The Flaw in His Diamond(23)

'You can't blame me for being curious about the woman who slammed the  door on me at the wedding,' Roman murmured against the top of her head.  'Eva the firebrand. Eva the so-called undateable sister-according to my  source,' he quickly said. 'And, yes, it gets worse,' he warned, tongue  in cheek.

'Don't tell me. Eva the shrew? Eva the pain-in-the-butt campaigner.'

'There are quite a few choice epithets for me to choose from,' Roman  admitted. 'And some of it I have experienced firsthand, of course.'

'Lucky for you, I can hear your smile.'

'But nothing I've heard fits the woman I just made love to. So who are  you really, Eva Skavanga? Are you the beautiful woman who gave herself  so completely to me just now? Or are you the frightened little girl  sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to her parents arguing?'                       
       
           



       

'How did you...?' Roman's sources, she realised. Their damned reports.  He must have been investigating her from the moment she landed on the  island.

'I'm sorry, Eva.' Feeling how tense she was suddenly, he hooked some  wild strands of hair behind her ears. She turned away. 'Look at me,' he  whispered. 'It didn't take too much working out. And I don't mean to  hurt you or pry.'

She relaxed as he drew her back into his arms. 'Then don't,' she said.

'I didn't mean to stir ugly memories.'

But he had. Would she never be allowed to forget? They remained in  silence for a long time. She knew Roman wanted her to tell him what had  happened, and that he would listen when she did tell him, and without  judging her.

'So what about you?' she said, avoiding the question she had  successfully avoided for so long. 'Have you never been in love, Roman?'

His sudden stillness gave her an answer, but not the answer she was  looking for. He had withdrawn from her and that frightened her. It was  like a hint of things to come. And now she was seriously overreacting,  Eva thought, until he said, 'I have never made any secret of the fact  that love is not what I offer.'

The change in his tone chilled her. After all they'd shared was that  all she was-a sexual partner and nothing more? Even friendship between  them would be better than that, so much better, though she hated herself  for wanting more, because it seemed so weak. 'So you offer spectacular  sex and a good deal of spoiling if that's what a woman wants. Expensive  gifts and lavish trips to exotic places.' When all she wanted was the  chance to love and be loved, and to find a safe haven for her children,  should she be lucky enough to have children one day.

'Eva?' he prompted when she fell silent after this outburst.

It had taken a giant leap of faith to trust Roman Quisvada, having  grown up associating men with pain and unhappiness. Having seen her  father mistreat her mother had left a lasting legacy, and the way she  dealt with it was by trying to drive men away. 'I don't want to talk  about it.' She turned her head away.

'I'm sorry if I've been hard on you. You don't deserve it, Eva. You're  not to blame for my bad handling of the past, or for my colourful  history. In fact, you're probably my salvation, Eva Skavanga.'

'You're apologising?' she said, lifting her head. 'You do know I'm the  most awkward person I know. It's me who should be apologizing.' She  waited. 'You're supposed to be reassuring me now,' she pointed out.

Roman looked at her with amusement. 'We're quite a pair, you and I. You  stop me looking back, and I keep you more or less calm. But you should  trust me enough by now to tell me what's riding you, Eva.'

'I don't need counselling.' She turned her face away again.

'But you do need to let the poison out. Your sisters don't have a  problem, so I have to ask myself, what happened to Eva that didn't  happen to them? What did you see that they didn't? What did you  experience?'

'Stop it,' she flashed. 'You want to know about the scar. Why don't you come right out and say it? I know you've felt it.'

'I wasn't going to make an issue out of it. It doesn't matter to me,  but it obviously matters to you. I'm guessing it must have happened when  you were still at home and Britt had left for university and your  sister Leila was out of the house-'

'Oh, you're very smart.'

'You have to stop with the compliments. Truly, my head is big enough.'

'You can joke about this?'

'It's better than hiding it away and allowing it to fester all these years. So?' he pressed.

'You're still interrogating me?'

'Yes, I am. And I won't let up. Not now.'

She remained silent for a long time and then it all came pouring out.  'My father began to drink when the mine started failing. He'd come home  and beat my mother,' she said without any emotion in her voice. 'You  were right in guessing that Britt was away at university, and Leila  always seemed to be at some friend or other's after school. He chose his  times carefully. I was a bit of a loner and used to stay at school  late, reading in the library, but one day I came home early and caught  him hitting my mother with his belt. She was on her hands and knees in  front of him, cowering. I went for him. I didn't stop to think, I  just...went for him. He knocked me away and grabbed the first thing that  came to hand. His hat was on the table-harmless enough-but in his fury  at being interrupted, at being found out, I suppose, his hand landed on  the coffee pot instead. Don't look at me like that. He didn't mean to  throw the coffee at me. And I don't want your pity, Roman. I don't want  anyone's pity. I came out of it okay.'                       
       
           



       

'Did you?'

'My mother looked after me. We made a pact that I wouldn't go to hospital, so long as my father never touched her again.'

'And he kept his word?'

'Yes, he did. That was the end of it. So it was all worth it in the end.'

Roman said nothing.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN

'PLEASE DON'T LOOK at me like that. I've already told you I don't want  your pity.' Eva stared at him fiercely. 'And while we're on the subject  of secrets and lies, what's so wonderful about your life, Roman? I'm  sure you have secrets.'

'My life?' His lips curved in thought as he took himself back to a life  that had been built on one set of foundations, only to have those  foundations kicked away when he was fourteen. The next twenty years had  been spent creating his own set of principles based on anything other  than loving, because he'd seen where that led. But now he felt free for  the first time in his life-free from guilt, and free from bitterness,  because he could see where the future could lead, and that was to a  small town in the Arctic Circle and a mining company he would care for  as he cared for all his industries. Skavanga Mining had given him a new  goal and a new purpose, and, most importantly, it had brought him a girl  called Eva.

'The son of a mafia don has certain responsibilities,' he explained.  'When I discovered the truth about my birth I thought I could just shake  all those responsibilities off and let my cousin Matteo take over. The  island and the village were nothing to do with me any more. I left in a  furious rage and that energy helped me to make my first fortune, but the  island called me back. The people called me back. I'd never really left  them,' he realised as he thought back. 'The bad days of guns and  violence were long over by then and Matteo's business had been  legitimate for some time. We started working together and I made my  second fortune.'

'But the people of the island still think of you as their don.'

'Yes, they do. There are some traditions that can never be eradicated  just because you think they should be. And I want to help. I want to do  everything I can to help them. And now I realise how lucky I am to have  that chance. It's not just a lifelong responsibility as I thought when I  was a boy-it's a privilege.'

'You love them,' she suggested.

'I love them,' Roman admitted gruffly. 'And when did you become so perceptive, Signorina Skavanga?'

'Around the time I stopped looking inwards and started looking out?'

'Quite a recent occurrence, then?' Roman suggested, not even bothering to hide his smile.

'Quite recent,' she admitted, reaching for him.

* * *

Roman would come to Skavanga to see Eva's concerns for himself and then  they would discuss how best to utilise her time in order to progress  all the exciting plans she had in mind, both for the mining museum and  for the protected ecological park. Her heart was flying on autopilot  with no immediate plans to land as she packed her backpack in Rome prior  to flying home with him. This was more than she had dreamed of. Working  directly for Roman had been the last outcome she had anticipated when  she arrived on his island, but then she hadn't planned on falling in  love with him either. Snapping the padlock on her backpack, she checked  around the lovely rooms in his Roman apartment one last time.

He was speaking on his mobile phone when she came down to the hall. Her  footsteps were silent in trainers. He couldn't know she was there. She  planned to surprise him with a kiss. She hadn't planned on  eavesdropping, but sound travelled in the lofty hall.