Right Billionaire, Wrong Wedding (Sexy Billionaires)(47)

“What do you want to know?”

The words had her head whipping back toward him. “What?”

He shrugged. “You’re right. I was prying, and I’m nothing if not a believer in fair play.” His electric gaze met hers. “If you have questions you’d better ask them before I change my mind.”

Excitement surged through her. Darian never talked about his past. He was the king of keeping people out.

So why is he giving me this opening?

The deepest part of her heart wanted to believe it was because she was special and not merely because he wanted to balance the scales between them.

“You asked about my family,” she said before she could chicken out. “Tell me about yours.”

He inhaled, his eyes on his wine. “You know I lost my parents.”

“Yes. But I don’t know how a young boy managed to raise a kid sister and a corporate empire.”

A small smile twisted his lips. “I learned early on that sleep is for the weak.”

“Darian.”

His eyes flicked to her. “With our parents gone…Jenny was a wreck. I was, too, but I had no choice but to keep things together. The mortgage was paid off, but I still needed to keep food on the table. Needing to work, I wound up taking part-time jobs at a few different offices here and there. Wherever would give me some hours.”

“Sounds busy.”

“I’ve never shied away from hard work.”

No, but he’d been a young man suddenly shouldered with both responsibility and grief.

“It must have been a lot to handle.”

He shrugged. “It was harder on Jenny. Teenage girls need their mothers. All she had was me.”

“I’ve seen you together,” she pointed out. “Your sister thinks the world of you.”

“I had to keep her safe. I had to do my best for her,” he said, his eyes not meeting hers.

And that, she thought, had become the mantra of his life. Every decision he’d made had been to provide a life for Jenny. A safe harbor.

Taking pity on him, she tried to steer the conversation away from his sister. “I take it these offices were what sparked your interest in business.”

He inclined his head. “I kept seeing opportunities no one else seemed aware of and, one after the other, they were dismissed.”

“Let me guess. You decided to take advantage.”

“My deals started small. Investing the little I could save after I made sure Jenny had what she needed. But the returns started growing and with it, my ability to take more risks. Jenny hit the road after she finished high school. I kept tabs on her, but she made it clear she needed some space to live her life. That freed me up to put myself through school.”

“And create one of the most profitable businesses in the country.”

His fingers traced an invisible design on the table cloth. “My sister depended on me. Financially at least. Failure wasn’t an option.”

She studied her dinner date, feeling awed by him all over again. Where others would have crumbled, he took his grief and channeled it into a way to change his life. And the cornerstone of it all had been the love for his sister. The need to make sure she was cared for.

“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning forward. “You shouldn’t have had to shoulder so much so young.”

“It made me a fortune,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.

She shook her head. “Some things are more important than money.”

Somber eyes met hers, his silence telling her he didn’t disagree.

The food arrived, giving her something else to focus on. She’d wanted to know more of his past, after all. But the more she learned about him, the more she cared, and that was a slippery slope.

She cleared her throat. “It looks delicious,” she said, staring down at the artwork on a plate that had been laid before her. “Forget about the sex; I’m going to start using you purely for your pasta connections.”

Some warmth trickled back into Darian’s eyes as he smiled. “Doesn’t take much to make you happy.”

She shrugged. “I’m a simple girl at heart.” She twirled some pasta around her fork, lifted it to her lips, and took her first bite.

Heaven was real and she was eating a slice of it on her plate.

“It seems I’ve discovered the key to keeping you content,” Darian said, staring at her instead of attending to his own dinner.

“This is ridiculously good,” she defended.

“Yes, it definitely puts my own attempts to shame,” he said after taking his first bite. “I’ve been coming here for years.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “The chef, Marco, was an old friend of my parents. He always had a little corner shop with the best food I’d ever tasted. When his son decided to get into the business and help his father really turn it into something incredible, I loaned them some of the capital to do it.”