‘Which I fully intend to do,’ he gritted out.
‘And you think they need protection from me? Or are you more interested in protecting yourself from a predatory woman?’
‘Are you a predatory woman?’
‘I’m whatever I need to be,’ she admitted with the steel he was becoming used to. ‘But would I knowingly profit from others? No. I stand on my own two feet, and have done for years. I made a major mistake when I married my ex, thinking I could save my parents. But I never make the same mistake twice, so you can rest assured that if bread and butter is all I can afford, then bread and butter is all I eat.’
‘So you’re not after my money.’
‘Didn’t I just say that?’
‘And you disapprove of all this...’ It was his turn to gesture around.
‘It’s a completely different world for me,’ she admitted, ‘but do I disapprove? No. Why should I? You don’t expect other people to pay for your pleasure. You’ve earned it.’
Silence stretched between them. At first it was hostile and tense, but then gradually they both came down from the peak of fury to a sort of understanding.
‘I could only dream of sailing a boat like this when I was a boy,’ he admitted. ‘Madlena was impoverished when my parents came to the throne. They built it into the country it is, but at the start I had no expectation of being entitled to anything beyond what I could earn for myself. If you know anything about me, you should remember that my tech company was a start-up in my bedroom—’
‘On a second-hand computer, which you restored,’ she supplied.
‘So you read up about me as well as Pietro.’
‘You don’t hold the monopoly on researching those you meet, and I applaud you for refinancing your country to the benefit of your people before you thought of doing anything for yourself,’ she said coolly.
‘I’m not so bad, after all?’
‘Maybe that applies to both of us?’ she suggested.
‘When were you going to tell me what you did?’ he countered. ‘What you still do, or hope to continue doing, is my best guess. Or did you intend to hide the fact that you used to write for a national newspaper in the UK, and had an extremely popular and highly respected column?’
‘Used tobeing the operative phrase,’ she admitted with a rueful huff. ‘My ex kicked me out when he had no further use for me, saying I had ten minutes to clear my desk. I was marched out of the building by his security staff like a common thief.’
‘When were you going to tell me?’ he repeated.
‘When the time was right.’
‘Pillow talk?’
‘Does that sound like me?’
‘I don’t know too much about you,’ he pointed out.
‘Or I about you,’ she conceded.
‘Are you here to spy on me, Samia Smith?’
‘No. I am not,’ she stated firmly. ‘I’ll admit I was curious about you, and excited to learn how the super-rich live, but isn’t everyone curious about that, and for purely innocent reasons? I didn’t set out with the intention to share what I learned with the rest of the world.’
‘How can I be sure?’
‘You can’t,’ she said frankly.
‘So, you’re asking me to believe you came here out of idle curiosity?’
‘And to escape,’ she reminded him forthrightly. ‘My ex was a bully, a very nasty, vindictive man. You don’t have to believe me, but that’s the truth.’
‘And now I must consider the possibility that you have realised the many opportunities that have opened up since you met me, both to re-establish yourself and to further your career. You’d be a fool not to seize that chance.’
