He glanced at her and it took all her will power not to flinch from the pain and anger in his face. She knew it wasn’t directed at her but at some distant ghost of his past. Still, the sight made her want to curl up and hide, or maybe just cry for him. He didn’t seem the type to cry for himself. She had wanted to know the answer to that question, but now she wasn’t so sure she wanted to know what put that kind of pain in his eyes.
“The morning after my mother died, the paparazzi were waiting outside the hospital. When I came out they were screaming my name, taking their pictures as always. I tried to wave them off, asked them to give me some privacy.” He laughed again and the sound almost broke Constance’s heart. “You know what’s stupid? I really thought they’d do it. I thought they’d back off. Not stick cameras in my face as I waited for them to wheel my mother’s body out so we could take her to the funeral home. Not ask me how I felt over and over again. How did they think I felt?”
He shrugged and she reached over to lay a hand on his arm, hoping to offer some comfort.
“When they placed her body in the hearse, I broke down, sobbed like a baby right there on the street. Joe hugged me, kept his arms around me until we could get back inside. The moment he touched me, someone started asking if I was gay, if we were lovers. If my mother had known about us before she’d died and what she’d thought about it.”
She squeezed his arm. “It bothered you they thought you were gay?”
“It bothered me they thought they had the right to ask about something so personal, something that was so beyond none of their business it truly amazed me they’d ask, especially in that moment, and that they’d connect it to my mother. My mother was being taken away so we could bury her and they are asking how she felt about my apparently fluid sexuality.
“Then one of them asked how much money I’d get. How much she’d left me. What was I going to do with my inheritance? Did we have life insurance on her that I’d get a piece of? Come on, you can tell us, how much did you get? Sorry about your mom, but at least you got something good out of it, eh?”
He swallowed hard and shook his head. “Did they think I cared about whether or not she’d left me anything? Or that any of that was any of their business? She was my mother. I’d have given everything I owned to bring her back.”
“I’m so sorry, Luca. I lost my mother, too. I can’t imagine…”
He nodded, breathing deeply for a moment before he spoke again. “After that I stopped trying to get their attention, but it didn’t matter. They’ve never stopped following me around. And it doesn’t matter what I do or who I do it with. So I do what I want, let them make up whatever they want. They’ll do it anyway, no point fighting it.”
Constance had no idea what to say to any of that. Her throat tightened with unshed tears at the young man he’d been, and for the disillusioned man he’d become. He didn’t seem the type to welcome sympathy, and there was precious little she could do to erase years of pain. “I’m so sorry, Luca.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“Of course it does.”
He looked at her, though she wasn’t sure he really saw her. “It’s in the past. It’s how life is.”
Constance squeezed his arm but he shook his head. She let go, wishing desperately she could take some of the hurt from him. Yes, he was an egotistical, often manipulative control freak, but he’d just proved even he had feelings. Even if there was nothing she could do to make things better for him.
But she could at least try and take his mind off it a little.
“Well,” she said, “you certainly kept up your end of the bargain. So here you go.” She whipped off the blanket so nothing covered her and was rewarded by the haunted look fading from his eyes as he took her in.
Had she’d known the morning before that she’d be spending six weeks in a gorgeous billionaire’s bedroom, she’d have purchased more appropriate pajamas. Well, more conservative was probably a better word. At home, alone, she liked to sleep in little scraps of silk that were cool and soft against her skin. She didn’t own anything other than sets of camis and shorts like the one she was currently wearing, except for the silk nightgowns that she thought might be even worse in her current situation.
She knew the pajama set did nothing to hide her curves from his hungry, roving eyes. She’d worry about that later. For the moment, she was just happy to see that it had chased the shadows from his face.
“Satisfied?” she asked.