A Deal with Demakis(25)
“That’s none of your business.”
“If I find out that you have loaned it to some poor friend who really needs it—” his gaze filled with a dangerous gleam “—I will bend you over my knee and spank you.”
Her cheeks stung with heat as a vivid image of what he said flashed in front of her eyes. The curse of being such a visual person. “I didn’t give it to anyone nor will I spend it.”
“Because of your stupid morals?”
“No. I...just want to save it, okay?” Realizing that she was shouting, she took a deep breath. “If I ever lose my job—and you have proved how easily anyone with a little money and inclination can find out my background—and if I can’t find a new one, I don’t want to go hungry ever again. I don’t ever want to be reduced to stealing or do something wrong again.” The memories of those hunger pangs, the cold sweat of stealing, knowing it was wrong, were so vivid that her gut tightened. Feeling his gaze drilling into her side, she turned and laughed. A hollow laugh that sounded as pathetic as it felt. “You probably think I’m a fool.”
His mouth, still closed, tilted at the corners. The flash of understanding in his gaze rooted her to the spot. “I do,” he said, his hard words belying his expression. “But not for this.”
A concession, spoken with that incisive contempt of his, and yet in that moment, she believed that he knew the powerless feeling, the fear that haunted her. “That day, you said you understood it. How?”
“I have been hungry before. And I was responsible for Venetia, too.”
“But your family is rich. And you’re rich. Nauseatingly so.”
He smiled without warmth. “My father turned his back on all that nauseating wealth for my mother. When I was thirteen, they died within a few months of each other. And even before he died, he was usually drowning in alcohol and no use to us. My mother’s treatment was expensive. For almost a year, I did everything and anything I could to bring in money, as much as I could. And I mean anything.”
He delivered those words in a monotone, yet Lexi could feel the rage and powerlessness that radiated from him. She clasped his hand with hers, just like he had done. A jolt of sensation spiked through her, awakening every nerve ending.
Her touch pulled Nikos from the pit of memories he fell into. Even now, he remembered the stench of his desperation, his hunger. Still, he had rallied. Shaking it off, he met her gaze. The sympathy in her gaze, it made his throat raw.
“I’m sorry, Nikos. It was wrong of me to assume what I did.”
He nodded, for once, unable to throw it back in her face. Because the slip of a woman next to him wasn’t pitying him. She understood the pain of that thirteen-year-old boy. He had manipulated her and bullied her into coming with him, but she still had the capacity to feel sympathy for him.
How? How could anyone see so much hard life and still retain that kindness as she did, that boundless goodwill? What did she possess that he didn’t?
Lexi Nelson, despite everything, was full of heart. Whereas he...the pain he had seen had somehow become a cold, hard part of him. He embraced it for it had driven him toward everything he had now. “Don’t worry,” he said, feeling an intense dislike of her stricken expression, “I survived. And I made sure that Venetia survived, too.”
Curiosity flared in her gaze again, but she clamped her mouth with obvious effort. Standing up from the couch, she waited, with folded arms, for him to move.