who knows? He could still haunt her with them.”
“That’s horrible!”
“It is. She was pretty horrible sometimes, too. I’ve had three DNA tests to prove I’m his. Frankly, I was hoping every time I wouldn’t be. When I was eight, he sent me to boarding school purely to punish her. Sometimes I think I should have tried harder to refuse.”
“You were eight. How much choice did you have?”
“None, but I knew she was upset. We had a decent relationship until then. It was damaged beyond repair after I left, and a lot of that is on me. She quit showing affection for me, though, so he wouldn’t keep using me against her. It made it hard to tell if she wanted me to... I don’t know. Fight to see her? I was just happy to be away from all of it so I took every excuse to avoid going home. That’s how I got into racing. I crewed through school breaks and bought my first sailboat by saving up my allowance.” His mouth twisted with self-mockery. He knew how spoon-fed that sounded.
“Did your mother know your father wasn’t always operating within the law?”
“She had suspicions,” he said with weariness. “She was afraid to ask too many questions.” He was deep in thought, absently working his thumb against his bent finger. “When I came home for the funeral and we began to realize how bad things were, she cried for the first time I’d seen in years. She said, ‘I hung on through all of that so you would inherit, and now there’s nothing?’ It was a kick in the gut to realize she thought she had been helping me by staying with him.”
“So you rebuilt your father’s fortune for her?”
His gaze flickered to hers, eyes flinty slits. “And the thousands of people around the globe who needed their jobs.”
Right.
“Does she feel threatened by me? Not me specifically, but the fact you have a wife?”
He let his head drop back against the edge of the tub again. “She’s angry I never told her I was married.”
“Ever?”
“We aren’t close,” he said flatly.
Tanja slouched deeper into the water to absorb that, absently bringing her feet up to the edge of the bench across from her. She jerked away when her foot touched Leon’s firm thigh.
His hand slid beneath the surface and caught her ankle, bringing it back, holding her gaze as he set her foot in place on the bench next to his hip before his arm returned to the edge of the tub.
The heat and churn and burble of the water filled the air. It was a manifestation of the conflicting energy between them. Of the clear head she was trying to keep while, below the surface, her body was roiling with sensations. Her heart was doing somersaults, trying to take in how Leon’s childhood had turned him into a man who had been charming, yet withdrawn. One who inspired confidence, then ultimately let her down.
“I wouldn’t stay with a man who treated me like that,” she told him quietly, meaning it, but also aware that his brief touch had left her simmering in more than the warmth of the water. Yearning was sitting in the pit of her stomach.
“Not even for Illi? Because you weren’t eating, Tanja.”
“I ate.” Not enough, but she understood. “You’re right, though. I don’t know what lengths I would go to for my child, but I have the luxury of family and friends who I know would support me, which gives me options. Obviously, your mother didn’t feel like she had any.”
“I hate that I’m not on that list. That I had to hear through your brother that you needed help,” he muttered. “I’m not proud of the way I left you. Or the circumstances I left you in. It’s the kind of thing my father would have done. Waiting for you to come to me to resolve things was just like him, too. The fact you never did, that you had too much self-respect to make the first move...” His dark brows lowered with intensity. “Don’t ever think you’re less than me. You have far more integrity than I ever will. Than most people I know.”
“That is an extremely generous thing to say, given the position I’ve put you in with Illi,” she pointed out, both touched and contrite.
“You wouldn’t have had to do that, wouldn’t have gone to Istuval or wound up so broke you were going hungry, if I’d looked after you properly. I’m going