‘Do you financially support your parents, Erin?’
His voice was low and serious and Erin met his eyes without flinching and nodded.
‘I was surprised at where you live,’ he mused. ‘Now it makes sense. You never said.’
‘Why do you think I should have said anything?’ Erin asked with genuine curiosity.
‘Because, like I said, I thought we were friends. Maybe not the confiding-intimate-secrets kind of friends but surely friends who share financial troubles…’
‘You would never have any financial troubles to share, Raffaele, and honestly, we’re not friends. You’re my boss and lines have to be drawn.’ She thought of her inappropriate crush which couldn’t have been further from the friends category he mistakenly thought they might be in. ‘You’re used to women who love shopping and who probably can’t wait to tell you all about themselves but I’m not any of those women. What’s more, I work for you. Don’t forget all the girls you had to sack because they started blurring the boundaries.’
‘If you’d told me that your father was out of work, then I would have gladly given you whatever money you needed to tide him over until he found something else. Was he made redundant? What did he do for a living?’
Erin looked at Raffaele coolly.
He truly lived in an ivory tower. Born into a life of privilege, handed a healthy trust fund when he was barely out of nappies. Whatever disagreements he might have had with his dad over time, he would never have known inconsistency. He had always been cocooned. From the top of Mount Olympus, it would be impossible not to look down on the ones who lived below without a certain amount of incomprehension and pity.
He would never have had self-doubt and would never have suffered. A squabble over when to repay a trust fund that would set you up for life didn’t count.
She thought of how her parents had agonised when they had finally decided to put down roots only to discover how unprepared they were for the reality of what that process entailed.
Her father had cried and apologised to her when she had told them that she would use her own money to ensure their future security. They’d had next to no savings of their own by then. Living in the present had made zero allowances for life in the future.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Erin eventually said.
‘Try me.’
Erin looked away for a few minutes. It was a slow journey because the roads were narrow, twisty and occasionally perilous, with steep drops into dense forest on either side. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if someone happened to be coming in the opposite direction. Strung overhead in a seemingly random fashion, electricity cables bowed under twisting vines. The heat was like a blanket around them, dense and filled with humidity.
‘Okay, yes, I have financial obligations,’ she finally confessed, because the whole story was going to be better than half a story. If she dropped it all, he would be left thinking that her parents were irresponsible layabouts who exploited her good nature, and just thinking that made her feel angry on their behalf.
‘My parents have never been good about money and it’s not because they’re stupid or lazy. It’s just that…’ Her voice trailed off. She thought about her colourful childhood. Exciting, unpredictable, joyful…but what a learning curve in the end. And she thought about his: predictable, wealthy, privileged and with zero learning curves beyond how much more money it was possible to make.
‘Just that what?’
And suddenly Erin felt her lips twitch and she looked at him with raised eyebrows and grinned.
What would her billionaire boss, who had always been protected from the hardships of life, who’d probably never glimpsed any life too far removed from the one he’d led, what would he think of hers?
Her smile broadened when he frowned and she could tell that he was bemused and disconcerted by her sudden change of attitude.
‘Raffaele, this might come as a shock to you but until I was twelve, I grew up in a commune.’
Erin stifled a laugh when his mouth dropped open in shock. She’d shocked him once when she’d mentioned that her parents had a small holding and a tiny cottage industry…and now she’d shocked him again with this revelation.
‘A commune…’
‘It was wonderful, to be honest. I’m not sure how my parents drifted into that lifestyle but I think they’d both been hippies from the very beginning and commune life appealed to them once I came along, which was quite late in life for them. I think they spent so many years just enjoying one another and enjoying their wonderful nomadic life that they only decided at the very last minute that they’d quite like…well…me. A child. And along I came, at which point they joined a commune. We lived in the middle of nowhere but it was a vibrant community and we were all home-schooled.’
‘Home-schooled…’
‘You look a little dazed, Raffaele. Is this all too much for you? Should I get the smelling salts out?’
‘Is that the sound of you being patronising?’
‘I’m afraid it might be.’
‘And then what? What happened after the commune life?’
