LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER NINE

      ‘THAT POOR CHILD,’ said Jessica as she switched on one of the lamps and the room was flooded with a soft golden light. ‘He was absolutely terrified.’

      ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Loukas, shutting the door softly behind him. ‘Getting lost in Venice age seven isn’t something to be recommended.’

      ‘Do you think he’ll be okay?’

      ‘He’ll be fine.’ He frowned. ‘Are you okay?’

      Jessica nodded, hoping her smile would convey a sense of serenity she was far from feeling. They were back in her hotel room where they’d discovered champagne sitting in an ice bucket, delivered by the grateful parents of Marco Pasolini. She and Loukas had bumped into the fraught and terrified couple outside the entrance to the police station, where they had taken the little boy, who had still been tightly holding her hand. A voluble reunion had followed, with Marco’s mother alternately sobbing and scolding her young son, before scooping him into her arms and covering his face with endless kisses. His father, meanwhile—according to the translation which Loukas had provided afterwards—proceeded to offer them the use of his Sicilian villa, his ocean-going yacht or any other part of his extensive estates, any time they cared to use them.

      But now that the worry and the drama had died away, Jessica was left feeling exhausted. The experience had shaken her up more than she’d realised and had only increased her growing sense of disassociation. She felt as if she shouldn’t really be here, in this room, with Loukas. As if their passion of the night before had been something unplanned and probably regrettable and now, in the harsh light of day, she wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do next. Would he start peeling off her clothes and expecting another acrobatic performance, like last night? She hoped not. She felt shy and inexperienced, as if she couldn’t possibly live up to his expectations.

      She thought about his instinctive reaction when they’d stumbled across the lost child. He had thought it was a scam.

      ‘I’m fine,’ she said, taking off her jacket and realising that her legs felt a little shaky. She sat down on a chair very suddenly and looked at him. ‘Why did you jump to the conclusion that Marco was a pickpocket? That was a pretty harsh and cynical thing to do, in the circumstances.’

      He gave a short and bitter laugh. ‘Because I spent too many years as a bodyguard, and suspicion is something which was drummed into me. Something I learnt to live with. If you work for one of the world’s wealthiest men, threats come from the most unlikely directions—something I learnt to my own cost. You learn never to trust what you see, or to believe what you hear. That nothing is ever as it seems.’

      ‘That seems a pretty grim way to live your life.’

      He raised his eyebrows. ‘A cup half empty, rather than half full?’

      She nodded. ‘Something like that.’

      ‘Or you could say that way you stand less chance of disappointment. If you don’t have raised expectations, then they can’t be smashed,’ he said, his ebony gaze locking with hers. ‘You were brilliant with him, by the way,’ he added slowly. ‘A natural.’

      She heard a note of surprise in his voice, which he couldn’t quite disguise. ‘Something you weren’t expecting?’

      He shrugged. ‘I never had you down as the maternal type.’

      Maybe, she thought, because he must find it hard to recognise the ‘maternal type’, if such a thing existed. His own mother had always put the men in her life first, so could she really blame him if his perception of others was warped—if he had no real experience on which to base his judgements? Or maybe because he remembered her as single-minded and focused, letting her tennis dominate her whole life.

      ‘I don’t know if I was born that way, but it’s something I learnt,’ she said slowly. ‘I had to. I became something of a substitute mother for my half-sister.’

      ‘The little girl who was always hiding your hairbrush?’ He frowned. ‘Hannah?’

      Jessica smiled. Funny he should remember that. ‘That’s the one. When my dad...our dad...and her mum were killed, I stepped in to look after her. Well, I had to really.’

      ‘No, you didn’t,’ he said suddenly, another frown darkening his face. ‘Presumably you had a choice and you chose to look after her. How old was she?’

      ‘Ten.’

      ‘And you were, what—eighteen?’

      She nodded, thinking how beautiful he looked, silhouetted against the Venetian skyline. The shutters were still open and the spotlighted dome of the magnificent Salute church, which stood behind the wide band of gleaming water, could be seen in all its splendour.

      ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was eighteen. The authorities wanted to foster her out to a proper family, but I fought very hard to keep her. I didn’t...’ Her words tailed off.

      ‘Didn’t what?’

      She hesitated. She kept things locked inside her because that was what she’d been trained to do, just as she’d been trained to use a double-handed backhand. And when you did something for long enough it became a habit. A bit like Loukas, when he saw only danger around him. If you built a wall around your emotions you were safer—at least, that was the theory. But the rush of emotions she’d experienced today, following the incredible sex of last night, had left her feeling...

      She wasn’t sure. She didn’t feel like Jessica Cartwright, that was for sure.

      ‘I didn’t want to let her go. Not because I loved her.’ She cleared her throat. ‘But probably because I didn’t—at least, not at first. We’d never had an easy relationship. She was the adored child of two people who were very much in love, while I was the cuckoo in the nest—the offspring of the first marriage, a bad marriage, a marriage which should never have happened. At least, that’s what I once heard my dad telling my stepmum. Hannah was always on the inside, in the warmth, while I always seemed to be out in the cold, literally, on the practice courts. And I think Hannah was a bit jealous of my tennis career. She used to hide my hairbrush, and sometimes my tennis racquet. She even threw away this stupid little mascot I carried around, until my father told me that champions didn’t need mascots—they needed technique and determination.’

      ‘So why did you fight so hard to keep her?’

      ‘Because she was on her own and hurting,’ she said simply. ‘How could I not reach out to her?’ But it hadn’t been easy, because Jessica had been lost and hurting, too. She had missed her father. She had missed her career. And she’d missed Loukas. She’d missed him more than she could ever have imagined.

      She realised she was cold. She was hugging her arms tightly around herself and wishing she hadn’t taken off her jacket, especially now that Loukas’s hard black gaze was sweeping over her.

      ‘Why don’t you go and take a bath?’ he suggested roughly.

      Awkwardly, she got to her feet. ‘Good idea,’ she said and went off into the bathroom, suddenly feeling self-conscious and realising that he hadn’t touched her since they’d got back. Maybe he felt as cautious as she did, she thought as she upended

Скачать книгу