Chapter Seven #4
Amy clenched her teeth and resisted the temptation to rise to the bait. ‘I don’t want to be fixed or dressed.’
What about undressed? The thought formed in her head before she could stop it. In desperation, she changed the subject. ‘Where does that hallway go?’
‘There is access to the ramparts further along.’ He gestured ahead.
‘The view from the walk along them is worth seeing. But—’ he glanced down at the sports watch on his wrist ‘—we’ll need to cut the tour short as my grandfather is a creature of habit and routine, and since the pneumonia he usually rests before lunch. ’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know he’d been ill.’
‘He is not frail, but it takes a little longer to recover at his age.’
‘I understand.’
‘This way.’
She walked down the steps, wistfully imagining all the women in delicate heels and ballgowns who had gone before her. She frowned at herself and felt a surge of annoyance. She refused to feel envious of those Romano women, picked no doubt for their breeding and fortunes.
Once she had been a pale version of one of those women, expected to make a suitable alliance.
She felt sorry for them now.
She wasn’t Leo’s besotted lover.
She wasn’t her parents’ disappointment of a daughter.
She wasn’t the rich girl who had been bought a restaurant.
She was just Amy, taking it one day at a time, and despite the worry over bills, the terror that her father would land himself back in prison, and the daily torment of being exposed to a man who made her remember she was actually a woman, she was happy to take responsibility for her own life.
Her hand slid down the smooth bannister.
She had not belonged in the society that her parents had wanted her to inhabit, and this world that Leo navigated was so beyond that in every sense of the word.
At least she had never been forced to be confronted by that reality at a time in her life when she would have struggled to cope.
If they had still been together when Leo had learnt of his Romano inheritance, an unlikely situation, given the limited shelf life of youthful passion, all it would have done was hasten the inevitable end.
Wealth changed people, and Leo would have left her behind.
But she was the one who had left him behind, and a man like Leo was always the one to walk away. What was going on between them now had a lot to do with bruised male ego. Nothing more. And that she could handle.
Her feet landed on the marble and she took a step back before Leo joined her.
‘What is your grandfather like?’
Leo paused. ‘He’s like a man who threw his daughter away because, unlike you, she followed her heart.’
‘Or her hormones?’ she suggested, hiding layers of hurt under aggression, which came easy right now because the relief from generic painkillers had worn off and the telltale signs of an encroaching full-blown migraine were getting harder to ignore. ‘And where did following her heart get her?’
‘The situation is not comparable. My mother was pregnant and he drove her away. She was bringing up a child alone in a foreign country with no support.’
His empathy for his mother did him credit.
Would he have been as empathetic if he had discovered she had unknowingly been carrying his child when they’d parted?
It was a question she had asked herself many times over the years.
Her instinct had made her want to run towards Leo, but maybe she was lucky she hadn’t found him.
What if he had been horrified at being stuck with a baby at his age? She felt the familiar ache as an image of a little boy with dark hair and Leo’s eyes drifted into her head. Would he one day have children of his own?
‘He gave her an ultimatum: dump the boyfriend or…’
‘So they ran away together?’ Like we planned to do. The thought made the empty space in her chest expand as, behind the tinted glasses she brought her lashes down in a silky shield so he wouldn’t guess the comparison she was making, though he probably knew anyway.
But he’d never known about the baby. Never would, as what was the point in telling him now?
‘No, he went back to his wife.’
She winced but closed her mouth over a sympathetic response. His expression suggested it would not have been well received.
‘So your grandfather always knew he had a grandchild? When did he start looking for you?’
‘No, he didn’t know about me.’ The admission sounded cold.
‘So he didn’t know your mother was pregnant?’
He flashed her a look. ‘He sent her away because she wouldn’t fall into line.’
In the same situation, she had stayed. She and Leo’s mother were two sides of the same coin.
‘I don’t know your grandfather and I’m not defending him but…
’ She shook her head and winced as the vice tightened around her chest. What could she say without revealing too much?
‘Sorry, it’s not my business. You obviously have a relationship, so that’s good.
It’s not easy to let the past go, but you clearly understand one another. ’
She almost added that you could always let the past go, but then she realised that Leo was not a let it go sort of man.
He never forgave and never forgot.