behaved he was. Sometimes the anticipation of the brutality was so torturous he would deliberately play up just to get it over with. But even then he could never prepare himself. He’d had no way of knowing when his stepfather would strike. His body had run solely on adrenalin. The ‘flight or fight’ mode had been jammed on.
He hadn’t stood a hope of settling in anywhere.
Looking back now, he could see the foster parents he had been sent to had done their best. Some had been better than others; they had tried to offer him shelter and support but he had sabotaged their every attempt to get close to him. Then Godfrey Haverton had taken him in and, in his quiet and unobtrusive way, shown him that it was up to him to make something of his life. Under Godfrey’s steady but sure tutelage, he had learned how to become a man, a man with self-control and self-respect—a man who was the agent of his own destiny, not at the mercy of others.
But he wasn’t going to parade his past to Bella, of all people. He had locked it away and it was staying there.
‘You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ he said.
‘I think I do,’ she said in a quiet and assured voice that was far more threatening than if she had shouted the words at him. ‘I think you want what everyone else wants. But deep down you feel you don’t deserve it.’
He gave her a mocking look. ‘Did you read that in a self-help book, or is it something you just made up on the spot?’
She drew in a breath and slowly released it. ‘I didn’t read it anywhere,’ she said. ‘I just sense it—the same way my father sensed it. I think he understood you from the word go. He didn’t push you or force affection on you. He waited for you to come to him when you trusted him enough to do so.’
Edoardo gave a disparaging laugh but the sound grated even on his own ears. ‘You’re making me sound like an ill-treated dog,’ he said.
Her eyes meshed with his, soft and yet all-seeing—knowing.
The silence stretched and stretched.
He felt every beat of it like a hammer blow inside his head.
‘What happened to you, Edoardo?’ she asked.
The memories tapped him on the shoulder with their long, craggy fingers: Come here, they taunted. Remember the time he hit you with the belt until you were bleeding? Remember the icy-cold showers? Remember the gnawing hunger? Remember the raging thirst?
He pushed them away but one more crept up behind him and caught him off-guard.
Remember the cigarettes?
‘Stop it, Bella,’ he said tightly. ‘I have no interest in dredging up stuff I’ve forgotten long ago.’
‘You haven’t forgotten it, though, have you?’ she asked.
He clenched and unclenched his fists, his stomach feeling as though a crosscut saw was working its way through it. He felt the pain in his back. It had happened so long ago but he could still remember the searing pain and the helplessness. Oh, dear Lord, how he had hated the helplessness. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. He could feel it beading between his shoulder blades as well. His head throbbed with the memories, all of them jostling for their starring moment centre-stage.
‘Edoardo?’ Bella’s hand touched him on the arm. ‘Are you all right?’
Edoardo looked down at her. She was standing so close he could smell her shampoo as well as her perfume. Her eyes were full of concern, her soft mouth slightly open. He could hear her breath going in and out in soft little gusts.
His mobile phone pinged with the sound of an in-coming text, and the memories scuttled back to the shadows like sly, secretive rats running from the light of an opened door.
He let out a slowly measured breath. ‘I know you mean well, Bella, but there are some things that are just best forgotten,’ he said. ‘My childhood is one of them.’
She stepped back from him, her hand falling back by her side. ‘If ever you want to talk about it...’
‘Thanks, but no,’ he said and, briefly checking his phone, added, ‘Look, I won’t be in for dinner after all.’
Her expression clouded. ‘You’re going out in this weather?’
‘Rebecca Gladstone needs a hand with something,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how long I’ll be.’
She screwed up her mouth, her eyes losing their softness to become glittery and diamond-hard. ‘What does she need a hand with?’ she asked. ‘Turning back the sheets on her bed?’
‘Green doesn’t suit you, Bella.’
Her brows jammed together. ‘I’m not jealous,’ she said. ‘I just think it’s disgusting to lead someone on when you have no intention of taking their feelings seriously.’