… I haven’t had a lot of experience with men. I’ve never been in a relationship that lasted more than a couple of weeks. And maybe if I explain about Franz, you’ll know why that is. You see, my father… he’s what you’d call a control freak.”

I smirked. “News flash. I think arranging your marriage kinda gave that one away.”

The line of his mouth hardened for a second, then relaxed into softness, capturing my attention, making me yearn to taste his lips once more.

“Gio?”

I blinked. “Sorry. My mind was elsewhere. You were talking about your dad.”

“When I went to university, it was my first time away from home. I can’t tell you how much that excited me.”

I could guess. “You were free to be yourself, away from your father’s gaze.”

His face lit up. “Yes. Exactly. But what I didn’t know was that my father was having me watched. For my security, he claimed, when I confronted him about it.”

I did the math. “Your father is an important man, isn’t he?”

“Very astute of you. I didn’t learn about Gustaf until it was too late.”

“The guy sent by your dad to watch you?”

Nick nodded. “The first semester, I met someone.” His face tightened. “I was smitten. We were together maybe two, three weeks—until we weren’t.” His mouth grew pinched. “He dumped me, and I had no idea why. Not only that, he kept his distance for the remainder of my studies.” Nick swallowed. “I thought I’d done something wrong. Not that I’d had the chance to… do anything. But that really shook me. It took a while to get up enough courage to ask another guy on a date. Except when I did…”

Shit. “The same thing happened?”

Nick’s drawn-out sigh was answer enough.

I put my arm around his shoulders and drew him to me, until his head rested against my shoulder. “When did you learn you were being watched?”

“Claudia worked it out. I’d thought Gustaf was a friend. Some friend.” Nick pressed closer, until I could smell the sweetness of the juice on his breath. “After that, the guys my father paid got better at covering their tracks. I never knew who was watching my every move, but I never doubted for a second that someone was.”

“Franz is here to watch you, isn’t he?” Now it all made sense. Nick gave a single nod. “And where is he, by the way? More importantly, does he know where you are?”

“He took Claudia to the airport. Her idea, to give us some space.”

I smiled. “Remind me to thank her next time I see her.”

Nick snickered. “She has an ulterior motive, so I wouldn’t overdo your gratitude. And Franz knows my exact location. Don’t worry, he won’t come knocking, not if he wants to keep his job.” He let out a sigh. “He’s not like Gustaf and the others, though. I can negotiatewith him. There haven’t been many men while I’ve lived here, but I know for a fact Franz hasn’t passed on any information about them to my father. He even made a joke about it once. He said, ‘Your father really is determined to be a cockblock, isn’t he?’”

I tilted his chin until I could see his eyes. “When you say you haven’t had a lot of experience…”

He chuckled. “I’m not a complete novice. I’ve even had compliments on my… skills. But I do think it’s pitiful to reach the age of twenty-five and the only things I’ve taken have been fingers.”

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