‘So how old were you when your father died?’
‘Heaps older, thankfully. Fifteen.’
‘How did it happen?’
She nodded matter-of-factly, obviously having anticipated his question. ‘We had a small spread outside Yarrabee. One night he didn’t come home for dinner and I went looking for him. I thought maybe the old tractor had broken down again—he was always complaining that he’d have to get a decent one some time, but we could never quite afford it.’
She paused, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere out on the horizon.
‘You found him?’
She nodded, bringing her blank gaze back down to her drink.
‘The tractor had rolled down an embankment. Dad was pinned underneath. He was still alive when I found him. He could talk—told me it didn’t hurt too badly and to go get help. I told him it would be all right. I told him to hang on while I ran to get help and I’d be back as soon as I could. He told me he’d hang on…’
Silence stretched out between them, long and strained.
Finally she breathed in deeply, her face tilting apologetically, though signs of strain still clung to her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Way too much information.’
‘No,’ he insisted, realising his feelings of compassion were surprisingly genuine. He reached out a hand, loosening hers from the side of her glass, squeezing her fingers within his. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘It’s okay. Really,’ she said, making no effort to remove her hand. He let his thumb stroke her fingers, a gentle massage that reminded him of how good she felt in his arms and made him realise how much he was looking forward to holding her again.
‘So now you have no family?’
She dipped her head—a silent assent. ‘But I’ve been lucky too,’ she said. ‘Grace has been very good to me—taking me on board, inviting me to share her house. She’s the closest thing I have to family now.’
Everything inside him shut down. His thumb ceased its stroking as resentment simmered to the surface at the mention of that name. Any compassion he had felt for a young girl who had suffered the loss of both her mother and her father in tragic circumstances dissolved in the acid burn of his hatred for all things Della-Bosca.
This woman sitting opposite him was no innocent. She was part of Della-Bosca’s evil web. She was part of the problem and he had better not forget it.
‘Loukas?’
Her blue eyes held concern—concern for him. It was ironic. She wouldn’t look that way if she knew what he had planned for her precious Dr Della-Bosca. But first he needed her help. First he needed hard evidence. And, above all, he needed to ensure the safety of his half-sister.
He smiled then, as he forced the rancid ball of his hatred deep down inside himself again. ‘But that’s not all, Jade,’ he said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘Now you have me too.’
Something had changed between them tonight. As they strolled hand in hand down the length of the pier, neither of them talking, Jade knew that whatever relationship they shared had moved to a new level. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with his promise of a one-million-dollar donation.
Her body hummed with awareness, every brush of his shirt sending frissons of sensation into her flesh where they multiplied and fanned out through her body, so that every part of her was acutely aware of his proximity and his every tiny touch, his every passing glance. Every part of her seemed exquisitely poised, balanced on a knife-edge, as if waiting for something to happen.
Wanting it to happen.
She drew in air that seemed charged with life, shimmering inside her as the truth of her physical wanting hit home.
He’d told her it that he wouldn’t press her, that it would be her decision if they made love. Now more than ever she knew that that was what she wanted. Yet it was a different need that drove her now, compared to that she’d felt at the Gala.
There she’d been swept completely away by his sheer impact, by the physical magnetism he exuded. There she’d forgotten about the risk she was taking and the revelation that would have him recoiling in revulsion. Because his power had plugged a direct line into her needs, making her forget about everything else but wanting him and being wanted by him, reeling her in like a fish on a hook.