He ended the call and felt the world beneath his feet tilt precariously. All his life Rico had done his best to be a man of his word. To avoid lies and deception. And now the only way he could get out of a bargain he had struck was to break every one of his personal rules.
Which meant he had to find another way out of this.
“He’s scared,” Teresa said as explanation, dragging him out of his thoughts and back to the present.
“I know.” He reached for her before he could stop himself, cupping her cheek in the palm of his hand. “Any father would be. What I want to hear is why you didn’t go with Bastien.”
She was silent for a few seconds, as if she was considering just how to say what she needed to say. Finally she said quietly, “Five years ago, I made the choice I thought I had to. But tonight I didn’t want to repeat the same mistake.”
He stiffened slightly, as he always did when reminded of that time five years past. He’d shut her down whenever she had tried to tell him about the night she had left. He hadn’t wanted to hear this before, but now he needed to. Rico had to know why she’d left him. Why she’d run—so he could believe that she wouldn’t do the same now.
The bedroom was cool and dimly lit from the moonlight pouring in through the open terrace doors and the twin bedside lamps casting golden light across the bed and floor.
“Tell me.” His words were short and clipped, but they seemed to release her from a tension that had coiled inside her for too long.
When her eyes met his again, they were damp, looking like gold coins drenched in water. If her tears spilled over, it would tear at his heart, he knew. Rico steadied himself, then took her hand and led her to the bed. Sitting down, he drew her with him and repeated, “Tell me.”
“I’m glad you’re finally willing to listen.”
“I wasn’t ready before,” he told her. “I am now.”
Nodding, Teresa tried to smile, but gave that up quickly. “All right, but first you have to know that when I was eighteen, I told my father that I wasn’t going to be a thief. That I wanted a different kind of life.”
He hadn’t expected to hear that and as he thought about it, he laughed shortly.
She glared at him.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I was just imagining how your father must have taken that decision.”
A reluctant smile curved her mouth. “Not well. He was horrified. And disappointed. But in the end, though he didn’t understand my decision, he respected it.”
Rico silently gave Nick Coretti half a point of admiration for backing off and giving his daughter the room she needed to grow her own way. Not that he was willing to forgive the old thief or anything.
“I took that job at your hotel,” she said, starting off slowly, her soft voice hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure how to put it now that he’d given her the chance. “And I asked my family to stay away.” She smiled wryly. “Usually they did as I asked, not wanting to bring down suspicion on me in a place where I happened to be working. But that was before I took a job with Rico King.”
She shook her head and caught his eyes again. “The temptation was too much. The richness of your guests at the Castello de King was enough of a draw all on its own, but there was more. They knew about your dagger. There had been some piece written about it—”