Chapter Ten
SANTE SPENT THE last hour of the workday gaming with a couple of the younger coders, desperately filling in the time before he could touch her again.
He’d not gamed in so long—he’d stopped when he’d left the UK and had just worked all the time.
He’d forgotten it was fun—though in this moment it was basic distraction and barely working.
Work was impossible—he couldn’t stop dwelling on what Mia had said last night.
He was furious with her family for crushing her spirit and making her feel flawed. She wasn’t. She really—
‘Did you learn to code at school, Sante?’
Sante glanced at Roberto, momentarily stunned. He would talk product, programming or problems, but the personal was irrelevant and every other employee knew it.
‘Was it at school or did you pick it up yourself?’ Roberto added. ‘I mean, did it just come easily?’
‘Sorry to interrupt.’ Mia appeared behind them so quickly she had to have been hovering. ‘Roberto, I need you and Davide to fill in this sheet for me before you go, okay?’
Sante avoided Mia’s eyes, knowing she wasn’t sorry at all. Both techs immediately followed her before Sante had the chance to drum up a vague but finite response for the guy. He stayed slumped in the gaming chair long after they left.
Any other evening he’d be considering what to order in for dinner back at the apartment.
He’d ordered in from a selection of restaurants every night this week and not tried to stop her leaving early again.
Now he understood her deep need for independence, he didn’t want to make her feel controlled.
He’d long had his independence, but she’d long been denied hers.
It riled him more than anything. He loathed controlling bullies like her father.
Yet, her boundaries around their affair chaffed.
He didn’t like being told what he could and couldn’t do, either.
He wasn’t like that jerk she’d had the affair with.
Sante would treat her—a restaurant, a walk through the city, a trip to…
anywhere. But she insisted on absolute discretion, determined not to be seen with him outside the office.
He knew his annoyance about it was ironic when he was the privacy freak.
But he wanted to sit opposite her and take time over their meal.
He wanted to dance with her in a club, not just on the patio at the palazzo or in the glasshouse.
She would glitter. She always glittered.
His pilot Jerome knew they spent the weekends together and while he was discreet, Sante knew it was only a matter of time before others in his office became aware of their routine.
Would it matter that much if people did?
Because if they didn’t have to be secret, they could go to Paris or Barcelona for a few days—preferably during the week because the weekends in Sicily felt sacrosanct. He didn’t want to miss having her there.
He heard her humming and smiled, knowing the office was now empty. She’d brought music back into his life, too.
‘Were you protecting me from prying questions?’ he asked when she sank into the second gaming chair, certain he’d not imagined that hint of proprietary care in her interruption earlier.
She shrugged. ‘I know you don’t like to share personal things.’
He kept watching her. Waiting.
‘No one knows anything about you.’ She picked up the controller, selected a game and pressed Play.
‘You’re a reclusive, elusive genius with no personal details on your website.
Not even the name of your company has any obvious connection to you.
I had to ask the guys why they wanted to work for you. They all said the same thing.’
‘The money.’ Sante clicked, selecting his avatar, ready to best her on screen at least.
‘You really think your value is only in your bank balance?’
He leaned back in the chair. ‘I prefer not to discuss my background because then there will be fewer preconceived judgements or ideas about me and, therefore, my work.’
‘You like to let the product speak for itself.’
That had been the money he’d taken and run with. ‘It was a means to an end.’
‘Freedom. Security. Property.’ She leaned forward, eyes narrowing on the screen as they raced. ‘So why create this incubator for other genius misfits now?’
‘I have too many ideas. I want them to take them off my hands. Personal questions invariably lead to judgement. Someone finds out you were a foster kid, there’s automatically the question why. What was wrong with me to be in foster care?’
Mia fumbled, accidentally tripping her character. ‘You were in foster care?’
Sante hit Pause on the game. ‘You really didn’t know?’
‘How could I?’ She tilted her head towards him as she realised. ‘You told Dario. He never said anything to me.’
Sante supposed he should be grateful the guy hadn’t told the world about his past. ‘Sì.’
She moved forward, turning his face so she could look into his eyes. ‘Sante, you can’t think anything was wrong with you,’ she whispered.
‘Don’t you wonder what was wrong with you that your father didn’t want you?’
‘I don’t need to wonder. I know. Because I was like my mother, he couldn’t stand to look at me. It spiralled down from there.’
‘You reminded him of heartbreak. It made him angry.’
‘You assume he had a heart to break. I don’t think he had one.’
‘Maybe not, given how he treated you in life.’ He sighed. ‘I wonder what it was that I reminded my mother of that made her want to put me in a cardboard box and leave me at a church gate.’
‘Sante…’ She stared at him, clearly shocked. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything else. Some things hurt too much to be stirred up and discussed.’ She suddenly blurted, ‘I don’t need to know your past to know what kind of person you are now.’
He stiffened.
‘Seriously, you’re no mystery to me,’ she added. ‘There’s plenty I know about you. You don’t have to open up to me or anything.’
Sante smiled ruefully, appreciating that she was trying hard not to pry and accepting his reticence instead.
‘What do you think you know?’ He leaned back.
‘I’m not talking about knowing you in the biblical sense.’ Her smile was tinged with sadness. ‘I’m talking about knowing you here.’ She reached across and pressed her palm on his chest, right over his heart. ‘You’re quiet. You like to watch and observe.’
‘How astute, Captain Obvious.’
‘But you can’t quite separate yourself completely.
’ She ignored his dryness. ‘You care about people. You care about your coders and creatives. You care about Adele and Bruno. And your neighbours. You can’t stop yourself caring completely.
I know you’re loyal. You’re willing to put yourself at risk to help another. Especially someone you care about.’
His eyes widened. He didn’t have relationships based in anything emotional.
Dario was right; he was transactional. Furthermore, his interactions with others were invariably temporary.
Which was how he liked it. Even this now with Mia was only temporary and only sexual.
But she was arguing differently. Wrongly.
‘You’re aware of the needs of others and you’re receptive to change.’
‘Is this the open-door policy?’ he drawled, trying not to take any of this seriously.
‘And the shared lunch, yes, it is. But it’s also phoning your neighbours to make sure they were okay in the storm.’
‘That was just being…’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s better for my property if the ones next door are well maintained.’
‘It was giving “kind human.” One who has connections even when he pretends to himself that he doesn’t. I don’t need to know everything about you to know that you’re a decent person.’
‘You’re a blind optimist. I have faults, too.’
‘Oh yeah, heaps.’
He cocked his head, suddenly amused. ‘Such as…’
‘Ego,’ she chuckled. ‘Impatience.’ She leaned close to whisper. ‘Insecurity.’
‘Is that a fault?’
‘It can be. When it stops you believing you can do things.’
‘You think I lack self-belief?’ he scoffed.
‘No. I think you lack belief in others. That they’ll truly be there for you.’
He stilled. ‘Maybe you’re projecting.’
‘Probably. Maybe we have more in common than we’d first have thought.’
‘More than an insatiable sex drive?’ he teased but he didn’t really feel like laughing.
She shook her head.
And weirdly, her lack of intrusion loosened his tongue. She cared about everyone. She was caring enough not to ask even though he knew she was curious. He wanted her to know why he wouldn’t ever…couldn’t ever…have anything more than something like this.
‘My early childhood was okay.’ He found himself reassuring her.
‘I mean, I wasn’t wanted by my birth parents.
I was found in a box and after a night in hospital went straight into the system.
My first foster family already had an older child but then they’d had a baby pass away, so at first I was…
’ He sighed. ‘I was a gift, I guess. But when I was four, my foster mother unexpectedly got pregnant with a real gift. Twins. That meant it was a high-risk pregnancy and she needed to rest a lot and I didn’t really understand. I was just…’
Mia’s eyes widened. ‘A child.’
‘I came home from nursery school and found my bags packed.’
‘They couldn’t get help for your foster mother—she had no family support?’
‘I guess I wasn’t really part of that family.’ He’d been with them almost five years and then there’d been nothing.
‘That was a huge betrayal, Sante. I’m so sorry.’
Sì, Mia knew what it was like to be completely uprooted and forced to go to a place where you weren’t welcome. That was the only reason he kept talking. She was one of the few people in the world who would actually understand.
‘I didn’t last long at the next placement. They’d told me that if I caused trouble, I’d have to move. I ran away, thinking they’d send me back to my first home.’
‘But that didn’t happen.’