She took her seat angled to the right side of him, and wondered if there was anything more normal than sitting down for a meal.
“This is good,” he said appreciatively after trying a large forkful of the risotto.
“Thank you.” Niccolo, she knew, had never cooked a meal in his life. Born into riches, he’d turned a family trust fund he’dinherited at the age of twenty-one into his own fortune. But even thinking about his wealth made her think about the Espositos.
Niccolo was rich by anyone’s standards. The Espositos’ wealth was on another planet.
“Why did Lorenzo approach you about The Diamond venture?” she asked once she’d eaten a few mouthfuls. “I mean, how did it all come about? How did you even know him?” When he’d told her about the blackmail and the kind of man Lorenzo Esposito was, she’d been reeling too hard to even consider any of this.
He had a long drink of his water before answering. “I visited one of Rico’s casinos with a group of friends. Rico’s his youngest son. Lorenzo happened to be visiting that night.”
Something in his tone made her look closely at him. “Happenedto be visiting? You think he was there deliberately?”
His smile at this was tight. “The Espositos’ casinos are more than casinos. My assistant booked a table for us in one of the private dining rooms there, so yes, he knew. The booking was under my name.”
His stare locked in the past, he ate some more before his eyes fell back on her. “We had our meal and then hit the casino. Lorenzo introduced himself while I was playing blackjack. He insisted on buying me a drink.” He grimaced. “It would have been rude to refuse, and besides…” He raised a shoulder. “I didn’t want to refuse. There’s a reason Lorenzo Esposito was so popular amongst my compatriots and the bookies’ favourite to be our next prime minister – the man had charm. Real charm. He was good company. We struck up a friendship.”
“Did you know about the old mafia rumours and all the bad stuff he’d done?”
“Yes.” He slid a heaped forkful of risotto into his mouth and continued gazing at her as he chewed. After he’d swallowed, he said, “It was a friendship I was happy for him to cultivate as Iknew it would piss my father off.” Something dark flashed in his eyes. “My father and all his high-society friends considered the Espositos to be the scum of the earth. They didn’t care how much wealth or power Lorenzo had created for his family, and they wouldn’t have cared if it had been gained by legitimate means rather than through drugs and arms. My parents and their friends all come from old money.”
“I remember you saying they were snobs.” Georgia thought again about the night they’d discussed their parents. Niccolo’s contribution had been short, but the brevity had been enough for her to understand that his relationship with his parents was worse than Georgia and Callie’s relationship with their own neglectful ones, who’d emigrated to France the moment the girls had completed their secondary education without inviting them to move with them.
Niccolo had seen his parents only a handful of times in a decade.
“They believe themselves to be above everyone else. They struggle to accept that our monarchy was abolished nearly a century ago and that their titles mean nothing.” He forked the last of his risotto into his mouth and pushed the empty bowl aside.
When he met her stare again, his dark eyes had hardened. “My father is a nasty, violent, shit. When I was growing up, he used me as his punching bag. He beat me black and blue, and my mother enabled it. I despise them both and everything they stand for.”
Physically blanching, Georgia’s mind set off like a Catherine Wheel as pieces of the Niccolo puzzle she hadn’t even realisedwasa puzzle knitted together. His fierce, long-standing independence. His loathing of his parents. The numerous scars on his body. His superhuman pain threshold. His nonchalance about concussion…
“The scar above your eyebrow?” she whispered. A scar so old it was a faint silver line only visible under bright light. “Your father did that?”
He inclined his head tightly.
Her gaze dipped to another, much longer, silvery scar on his arm.
He inclined his head again at her unspoken question.
All the food she’d just consumed churned in her stomach.
Niccolo hadn’t been an accident-prone child as she’d assumed. It was all his father.
Georgia’s parents would never win any parenting award, but they’d never laid a finger on either of their daughters. Never even threatened it. Not once in her life had she feared violence.
To imagine Niccolo as a child, living with that level of brutality…
She thought she might be sick.
The hardness in his eyes and tightness of his jaw softened, and he reached for her hand. “It’s in the past,carina. My father hasn’t touched me since I was fourteen.”
“But why…?” She was close to tears. “How could he do that to you, to his own son?”
“I don’t think even he knows why, but he’s always hated me, and I stopped caring about his reasons a long time ago. I’ve made my own way in life without him, and I’m not ashamed to admit that if an opportunity comes to do something that will piss him off, then I take it…” He closed his eyes with a grimace. “But I took it too far when I walked into Lorenzo’s trap. I knew he was dangerous. I knew the stories about him, and I ignored them all because I imagined my father’s anger when he heard about our venture.”
His gorgeous face twisted into something ugly. “I allowed myself to be suckered by Lorenzo’s charm. I got to know his family – say what you like about him, he loved his children. Iwas envious of his relationship with them. To him, family was everything, and it felt good to be embraced into his. When he suggested we go into partnership, I was flattered to be asked. My investment portfolio was suffering a slump…” He shook his head and downed the last of his water before looking at the glass as if surprised it hadn’t contained alcohol.
“Was he behind that slump?” Georgia’s question rolled off her tongue as the thought struck her.
