LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      ANGELOS WATCHED AS Talia slowly closed the book and turned to him, her smile sliding off her face, her eyes shadowing, her shoulders starting to hunch. Guilt. That was what was written on her face, all over her body, in bold, stark letters. Guilt.

      ‘Well?’ he bit out. ‘Do you have an answer?’ He didn’t even know what to think, how to process what she had said. How could Talia possibly know about Xanthe’s precious book? And what on earth had she meant, he really did have it? Suspicions formed on the horizon of his mind, a boiling black cloud of fear and anger that was moving closer, drowning out all rational thought. ‘Why can’t you explain it to me?’

      ‘I can,’ she said. Her voice sounded small and she was clutching the book to her chest.

      ‘Put down the book,’ Angelos barked out, driven by a deep and overwhelming emotion he couldn’t name; he only felt himself trapped in its clutches. ‘Don’t you dare touch it.’

      Talia’s gaze widened and carefully she returned the book to his bedside table. ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘So am I.’ Angelos rolled out of bed, swearing under his breath as he reached for his clothes.

      ‘Angelos, please. Don’t...’

      ‘Don’t what? Ask questions? Demand answers? Why do I feel like there is something you are not telling me? Something big?’

      ‘There is,’ she admitted, and her words were like a hammer blow to his fragile, taped-together heart. Everything inside him shattered. She leaned forward, kneading the sheet between her fingers, her golden-brown hair falling over her freckled shoulders, making him desire her even now, a realisation that sent disgust following hard after. ‘But, Angelos, please,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t have to be big.’

      ‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that,’ he snapped, and yanked on his trousers.

      ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘If you could just see...’

      ‘See what? That you lied to me?’ He grabbed his shirt and thrust his arms through the sleeves. ‘Because that’s what you did, isn’t it?’ He pointed to the book lying on the bedside table, the book his wife had cherished. ‘How did you know about that book?’

      Talia swallowed hard, the muscles jerking in her slender throat. ‘My grandfather once owned it. It was a treasured possession of his.’

      ‘Another lie,’ Angelos dismissed. ‘That book has been in my wife’s family for generations.’ She paled at that and he gave a hard, derisive laugh. ‘So what is it really, Talia? Are you after the book because it’s valuable?’

      She drew back in shock. ‘Valuable? You think I’m after your money?’

      ‘The book has been valued at fifty thousand pounds. It’s an extremely rare edition.’

      ‘I don’t want or need your money,’ she spat. ‘My grandfather is Giovanni Di Sione, of Di Sione Shipping—’

      ‘Impressive,’ Angelos cut across her, his voice a furious drawl. ‘Other things you didn’t feel you needed to tell me.’

      ‘You didn’t ask,’ Talia protested. ‘I mentioned my grandfather’s estate...’

      Of course she had. And looking back, Angelos realised he’d known she was from money. The clues she’d dropped about the estate, her studio, the travelling she’d done. Of course she was rich.

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he stated flatly. ‘I don’t care about your grandfather or his estate.’

      ‘But it’s because of my grandfather that I was looking for that book,’ Talia said quietly. She was clutching handfuls of sheet in her fists, her knuckles as blazing white against the dark silk. ‘It did belong to him, Angelos, a long time ago. It was very precious to him.’

      ‘The book belonged to my wife’s grandmother,’ Angelos told her. ‘She was a lady’s maid for a duchess on Isola d’Oro. The duchess gave it to her as a parting gift.’

      Talia frowned, shaking her head slowly. ‘I don’t understand. My grandfather is from Italy. But I know it was his. He told me about the inscription on the front page.’

      ‘“Dearest Lucia, For ever in my heart, always. B.A.”’ Angelos turned away abruptly, not wanting Talia to see the expression on his face. Not wanting to feel the pain that rose up in him. He and Xanthe had said the same thing to each other. For ever in our hearts, always. ‘My wife loved that book,’ he said tonelessly. ‘It was her prized possession. She kept it on her bedside table. It was the only thing saved from the fire, and that only because I’d had it in the safe in my office. I’d just had it valued for insurance. I was going to return it to Xanthe that night.’ Talia made a small, abject sound, and feeling cold and emotionless now, Angelos turned around. ‘And you want to what? Buy it off me?’

      ‘My grandfather asked me to find it for him,’ Talia said in a small voice. ‘I didn’t realise how important it was to you...’

      ‘How did you trace it to me?’ Angelos asked. ‘Out of interest?’

      ‘I found a website dealing in finding rare books. Someone from Mena Consultancy had put a query forth about other books by the same poet.’

      ‘Ah, yes.’ His gut soured as he remembered. ‘I tried to find a second book for my wife’s birthday, years ago.’ He shook his head. ‘And you came all the way here for that.’

      ‘Yes...’

      ‘That’s why you were in my office in the first place,’ he surmised. Realisation after realisation thudded sickly through him. ‘Not to apply for the nanny position as I’d assumed.’

      ‘No, but—’

      ‘And you didn’t see fit to tell me? You could have cleared up my misunderstanding in minutes. In seconds.’

      ‘I know, but it was difficult. I was tired and overwhelmed by travelling all that way, and then when I realised I could help Sofia...’

      ‘And snoop around for the book as well, no doubt.’

      Talia swallowed, a gulping motion. ‘Not snoop, but yes, I thought I’d be able to look...’

      ‘That’s why you asked me about poetry on the boat, isn’t it?’ Angelos said with a disgusted shake of his head. ‘I thought it an odd question, but I believed you were just trying to get to know me.’ The exposure that admission caused, the realisation that he’d wanted her to get to know him, had him turning away.

      ‘I was trying to get to know you,’ Talia whispered. ‘I wanted—’

      ‘Enough.’ Angelos slashed his hand through the air. ‘Enough. I can’t bear to hear any more of your pathetic excuses. Leave me.’ He turned around, watched as tears filled her eyes and her fingers trembled on the sheet.

      ‘Angelos, please. I know I should have said something earlier, but I was starting to care about Sofia, about you, and it seemed so difficult to admit—’

      ‘Go,’ Angelos roared, and he turned around, unable to face her. He heard her rise from the bed and scramble for her clothes, and then the soft, quick tread of her feet and the click of the door closing.

      He let out a shuddering sigh and raked his hands through his hair, grief and guilt and deep, deep regret coursing

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