Cinderella's Christmas Secret - Sharon Kendrick Page 0,29

to pursue this particular topic because discussions about his past were something he vetoed. Especially with lovers. Women always asked questions and he understood why. Knowledge was power and the more you knew about someone, the closer you could presume your relationship to be. Except that any ‘closeness’ his lovers presumed was all inside their heads. Usually he recommended they consult the Internet if they wanted to discover more about him, confident they’d find out only what he wanted them to know—having successfully kept his online profile deliberately sparse, by employing an IT expert who made sure that happened.

His past was private and his alone—and the only time he connected with it was during this ritual he followed most Christmases, when he cooked up the kind of food which would never feature on the menu of any of the fancy restaurants he frequented these days. At Christmas he went back to basics. He did it because it reminded him of who he had been and where he had come from, and usually it was enough to make him satisfied with his lot and to remind him what he didn’t want from life.

But something had happened which had changed the way he thought about everything, and though it pained him to admit it—it all stemmed from his mother’s recent passing. Didn’t seem to matter that he didn’t want to be affected by the death of a woman he had despised. Fact was, he was. Ever since it had happened he’d felt...disconnected. Like a tethered balloon whose string had just been cut, leaving him drifting aimlessly and without direction. As if all the money and power he had acquired along the way suddenly meant nothing. Was that why he had taken this provincial office worker to bed and lost himself in a storm of passion so all-pervasive that it had left him feeling dazed and confused the next morning? As if, for the first time in his life, it had felt as if he’d come home.

Wasn’t that why he hadn’t contacted her again? Because he didn’t like the way she made him feel, or because he didn’t trust those feelings?

He didn’t know and he didn’t care and that was why he had walked away. Why he had resisted the surprising desire to contact her again. And time was great for taking the urgency out of desire. It had been easy to lose himself in work and travel and to allow the many projects he juggled to take over his life. To forget about that night and the woman who had temporarily made him lose control.

Yet now, as he stared into the wide grey eyes which were fixed on his, he found himself wanting to tell her stuff. Nothing too deep. No, definitely not that. But it would amuse him to reveal his beginnings to her, to show her some of the real man beneath the fancy patina. Would take his mind off the persistent urge to pull her into his arms and start kissing her, which would complicate his life in a way it didn’t need complicating.

‘Yes, I was a labourer,’ he said. ‘And if you know my roots you might be able to understand why. I was the only child of a single mother, and money was scarce. I remember being hungry—always hungry. My need to get food took precedence over schoolwork and the local school wasn’t up to much anyway. And when I was fourteen, I started working on the roads.’

‘Fourteen?’ she breathed, her eyes growing even wider. ‘Wow. Is that even legal?’

‘I doubt it.’ He shrugged. ‘But there weren’t so many checks back then. It was a different kind of world. The guy who owned the construction site didn’t know how old I was and if they had, they probably wouldn’t have cared.’

‘You mean you lied about your age?’ she questioned, as if that were important to her.

‘I let them believe what they wanted to believe. That’s mostly what people do in life, Hollie—haven’t you discovered that by now? I was big and strong for my age and looked much older than I was, and it was easy to let my work speak for itself. I started out with a pick and shovel. Breaking up rocks with a big hammer and trying not to inhale the dust. I learnt a lot about construction.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘But I learnt plenty more about human nature.’

‘In what way?’

Her voice was soft. Way too soft to resist—and for some reason,