‘Hardly,’ he drawled, without elaborating further. The same curiosity that had burst through Olivia earlier that day flooded her again.
She leaned forward. ‘You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.’ It was a silly precursor to say—naturally Luca wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want to. ‘When your wife left you, you went to live with your grandmother?’
‘That is no secret,’ he said, quietly though, warily, as though he was bracing for an even worse question.
‘She wasn’t affected by the bankruptcy?’
‘He’s her son.’ Luca’s voice was strained. She reached over and pressed her hand to his. ‘Of course, she was affected.’
‘I meant in a financial sense.’
His smile held a rejection. ‘My grandmother owns her own house, and her own business. When my father inherited from my grandfather, it was always on the basis that Nonna’s assets would be held separate. There was no threat to her.’
‘What a wise precaution that turned out to be.’
‘My grandfather insisted. Nonna came from nothing, and he always joked that it was the only way he could be sure she really loved him. He made her a very wealthy woman even before he proposed, so he knew there was no financial incentive in her accepting the proposal.’
‘He was a cynic?’
‘Or a realist. He was worth a small fortune.’
‘She obviously loved him.’
‘She did. But even once they were married, her fortune was kept aside, all in her name, all her own. So when my father was charged, and everything he owned was taken away, Nonna lost nothing.’
‘Except her son,’ Olivia murmured sadly.
‘And her good name,’ he added. ‘Thanks to my father, Giovanardi now means “mud” in Italian.’
Olivia winced. ‘You don’t deserve that.’
‘Don’t I?’
She pulled her lips to the side, shaking her head a little. ‘Of course you don’t. None of it was your fault.’
He placed his knife and fork on his plate, glaring at them. ‘I wish things had turned out differently.’
‘Do you speak to him?’
‘No.’
‘Your choice or his?’
‘Mutual.’
‘You haven’t forgiven him?’
‘Not really. And I know he’ll never forgive me.’
‘Why? What did you do that was so terrible?’
Luca’s eyes met hers, almost as though he was challenging her to think as badly of him as he did himself. ‘I caused it all, cara.It’s my fault.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I discovered what he’d done. I couldn’t fathom how he’d dug such a deep hole, and so I confronted him, hoping for a simple explanation. Only the one he gave made no sense. I could see there was never going to be a way to pay off all the investors. It was a Ponzi scheme, an enormous house of cards, ready to tumble at the slightest breeze.’
She grimaced. ‘It must have been terrible for you to realise that.’