LITMIR.BIZ

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began to read from it, though something told her he already knew the words by heart.

      ‘“Did you know that Pammie Denton was a whore? Biggest hooker in all of Manchester. Ask your wife about her mam.”’

      He put the note down. ‘It’s pointless asking if you recognise the writing, since it’s printed in crude capitals, but I imagine Drake Bradley must be the perpetrator and that this is the beginning of some clumsy attempt at blackmail. Don’t you agree?’ he added coolly.

      Her normal reaction would have been to shut right down and say she didn’t want to talk about it because that had been the only way she’d been able to cope with the shame in the past, but this was different. Renzo was her husband. He was the father of her unborn baby. She couldn’t just brush all the dirty facts under the carpet and hope they would go away.

      And maybe it was time to stop running from the truth. To have the courage to be the person she was today, rather than the person forged from the sins of yesterday. Her heart pounded and her mouth grew suddenly dry. To have the courage to tell him what maybe she should have told him a long time ago.

      ‘I’d like to explain,’ she said, drawing in a deep breath.

      He gave her another unfathomable look as he opened up the refrigerator and took out a beer and Darcy blinked at him in consternation because cool and controlled Renzo Sabatini never drank during the day.

      ‘Feel free,’ he said, flipping the lid and pouring it into a glass. But he left the drink untouched, putting it down on the table and leaning against the window sill as he fixed her with that same cold and flinty stare. ‘Explain away.’

      In a way it would have been easier if he’d been angry. If he’d been hurling accusations at her she could have met those accusations head-on. She could have countered his rage with, not exactly reason—but surely some kind of heartfelt appeal, asking him to put himself in her situation. But this wasn’t easy. Not when he was looking at her like that. It was like trying to hold a conversation with a piece of stone.

      ‘My mother was a prostitute.’

      ‘I think we’ve already established that fact and I think I know how prostitution works,’ he said. ‘So what exactly was it you wanted to explain, Darcy?’

      It was worse than she’d thought because there was anger, only it was quiet and it was brooding and it was somehow terrifying. Because this was a man she scarcely recognised. It was as if his body had become encased in a thick layer of frost. As if liquid ice were running through his veins instead of blood.

      She looked at him, wanting to convey a sense of what it had been like, trying to cling on to the certainty that there was something between her and Renzo—something which was worth fighting for. There had to be. He might take his parental responsibilities very seriously but deep down she knew he wouldn’t have married her or contemplated staying with her unless they had something in common. ‘She was an addict. Well, you know that bit. Only... Well, drugs are expensive—’

      ‘And a woman can always sell her body?’ he interposed acidly.

      She nodded, knowing this time there was no going back. That she needed to tell him the truth. The cruel, unedited version she’d never even been able to admit to herself before, let alone somebody else.

      ‘She can,’ she said. ‘Until her looks start to go—and that tends to happen sooner rather than later where addicts are concerned. My mother had once been beautiful but her looks deserted her pretty quickly. Her...her hair fell out and then...’

      She flushed with shame as she remembered the kids at school taunting her and she remembered that she’d once thought she would never tell him this bit, but she knew she had to. Because why was she trying to protect her mother’s memory, when she had uncaringly gone out and wrecked as many lives as it took to get that hypodermic syringe plunging into her arm?

      ‘Then her teeth,’ she whispered, staring down at the fingers which were knotted together in her lap. ‘And that was the beginning of the end, because she kept losing her dentures whenever she got stoned. She was still able to get clients—only the standard of client went rapidly downhill, as I’m sure you can imagine, and so did the amount of money she was able to charge.’

      And that had been when it had got really scary. When she hadn’t wanted to go home from school at night—even though she was so stressed that learning had become impossible. She’d never know what she’d find when she got there—what kind of lowlife would be leering at her mother, but, worse, leering at her. That had been where her mistrust of men had started and if that kindly social worker hadn’t stepped in, she didn’t know what would have happened. To most people, going back to the children’s home would have seemed like the end of the road—but to her it had felt like salvation.

      ‘It sounds a nightmare,’ he said flatly.

      Sensing a sea change in his mood, Darcy looked up but the hope in her heart withered immediately when she saw that his stony expression was unchanged. ‘It was. I just want you to understand—’

      ‘No,’ he said suddenly, cutting across her words. ‘I’m not interested in understanding, Darcy. Not any more. I want you to know that something was destroyed when I received this letter.’

      ‘I realise it was shocking—’

      He shook his head. ‘No. You’re missing the point. I’m not talking about shocking. Human behaviour has always been shocking. I’m talking about trust.’

      ‘T-trust?’

      ‘Yes. I can see the bewilderment on your face. Is that word such an alien concept to you?’ His mouth twisted. ‘I guess it must be. Because I asked you, didn’t I, Darcy? I asked you not once, but twice, whether you were keeping anything else from me. I thought we were supposed to be embracing a new openness—an honest environment in which to bring up our child, not one which was tainted by lies.’

      She licked her lips. ‘But surely you can understand why I didn’t tell you?’

      ‘No,’ he snapped. ‘I can’t. I knew about your mother’s addiction. Did you expect me to judge you when I found out how she paid for that addiction?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said helplessly. ‘Of course I did. Because I’ve been judged by every person who ever knew about it. Being the daughter of Manchester’s biggest hooker tends to saddle you with a certain reputation. People used to sneer at me. I could hear them laughing behind my back. And even though my social worker said it was because I was attractive and people would try to bring me down by exploiting my vulnerability, that didn’t stop the hurt. It’s why I left and came to London. It’s why I never was intimate with a man before I met you.’

      ‘Why you never accepted the gifts I tried to give you,’ he said slowly.

      ‘Yes!’ she answered, desperately searching for a chink in the dark armour which made him look so impenetrable. Searching for the light of understanding in his eyes which might give her hope.

      But there was none.

      ‘You do realise, Darcy,’ he questioned, ‘that I can’t live with secrets?’

      ‘But there aren’t any—not any more. Now you know everything about me.’ Her heart was crashing wildly against her ribcage as she pleaded her case like a prisoner in the dock. ‘And I need never lie to you again.’

      He shook his head. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ he said and his voice sounded tired. ‘You knew that my childhood was tainted with secrets and lies. I told you a long time ago that I had trust issues and I meant it. How the hell can I ever trust you again? The truth is that I can’t.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘And the even bigger truth is that I don’t even want to.’

      She was about to accuse him back. To tell him that he’d never trusted her in the first place. Look how he’d reacted when he’d discovered she was pregnant—showering her with suspicious questions when she’d lain in her hospital bed. He’d even thought she’d had wild

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