‘You’re probably right,’ Lindsay said humbly. ‘I’m just worried about her. Worried that she’ll be hurt. I don’t want that to happen.’
‘Being hurt is part of growing up,’ Alessio said unsympathetically. ‘She’ll be hurt—then she’ll toughen up.’
Lindsay hesitated, wondering how much to tell him. ‘Not everyone is as strong as you.’
‘She won’t discover how strong she is with you protecting her all the time. Learning how to get yourself out of the trouble you’ve created is part of growing up. Why do you feel so responsible for her?’
Lindsay picked at her fruit. ‘I’m older than her.’ And she knew what Ruby was capable of doing.
‘And being older than her means that you have to act like her mother?’
‘Not just because I’m older.’ Lindsay picked up her coffee cup and took a sip, too confused in her head to try and articulate her feelings about her parents. ‘Ruby—trusts me. She talks to me. Or she used to. And I’ve seen her in this situation before. I’ve seen her so head over heels in love with someone that she can’t think straight—that the whole of the rest of her life just seems to go out of the window.’
‘That’s also part of growing up.’
‘Maybe. But last time—’ Lindsay broke off, her instinctive discretion warring with a strange desire to confide in him.
Why? Why was she finding it so easy to talk to him? It wasn’t as if he were pushing her for information. On the contrary, he was lounging in his chair, totally relaxed, just contributing the odd remark.
The odd, extremely astute remark.
He was a good listener—
‘She took pills,’ Lindsay said flatly, her hand shaking suddenly as she returned her cup to the saucer. ‘Ruby swallowed the contents of a bottle of tablets that a doctor had given her to help her sleep after the break up. And she took them while she was staying in the flat with me. That’s how I managed to find her and act so quickly.’
‘And you’re worried that if it happens again, you won’t be around to bail her out.’
‘Yes.’ It was the intimacy they’d shared, she decided, that made it so easy to talk to him.
‘So what are you going to do?’ His voice was level. ‘Live your life glued to her side so that you can grab her wrist before she opens another bottle?’
Lindsay flinched. ‘That’s a very lawyer-like response. Hard and factual.’
‘Pragmatic,’ he drawled softly. ‘And you need to stop feeling responsible for her. You can offer support, but you can’t live her life. If you try and do that you’re just going to be hurt, over and over again.’
‘I just hate to see her walking into trouble.’
‘How do you know she’s in trouble?’
Lindsay glanced at him helplessly. ‘Because she didn’t turn up to work. Because she’s with your brother and it’s obviously just about sex and—’ She broke off, realising that she could just as easily be describing her relationship with Alessio and clearly he was thinking it too because suddenly the tension in the atmosphere snapped tight. ‘That sort of relationship is asking for trouble.’
‘Is it?’ The soft emphasis left her in no doubt that they were no longer talking about Ruby.
The breath caught in her throat. Trouble? Oh, yes, she was in big trouble and she knew it. Those ominous clouds that were currently just a shadow on the horizon of her mind would build and build. Sooner or later she was going to have to confront them, but it wasn’t going to be now. For now, she was still in the sunshine.
‘I’m not the same person as Ruby. I can separate sex from love.’ She hoped she sounded convincing, but she was horribly aware of his thoughtful gaze lingering on her face.
Agitated, she stared out across the bay and he watched her for a long moment and then poured himself another cup of coffee.
‘Tell me more about what happened with Ruby the first time.’
‘The guy she was seeing—well, he suddenly announced that he was marrying someone else and the end of that relationship was nearly the end of her. Ruby always expects too much of relationships. As soon as a guy looks at her she starts imagining weddings and—’ Lindsay broke off and folded her arms around her body, horribly conscious of his penetrative gaze. ‘It’s my fault. I should have tried harder to persuade her to come back to London.’
Alessio was silent for a moment and then he stirred. ‘It sounds as though my brother might have his hands full,’ he said dryly, an ironic gleam in his eyes. ‘It will do both of them good. And now I don’t want to talk about them anymore. I’m tired of my brother and I’m tired of your sister. You’ve barely eaten anything—are you feeling ill?’
‘No.’ She flashed him a quick smile and shook her head. ‘It’s all delicious, I’m just not that hungry.’
‘With the amount of physical activity we indulged in last night and this morning,’ he drawled softly, ‘you should be starving, tesoro.’