Page 52 of The Tycoon's Shock Heir

Well, all right. It had to come at some point.

She put down her knife and fork and waited for him to start. The restaurant was quiet, save for the sounds of the touch of silverware on china and muted conversation in the very best French. But still he remained silent, staring at the leaves on his plate.

‘Not eating anything?’ she asked, nodding to his untouched food. ‘Or drinking? Don’t you want any wine? You don’t need to hold back on my account.’

‘No. I’ve given up alcohol,’ he said, and the ghost of his smile slid and died.

‘For what? For health reasons? You’re the healthiest guy I know. Surely a little wine won’t do you any harm?’

He shook his head. ‘There’s a lot about me that you don’t know. And you probably need to know if we’re going to go into this thing together.’

Her ears pricked up at the word ‘thing’. Her heart swelled with fear and hope in equal measures. And it was then, in that moment, that she realised that more than anything else she wanted to spend more time with him. Not just parenting time, but real time. Friends time and lovers time.

But he was a man who didn’t commit. And she would never, ever beg any man for anything.

‘My father had a difficult relationship with alcohol...’

He was staring at nothing, touching his glass again. The light from the candle flickered, daubing his face with ochre shadows, hollowing and saddening his features.

‘I didn’t know how difficult it was until he died. He could go for weeks, months, without it, but when he got the taste he couldn’t stop. It was like a demon inside, him making him drink until he had drunk everything dry.’

‘Your poor mother,’ was all she could say, suddenly imagining a young Mrs Rossini, her face troubled with pain.

He nodded absently at that. ‘My mother could do nothing when he got like that—he didn’t even know who she was. But he battled it. He went to rehab clinics. Three times. He took it head-on and he sorted himself out. We’re fighters, me and him—you know?’ he said, spearing her with a sudden look in the half-light.

She didn’t know what to do with that look. She didn’t know what he was saying—was he reassuring her? Warning her?

‘But then the bank got into trouble and started losing clients. He didn’t know why at the time, and for months he held it together...’

His face changed, saddened, and he dropped his head. It was as if her heart was being squeezed. To see such a man, so virile and strong and—kind...

She reached across the table for his hand, instinctively, and he looked up with surprise.

‘But you’re not like that,’ she said, and then cautiously, ‘Are you?’

‘No, I’m not,’ he said, and he drew his hand away and sat up straight, giving her a look right in the eyes. ‘And I’m not going to risk it happening to me either. If I go down, the whole thing sinks. Banca Casa di Rossini is two hundred years old. And we’re still struggling to recover from the sabotage that happened all those years ago.’

‘I thought your bank was flourishing? You have all these things—a jet and a boat and... Are you saying you’re not...rich?’

It was the worst thing in the world to say. She sounded callous and selfish, but how could she avoid it?

He looked sharply at her. ‘I am very rich and I intend to stay that way. I have responsibilities. As well as this baby I have my mother and my family name. The bank, the people who work for me. There’s a merger almost on the table and I won’t let anything get in the way of that.’

‘I don’t doubt you for a minute,’ she said quietly. ‘But what could go wrong? Are you saying that our baby is going to get in the way of your merger?’

‘You saw those recent pictures in the press—us together, and me with other women—pictures from the past ten years? That was set up by someone who wants to discredit me and make me look like some kind of sex addict. Now, with you pregnant, they’ll try to dig up even more dirt. And old Arturo isn’t going to get into bed with a philandering sex addict.’

She sat back, her mind racing. ‘Who’s behind this?’

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