Uncovering the Silveri Secret - By Melanie Milburne Page 0,33

how close to the truth she was. He refused to let anyone close to him. Godfrey had been an exception, but it had taken years, and even then he hadn't told him everything about his past. 'Got me all figured out, have you, Bella?'

'I think you push people away because you're frightened of becoming too attached,' she said. 'You like to be in total control of your life. If you had feelings for someone else, they could take advantage of you. They could leave you just like your parents did.'

Edoardo felt a ridge of steel ripple through his jaw until his teeth were locked so tightly together he wondered if he'd be left with nothing but powder.

He thought of the first home he had been sent to after the authorities had stepped in when he'd been ten years old. He had already had five years of his stepfather's capricious and cruel treatment. Five years of living in dread, quaking with fear night and day in case things turned nasty.

The hands that had fed and clothed him, and at times even been kind to him, could turn within a blink of an eye into vicious weapons. It didn't matter how well-

behaved he was. Sometimes the anticipation of the brutality was so torturous he would deliberately play up just to get it over with. But even then he could never prepare himself. He'd had no way of knowing when his stepfather would strike. His body had run solely on adrenalin. The 'flight or fight' mode had been jammed on.

He hadn't stood a hope of settling in anywhere.

Looking back now, he could see the foster parents he had been sent to had done their best. Some had been better than others; they had tried to offer him shelter and support but he had sabotaged their every attempt to get close to him. Then Godfrey Haverton had taken him in and, in his quiet and unobtrusive way, shown him that it was up to him to make something of his life. Under Godfrey's steady but sure tutelage, he had learned how to become a man, a man with self-control and self-respect - a man who was the agent of his own destiny, not at the mercy of others.

But he wasn't going to parade his past to Bella, of all people. He had locked it away and it was staying there.

'You don't know what the hell you're talking about,' he said.

'I think I do,' she said in a quiet and assured voice that was far more threatening than if she had shouted the words at him. 'I think you want what everyone else wants. But deep down you feel you don't deserve it.'

He gave her a mocking look. 'Did you read that in a self-help book, or is it something you just made up on the spot?'

She drew in a breath and slowly released it. 'I didn't read it anywhere,' she said. 'I just sense it - the same way my father sensed it. I think he understood you from the word go. He didn't push you or force affection on you. He waited for you to come to him when you trusted him enough to do so.'

Edoardo gave a disparaging laugh but the sound grated even on his own ears. 'You're making me sound like an ill-treated dog,' he said.

Her eyes meshed with his, soft and yet all-seeing - knowing.

The silence stretched and stretched.

He felt every beat of it like a hammer blow inside his head.

'What happened to you, Edoardo?' she asked.

The memories tapped him on the shoulder with their long, craggy fingers: Come here, they taunted. Remember the time he hit you with the belt until you were bleeding? Remember the icy-cold showers? Remember the gnawing hunger? Remember the raging thirst?

He pushed them away but one more crept up behind him and caught him off-guard.

Remember the cigarettes?

'Stop it, Bella,' he said tightly. 'I have no interest in dredging up stuff I've forgotten long ago.'

'You haven't forgotten it, though, have you?' she asked.

He clenched and unclenched his fists, his stomach feeling as though a crosscut saw was working its way through it. He felt the pain in his back. It had happened so long ago but he could still remember the searing pain and the helplessness. Oh, dear Lord, how he had hated the helplessness. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. He could feel it beading between his shoulder blades as well. His head throbbed with the memories, all of them jostling for