‘Oh, I think Anya profited quite well from our relationship,’ he said cynically. ‘Which is why she wanted to extend it past its use-by date. I told her in no uncertain terms that I’m not interested in an extension, and she flew back to Rome this afternoon. With all her toiletries.’
Gone…
Jenny didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved. One source of possibly hostile attention had been eliminated, making the situation less complicated on the social level. On the other hand, Anya’s departure meant she couldn’t be used as a line of defence against any disturbing move Dante made on her.
She shot him a hard look. ‘Have you always ordered your world how you want it?’
He grimaced. ‘If I could do that, my mother and father would still be alive, and Nonno wouldn’t be dying of cancer.’
‘Family,’ she murmured, thinking it was the one thing he couldn’t choose.
‘My parents died when I was six,’ he went on. ‘Nonno took me under his wing. He was always there for me. He’s given me so much, I had to give him you, Isabella. I couldn’t tell him you were dead, not when he’s dying.’
Was it an appeal for understanding? Another play for her co-operation? Ruthless blackmail, sexual connection, a pull on her emotional strings…anything and everything was grist for his mill.
Yet maybe it wasn’t ego driving him. Maybe he was half-crazed by grief at the imminent loss of the grandfather who had nurtured and supported him since he was a little boy.
She shouldn’t have taken over Bella’s identity. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t made that decision—taken when her mind had been torn by grief for her friend and desperation on her own account. Impossible to imagine then she was setting up a collision course with Dante Rossini and would end up here, paying for that decision. And maybe it was right that she should pay for it. Marco’s investigators had been deceived into reporting Isabella was alive. Her fault.
She heaved a regretful sigh. ‘I’m sorry I caused this mess. I will do my best to give your grandfather what he needs from Bella, Dante. You don’t need to…to force more from me.’
A rush of hot embarrassment burned her cheeks. She hadn’t fought his kisses. It shamed her that her response to them had not been negative. Dante wasn’t likely to forget that explosive passion. Her mind squirmed over it, wondering if she could explain it away, say it had erupted from anger, nothing at all to do with an attraction that was still tearing at her, despite common sense dictating how dangerously stupid it was.
She stared out to sea, painfully aware he had swung towards her and was studying her profile. Did he believe her? Would he trust her to continue behaving as Bella might have done? Her skin kept burning under the intensity of his probing gaze. He made her so tense she could hardly think.
‘Who were your parents?’
The soft curious tone washed through her jangling mind like cool water. The relief from hot pressure was so great, she forgot about denying him information about herself. It seemed harmless to tell him the truth, easier than prolonging a silence that fed her fears.
‘I don’t know. No one does. I was an abandoned baby, only a few hours old when I was found. Public appeals were made for the mother to come forward, but she never did.’
‘Probably a student,’ he mused. ‘For whatever reason, she must have had to hide her pregnancy, hide the fact she’d had a baby.’
Surprised by this sympathetic reading from him, she shot him a quizzical look. ‘Why do you say that? Why not someone who simply didn’t want to be loaded with me, who didn’t want to bother with the fuss of handing me over to officials for adoption?’
‘Someone who didn’t care would have had an abortion.’ He shook his head. ‘I think your mother was very young and had a lot to lose by admitting to the mistake of getting pregnant, but you were her flesh and blood and she couldn’t bring herself to deny you life.’
She frowned at his persistence in drawing this picture of her unknown mother, whom Jenny had privately condemned for dumping her baby daughter in a limbo of not belonging anywhere. ‘I don’t know why you’re going on about her like this. It makes no difference to what happened to me. No parents. No family. The nurses at the hospital named me Jenny and I was found in Kent Street. There you have it. Jenny Kent.’
His question was answered.
But he didn’t let it drop.
The speculative interest in his eyes didn’t even waver.
‘I believe genetic inheritance contributes far more to one’s character than environment. I think your mother was a student because you’re remarkably intelligent. I think she felt trapped and scared, and just as you denied your own identity to survive, she denied being a mother to survive.’
‘I’d never give up a child of mine,’ she cried emphatically, resenting the parallel he was drawing.
‘No, I don’t think you would,’ he said in measured judgement. ‘That’s where environment comes in. I doubt your mother had the experience of being an abandoned child herself. But in traumatic situations, people do make decisions they later regret.’
Like me, coming out of the coma, faced with too many problems to cope with.
Maybe she should think more kindly of her mother. What was the old saying? ‘Don’t judge people until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes?’
It suddenly struck her how strange this conversation with Dante was. What was the purpose behind it? Why would he care how she thought about her mother? It had nothing to do with his high-powered life, nothing to do with…
‘Like my grandfather turning his back on his youngest son,’ he added quietly. ‘Then it becomes too late to turn back the clock.’
Ah! He was setting up a more sympathetic bond between her and Marco, tapping into her own background to establish an emotional link, pulling strings again. Had he decided the sexual angle might be too volatile to be safely handled? Was she off that hook?
She turned and looked him straight in the eye. ‘I said I’d do my best, Dante. I meant it.’
His long, hard, assessing stare was difficult to hold, making Jenny feel stretched on a rack with him tightening the screws, testing every nerve in her body. Nevertheless, she was determined on making him believe her and it was not her gaze that dropped first.
It was his.
Slowly sliding down to her mouth, stopping there.
And she knew he wasn’t thinking about the words it had just delivered. He was remembering how she had responded to his kisses, wanting to test the memory, relive it.