‘Tell me,’ he urged her. ‘I
can help.’
Who could resist such a soft appeal from such a normally steely man? Certainly not Jade, half asleep, and half… half in love with the man… ‘It was just a dream. I’m being silly—’
‘Let me be the judge of that. Something made you dream badly. What was it?’
It came out in a rush then, like a bottle of cham- pagne which had been shaken vigorously. ‘When we talked earlier—’
‘About the wedding?’
‘Yes, but not that.’
‘What then?’ he urged, his voice deep and husky.
Jade submitted to its command. ‘It was—when we were talking about my mother…’ Her voice tailed off, ashamed, helpless.
‘Tell me! I need to know.’
With her eyes still closed, she could picture it as though it were yesterday—the clarity of the un- welcome memory had not diminished over the years. ‘I don’t know what made me mention it. I was ten and my parents had taken me on holiday to Brighton. My mother went—’Jade’s voice faltered. ‘Out. It was pouring with rain, and the hotel was tiny. My father took me to a cafe for lunch. I think the waitress felt sorry for us, because she let us stay, and we sat there all afternoon, playing I-spy and watching the rain run down the windows.’ Snake-like rivulets. Like tears. ‘Then we went back,’ she finished flatly.
‘And your mother was waiting for you?’ he asked curiously.
‘That time, yes.’ Her mother’s voice had been slurred from too many cocktails at lunchtime, her cracked voice shrilling insults at her bewildered, father. It had been their last family holiday; Jade had not known it at the time, but the cracks had been starting to widen irreparably even then.
‘And the next time?’ he prompted discerningly.
That soft, dark voice could coax blood from a stone, thought Jade as she found herself nestling further into the beating warmth of his chest. ‘One day—oh, it must have been a year later—she didn’t come back. She’d—she’d—met another man.’ The passing of the years hadn’t dulled the pain of memory. ‘I came home from school one day to find that she’d—gone. I didn’t see her for years, not until after my father died last year. I rarely see her now, and even now the relationship is… rocky…’
‘I’m not surprised!’ Constantine’s eyes nar- rowed in disbelief. ‘She left you? She left her child?’
‘Is that so inconceivable to you?’
His voice sounded savage. ‘Of course it is. The bond between mother and child is unbreakable.’
‘Then you’re very lucky, Constantine. That your mother wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving you.’
He shook his head. ‘Not in the way you speak of, no. She died when I was twelve.’
She opened her eyes immediately, struck to the very core by some indefinable note in his voice. It was the first time she had ever seen any trace of vulnerability in the severe lines of his face. No wonder he never talked of his family. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to—’
He briefly laid a finger over his lips, shook his head. ‘I know that.’
But his voice held no recrimination and the darkness gave her the courage to question him further. ‘And your father?’ she ventured.
In the shadowy half-light, she saw the faint outline of that hard mouth twist, though whether it was with pain or derision she couldn’t guess. ‘It broke him,’ he said simply. ‘It was a love match, you see. But he…’ There was a pause.
‘He?’ she whispered.
Now there was definitely derision there. ‘He married again a year later.’
Jade let out a sigh. ‘Why?’
‘Because he felt that Stavros and I needed a mother—especially Stavros, who was so young. As ifanyone could have taken her place,’ he said bit- terly. ‘Instead he found himself a wife and a step- daughter whose sole purpose in life seemed to be the elimination of his fortune.’
She said nothing; nothing to say—but for answer she let her lips drift upwards to kiss his cheek, very very gently, and she heard him softly expel the air from his lungs.
‘Now—’ And he moved his hands purposefully to her shoulders, as if to distance her, but she couldn’t bear to leave the safe haven of his em- brace, here, where childhood scars were eased and soothed. And so she nestled closer into his chest, pushed her cheek against the strong column of his neck, his scent invading her nostrils and over- whelming her with its distinctive masculine aroma.