Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,26
complete mystery to me? That I’ve known you for almost two years, we’ve had sex together and yet I don’t even know where you live?’
‘Gianluca!’
‘Doesn’t that strike you as strange?’ he questioned, ignoring her protest.
‘There’s never been a reason for you to know,’ she said. ‘There isn’t really one now.’
He watched as she picked up her glass of water with a hand which wasn’t quite steady. ‘Being evasive won’t work,’ he said evenly. ‘I’m curious.’
‘Do you always interrogate when you’re out on a date, Gianluca?’
‘Is this a date, then, cara?’
Oh, but he managed to twist everything she said!
In the circumstances, it seemed bizarre to give him a potted life history—it seemed the wrong way round, really. They’d done the bed bit, without any of the getting-toknow-you stuff. But how else were they going to endure a whole meal together, if he was determined to find out and she was equally determined not to tell him? It would simply become a battle of wills, which she suspected he would win. ‘I live in Putney.’
‘By the river?’ he observed. ‘You must be doing well.’
‘I’m actually about ten minutes’ walk from the river and it’s only a one-bedroomed apartment—but I love it. I’ve been trading up ever since I got a foothold on the property market.’
‘And when was that?’
‘As soon as I could afford to. I saved up like mad for a deposit. I hadn’t really …’
Her words tailed off and he pounced on the rare chink in her armour. ‘Hadn’t really what?’
Surely if she made herself sound vulnerable, then she would make herself seem vulnerable? And what would he understand about savings, and deposits? Gianlucawasn’t just rich, he had been born rich—everyone knew that. How could a man like that possibly relate to her story? ‘I’d never lived anywhere that wasn’t rented before,’ she said reluctantly.
He raised his dark brows. ‘Not even as a child?’
How few people had experienced it in the world she now occupied, she thought wryly. These days, in the UK, home ownership was seen as a right rather than a privilege, and Aisling gave a brittle smile. ‘No, not even then,’ she agreed, glad that the waiter chose that moment to bring a basket of bread, and hoping that Gianluca might let it go.
But he didn’t.
‘That’s unusual for this country,’ he said slowly.
‘Not that unusual,’ she contradicted. ‘It’s just that a lot of people never get out of the poverty trap and I was lucky that I did.’
‘What happened?’
She hesitated. ‘My mother was a single parent, without a proper career of her own.’ ‘And your father?’
‘I never knew my father. He left before I was born.’ He frowned. ‘So no stable male influence when you were growing up?’
‘No.’
He filed the fact away. Was that why she didn’t flirt and dress up like most women—because she didn’t trust men, or she just didn’t know how they operated? ‘You never felt the need to trace him?’
‘Never. I couldn’t see the point. There.’ She looked at him defiantly. ‘End of subject.’
‘That must have been hard for you,’ he observed slowly.
But shewasn’t asking for his sympathy. ‘Put it this way—a few knocks on the way didn’t do me any harm. It’s what fed my ambition and my determination to be self-sufficient. And it’s made me what I am. An independent woman.’
He affected a look of horror yet inside he felt an admiration for how she had coped, more than coped—succeeded—in a tough world by making a go of her own business. ‘Don’t you know how terrifying a man finds it when a woman describes herself as independent, cara?’ he murmured.
‘I can see it might bother a certain type of man.’
‘What type?’
‘Mr Macho,’ she said flippantly.
He laughed. ‘You can be outrageous,’ he murmured.
And so could he. Her blue eyes challenged him. ‘Look, Gianluca, fascinating as it is to discuss my life story, I thought you’d brought me up here to talk about business.’
Was she being deliberately naïve about his intentions, he wondered—or just playing a game? ‘And maybe I’ve changed my mind. In truth, I’m a little distracted by the mass of contradictions you seem to be, Aisling. Maybe I want to get to know you a little better.’
She attempted an air of perplexity, but inside her heart was pounding. ‘I can’t see why.’
‘Can’t you? You have no curiosity beyond the physical act, is that it?’ His voice roughened as he watched her face, enjoying the way her eyes darkened. ‘We had a night of the most unexpectedly mind-blowing sex and yet you