‘Yet I told you why. Now I’m asking the same of you.’
Simone let out a slow, pained breath. ‘Let’s just say there were expectations placed on me as a child and a young woman. I was supposed to look and act a certain way, to prepare myself for finding a husband my parents approved of, or even better, marrying a person they chose for me, who might help my father’s business. I always guessed the idea of choice was really an illusion.’
‘What sort of husband were they looking for?’
‘Funnily enough, probably someone a lot like you, although not Italian. An American would have been preferred.’
‘And you didn’t want that.’
‘No, yet here I am. The delicious irony of my situation.’
‘All to help your sister.’
Simone nodded. ‘You know she’s pregnant. Holly hid it, till she couldn’t any more. And for good reason. My parents didn’t react well and threw her out of their home. Holly needed a place to live, medical care. The pregnancy’s complicated and once she has the baby he’ll need a stable life, a good education. I could do a lot on what I’m paid, but it didn’t cover everything she needed. Now, she can have whatever she wants.’
‘What about you? Your wants?’
‘I wasn’t looking for love. You agreed. And I was confident you wouldn’t ask anything of me that I wasn’t prepared to give.’
In truth, she’d given him almost everything. At least he could be confident that she’d come to his bed out of desire rather than any sense of obligation. Yet hehadtaken from her and she’d almost lost her life in the process. She’d been clear when they’d signed the pre-nuptial agreement that love wasn’t on the table. In his extensive experience, most women he’d known had wanted love in the end. He’d had to be quite clear with anyone he’d spent consistent time with that whilst he’d be generous financially, and in the bedroom, love and permanence would never be on the cards. He’d been wedded to his business and that was all he’d needed.
What was her reason?
‘What happened to you,cara? What really made you leave?’
Simone took another long sip of coffee. Sat staring at the wall ahead of her, not at him.
‘When you’re young, it’s easy to believe a lot of things. Mine’s an old, well-worn story. I was at college. I met a boy. I thought I’d fallen in love.’
She seemed to somehow shrink into herself, become smaller. He wanted to take her into his arms but she seemed so distant right now. He feared that if he did, he wouldn’t get the story or the insights that he needed, to try to understand her. Maybe that was selfish of him, but Leo was also driven to find out more about her.
‘He was on a partial scholarship and wasn’t the sort of person that my parents would have approved of. I didn’t care. He said he loved me and I thought I loved him. I had all these dreams, you know? Saving myself for marriage. Just being with one man, in love, for ever. My friends seemed supportive but really, they thought I’d lowered myself. Word got back to my parents who paid him off and the relationship ended. His professed love for me was worth a surprisingly paltry sum, in the end. I suppose he could have finished college debt free. Anyhow, he’d seen me as a conquest, a challenge, nothing more.’
She placed her coffee cup down on the bedside table and wrapped her arms round her waist in a protective move.
‘My parents claimed to love me, but it was transactional. They loved us only as long as we did what they wanted. Look at me. Look at my sister. Then Jace. He said he loved me. We had dreams and promises and he didn’t love me at all. Money was worth more than I ever was.’
As she spoke, Leo’s heart felt like it was being crushed inside of him. Sure, he’d seen the damage misplaced romantic love could do to a person. Yet, in the end, he’d always been sure of his mother’s love of him. It was one of the things that drove him, what he was doing in her name. Whilst he’d been alone for a long time, the desire to avenge what had happened to them always carried him forwards. For Simone, what did she have? Only herself. In that way she was a thousand times stronger than he was.
‘You’re worth—’
‘I knowexactlyhow much I’m worth.’
He wasn’t sure whether she was talking about her intrinsic value as a person or their pre-nuptial agreement. He hated to think that all she saw her worth coming down to was a financial value of some sort. Leo cupped her cheek. She leaned her face into it, the warm weight of her in his palm. Her eyes glittering as if with unshed tears. Perhaps she wasn’t as immune to it all as she pretended to be.
Even touching her, the distance between them seemed too far. He needed to close it, to comfort her in the only way he knew how.
‘Come here,’ he said, opening his arms. She shuffled over and into his embrace as he held her against his chest. His lips to her hair. Breathing her in.
‘I’m sorry for what happened to you.’
‘It was clear that the universe was teaching me some powerful lessons and I learned them well.’
Leo wrapped his arms tighter round her, to try as much as he could to let her know that she had his support, for as long as she needed it. Because whilst Simone might have believed the universe had taught her powerful lessons, he wasn’t sure that what she’d learned were the right ones.
They’d had a slow start to the morning, drinking coffee together. Eating a quiet breakfast on the terrace. Something about purging herself to him, telling Leo about her past as he’d done with her, was freeing. It was like a weight lifted, one person to share her past with because even Holly hadn’t really known what went on and Simone hadn’t wanted to burden her. She would have been happy for a quiet day round the house, easing back into a little work except Leo had suggested he take her sightseeing and then out to dinner. Turning off their phones and forgetting about work for a while. Now, they sat in the back of a taxi, travelling to the centre of the city.
‘Are you ever going to give me any hints about where we’re going, other than what I should be wearing?’
