Although his liaisons weren’t numerous like his playboy twin brother, Valenti more than held his own on the dating scene. Stunning, sophisticated women like her sister, all with reams of accomplishments and accolades to their names. Each onehad felt like a tiny taunt to Lotte, a reminder of her youth, inexperience and nihility.
The vice clenched tighter around her chest when she admitted Valenti and Helga were a perfect match. That they would most likely be together now if—
‘So your father was the one who asked you to guard her?’ she asked, interrupting her own frantic thoughts.
Another ghost of a smile. ‘He more or less told me to drop everything to ensure Helga and her group were kept safe.’
Lotte’s eyes widened at the clear bite of bitterness in his voice. Had he not wanted to?
As if he heard her, Valenti speared her with a pithy look. ‘It didn’t matter what I desired. What the King wanted the King got.’
‘What does that mean?’
He started, as if surprised he’d veered off the subject with his telling remark. Then his lips tightened while silence reigned.
‘You said you were friends…were you lovers, too?’ she blurted when it became clear her other question wouldn’t be answered.
His eyes narrowed on her, dark and piercing. More than a little chiding. Whether it was because he felt she had no right to ask that or that it shouldn’t have featured in his retelling—true enough, even though she hadn’t been able to stop herself from knowing—she couldn’t tell. But she waited, breath held as he took his sweet time to answer.
‘No.’
Lotte hated herself for the heady relief that swelled through her heart. And the need to prod at that scab. ‘Why not?’
He inhaled sharply, his eyes narrowing in cold irritation. But beneath it she spotted another emotion she couldn’t decipher. ‘Does it matter?’
Yes. She ignored her screaming senses and settled for a shrug. ‘You cared for her. Enough to…’Spend endless years closedup in an emotional fortress no one else can touch because you’re pining after her and possible could-have-beens. Enough to reject anyone who remotely reminds you of her. Enough to rejectme.
She didn’t have the grit to pose those exposing statements, so she clamped her lips shut. Waited.
‘Yes, I cared for her. Her safety was my priority. And there are a dozen things I should have done differently to ensure her safety. I let her talk me out of each one.’
Her heart lurched wildly at the black desolation in his voice.
‘Why? Pardon my scepticism but you don’t seem like the type to be talked into or out of anything you decide. I mean, Exhibit A…’ She waved an expressive hand around the room, then at herself. ‘We’re here because you wouldn’t be swayed into any other alternative. No matter how much I tried.’Or did he find her easy to control because she wasn’t Helga?
Her heart lurched and canted disconsolately as tension whitened his lips.
‘Some lessons are learned too late. Oftentimes with harrowing consequences.’
Unbidden, she reached out a hand. ‘Valenti—’ Then pulled it back sharply when he jerked away from her. Rejecting her once more.
Dear God, when was she going to learn?
She fisted her hand in her lap, curling her hurt tighter so it wouldn’t bloom into larger life, humiliating her more than she was already.
An expression flashed through his eyes as he glanced at her, perhaps a hint of regret. But it was gone a moment later, smothered by bleak disregard.
‘Finish it, please,’ she rasped. She didn’t regret the question but neither did she want to dwell in the distress churning through her or the devastation of loss he was doing a poor job ofhiding. If she’d needed proof of what her sister meant to Valenti, it was now undeniable.
And no, she didn’t want to contemplate whether it was a forever thing and if so, how she would cope with that knowledge. How it would factor,if at all. That was a conundrum for another day. And perhaps if she managed to rake through every crumb of this subject to find the closure she insisted she needed, she might find it didn’t factor at all.
The mocking voice taunting her todream onshe firmly pushed to the back of her mind, just as she ignored her dismay as he opened his mouth.
‘The country wasn’t known for being unsafe. There’d been a spate of kidnappings and random violence in the area, but it’d died down a few years before Helga’s group decided to go. Travellers were warned to be cautious but not prohibited from visiting. That was all she needed to insist the hospital give its approval. And she was right, for the most part. For the better part of the mission, it was incident free.’ His fists bunched for a handful of seconds before he reasserted control. ‘Until the last night.
‘We were headed to the airport when she got the call that one of the patients she’d treated had taken a turn for the worse. I sent the rest of her group and most of my security team ahead and returned to the hospital with her.’
Lotte’s throat tightened, her mouth dry as her heart dropped to her toes.
