She jerked her gaze away from Cayo's now, reaching blindly for her wine, no longer caring what it might do to her. It was better than what he was doing to her simply by listening. By making her feel safe when there was no such thing. She knew that better than most.
"And your brother?" Cayo asked after a moment. "Your twin? You're not close with him either?"
It shocked her. It felt like a kick in the stomach, an attack, and her first reaction was pure, unadulterated fury. And then, if she was honest, a lot of it was that same old, terrible guilt she always felt where Dominic was concerned.
"Not as such, thanks," she snapped at Cayo, not caring if she was being unfair. "As he's dead."
And then she hated herself. So deeply and so comprehensively it made her feel ill. She slid the wineglass back onto the table and wrapped her arms around her middle, certain she needed help to keep herself together.
Cayo didn't look away. He gave no indication that he minded that she'd snapped at him like that, out of nowhere. He simply sat much too still and much too close across the table, watching her fall apart.
"I'm sorry," he began after a moment, his voice calm.
"No," she interrupted him, her words feeling thick in her mouth. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it like that. How would you know? Only it was rather recent and I've still not managed to figure out how to talk about it. About him."
"Recent?" Cayo frowned then. He looked as close to confused as she'd ever seen him. "What do you mean by recent? I don't recall you taking any time off."
In the past five years. He didn't have to say that part. It was understood.
"Time off?" She shook her head, then let out a hollow little sound, not really a laugh at all. "It's not as if you give out any personal time, Cayo. I can't imagine even having asked for time off. Look how you reacted to my resignation."
That muscle leapt in his jaw, betraying his temper. His eyes went black with something that looked again like pain. Tortured and grim, the way he'd looked that night in Milan. It made her want to reach over and touch him, soothe him. And once more, she deeply regretted her words the moment they hung in the sweet night air between them, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. And she couldn't take them back.
"Yes," he said after a moment in a deep, rough voice she hardly recognized. "Of course. I am such a heartless monster that I would keep you from your brother's funeral, purely out of spite."
Her own heart seemed to tighten at that, and she shook her head. "That's not what I meant."
"After all," he continued in the same dark and bitter tone that made her want to weep and to protect him, somehow, from whatever made him sound that way, even if it was her, "what do I know of family? You are the only person in the world who knows how little regard my own grandfather held for me. You heard him. You are also the only person in the world who has maintained any kind of close relationship with me for any length of time." His smile then hurt to see. "You would certainly know how little qualified I am to speak on the subject of families."
She felt awful, and it moved in her like heat. Like fear. And she couldn't stand it.
"Don't be an idiot," she said, almost crossly.
He froze. His dark eyes widened.
"I said I doubted you would give me time off," she said, very distinctly. "You are a demanding boss, Cayo. You insist on round-the-clock availability and access. I had no reason to think you would greet the news that I even had a personal life with anything but horror."
"You have no idea what I would do," he replied tightly.
"I know exactly what you would do," she retorted. "It's what you pay me for. What you offered me three times my salary and the private island of my choice for, if memory serves."
For a moment he only looked at her. The moment stretched out between them, and despite what she'd just told him, Dru had no idea how he would react. None at all.
And then, impossibly, proving how little she knew him after all, he threw back his head and laughed.
She'd never known he could laugh. It was an infectious sound. Joy moved across his hard, fierce face, the laughter lighting him up, changing him, changing her-
The truth slammed into her, stealing her breath, making her head spin. The scales fell from her eyes, and hard-so hard they seemed to bruise her on their way down.
She was in love with him.
And quite clearly, she had been for a very long time.
Once again, she'd been fooling herself. She'd called it an "infatuation," called it her "feelings for him." She'd minimized it in her own head, worrying only that this trip would take recovering from. She hadn't dared so much as think the truth. Meanwhile, she'd chosen to lose herself in his life. She'd never thought to ask why she'd been passed over for that other job three years ago even though she'd known perfectly well she'd been qualified for it. Worse, she'd chosen to keep her distance from her brother-when he'd died, but even before, if she was honest. It was easier to send money from afar than it was to roll around in the messes Dominic had made, though it hurt her to admit she'd done exactly that. She'd done all of it.
All to cater to and care for a man who would never love her back. Who hadn't the slightest idea what love was.
Then again, came that voice inside her, brutal and unflinching, do you?
The world seemed to tilt around her wildly, sickeningly, as if she'd found herself trapped on some carnival fun ride. She felt a terrible shame wash through her, scalding her. She'd wanted her damaged, selfish mother to love her as she should have done. She'd wanted all of those stepfathers to love her like a daughter. She'd wanted Dominic to love her more than his addictions. And Cayo... He couldn't love anything, could he? So she'd settled for making him need her instead. And she'd thought he valued her for that, if nothing else.
Was that what she'd wanted, in his office that day that seemed so long ago now? Had some part of her believed she would fling her resignation at him, still smarting from the printed email she'd found, and he would leap to his feet and declare his love for her?
Of course he hadn't. No one ever had, and Cayo wouldn't know how, even if he did feel the things she did. Her entire life was a great and complicated monument to deeply pathetic, sadly epic, and wholly unrequited love.
She was such a fool.
And he was watching her now, that unexpected laughter still on his face, making him more than simply beautiful in that hard, fierce way-making him handsome, too. Almost approachable.
It broke what was left of her heart.
"Are you all right?" he asked, his eyes still bright as they searched hers, sharpening as they saw whatever must have been there-the truth, she feared. The terrible truth she could never, ever let him know.
She didn't know how she did it.
"I'm fine," she managed to say. He frowned, no doubt at that shaky note in her voice that made her sound anything at all but fine, so she gestured at her mouth, and lied. "I've bit my tongue, that's all."
* * *
Time, it turned out, was the one thing Cayo couldn't control.
It was the afternoon of her final day-which neither one of them had mentioned directly yet, though it hung there between them no matter how many times he'd taken her the night before, or this morning-and he could not bring himself to pay attention to the conference call that she was participating in as his representative. He sat next to her at the small table in the office, his legs stretched out before him, and found he could do nothing at all but watch her as she spoke into the speaker phone in the center of the table.