Her chin came up. ‘What else could we be talking about?’
‘Who gave you something that was meant for someone else?’
‘No one.’
He studied her expression for a moment, watching as her grey eyes locked him out as surely as if a shutter had come down. ‘Talk to me, Aiesha.’
‘About what?’
He stroked a fingertip along the curve of her jaw, from just below her ear to her chin, but surprisingly she didn’t jerk away. ‘Tell me why you’re upset.’
‘I’m not upset.’ Her lips barely moved as she spoke. ‘I’m angry.’
James quirked an eyebrow. ‘Angry about a few days in Paris, all expenses paid?’
She pursed her lips, firing another glare at him. ‘I packed in a hurry to get here. I don’t have the right clothes to wear.’
He stroked the underside of her chin, pushing it up so her embittered gaze couldn’t escape his. ‘So I’ll buy you some clothes while we’re in Paris. That’s what sugar daddies and rich fiancés do, isn’t it?’
‘How are you going to explain that black eye to your business friend?’
James had wondered that himself. ‘I’ll tell him I walked into a door.’
Her look was scathing. ‘Not very original.’
‘Any ideas?’
Something shifted in her gaze, a fleeting shadow, but then she was back to her street-smart sass. ‘I could give you some concealer to put on. Or I could do it for you. I’m a bit of an expert. Bruises are pretty easy to disguise. Cuts and swelling less so.’
He frowned. ‘You’ve used concealer before? For covering bruises and cuts?’
‘I should’ve been a make-up artist.’ Her tone had a cynical edge to it. ‘I had a long apprenticeship patching up my mother from all her sicko boyfriends beating her up. Should’ve put that on my CV. I wonder if it’s too late for a career change?’
James’s stomach contents churned, his heart contracting in disgust at what she must have witnessed. At what her mother must have suffered. ‘Did any of them hit you?’
She pushed her tongue into the side of her cheek before she answered. ‘Couple of times.’
He swallowed a mouthful of bile. He thought of her as a child, all skinny legs and arms, being assaulted by someone huge and threatening. How could she possibly have defended herself? Violence in general was abhorrent to him, but violence against women and children sickened him to the core. Was that why she was so restless at night? What horrors had she locked away in her mind? What abuse had she seen or experienced first-hand?
‘Is that why you ran away from home?’
She directed her gaze to the left lapel of his collar. He saw her draw in a breath, hold it for a beat, before slowly releasing it. ‘A couple of days after my mother died of a heroin overdose, nobly supplied by her latest de facto, he decided I would make a good substitute in his bed. I declined.’
James swallowed thickly. Painfully. ‘He tried to...to rape you?’
She didn’t meet his gaze but kept staring at his lapel. ‘I got out before it came to that.’
‘So that’s why you ran away.’
She nodded. ‘Yep.’
James sensed there was more to it than that but she wasn’t saying. He could read her better now. She put on that shield of brash armour, the tough-girl exterior that hid a world of pain. He heard it in the tone of her voice. He saw it in the brittleness of her eyes. It was a barrier she put up to make people back off from getting too close to her. She was like a junkyard dog, all bluster and bluff for self-protection. ‘How long were you on the streets?’
‘I couch surfed for a few nights but people soon get sick of freeloaders.’
‘But you were fifteen, for God’s sake!’
She shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, they say charity begins at home but it wasn’t at any of the homes I stayed in...except maybe your mum’s.’
James frowned harder. ‘Then why did you sabotage your stay with her?’
She met his gaze then. Hers was hard as steel. Cordoned off. Impenetrable. ‘Your father was cheating on her. I overheard him talking to his mistress. I decided to show your mum what type of man he was. She deserves better. Much better.’
James looked at her in puzzlement. ‘But surely you could’ve handled it without involving the press. You hurt my mother more than you hurt my father.’ And me.
She gave another careless shrug of her shoulders. ‘As you say, I was fifteen. I didn’t know any better at the time.’
‘What about the jewellery?’ he asked. ‘You do realise you could’ve been charged with theft if my mother hadn’t pretended it was a gift?’