The Taming of Xander Sterne(49)

                Xander came to a decision.

                ‘Samantha.’

                ‘Yes?’ She raised her head to look up at him uncertainly.

                ‘Samantha, I—’ Xander drew in a deep breath, knowing he was about to take a huge leap of faith, but also knowing that he had no choice if he was to persuade Samantha into trusting him again.

                He never talked about his abusive childhood to anyone, but if he wanted Samantha to talk to him now then he knew he had to tell her what had happened to him. That he now had to trust her, to confide in her, if he wanted her to trust and confide in him.

                And he did want that. He wanted more than anything for Samantha to trust him.

                He drew in a deep and ragged breath. ‘Samantha, until I was twelve years old I lived with a father who enjoyed beating the hell out of me.’

                She blinked, and then blinked again, as if she were having difficulty taking in what Xander had just told her. As no doubt she was. His childhood hardly fitted in with that charming billionaire playboy image the media were so fond of portraying.

                An image that hid the vulnerability beneath.

                A vulnerability Xander found himself surprisingly willing to share with Samantha.

                ‘Darius, too?’ she finally asked huskily.

                A nerve pulsed in Xander’s jaw. ‘No, just me.’

                Samantha moistened the dryness of her lips with the tip of her pink tongue. ‘What happened when you were twelve?’

                Xander’s jaw tightened. ‘My father died.’

                Malcolm had been emotionally cruel, deliberately so, but he had never been physically violent, either towards herself or Daisy. Until today, Sam reminded herself with a frown. Today Malcolm had felt absolutely no compunction about hurting her. In fact, she thought he had rather enjoyed it.

                She swallowed. ‘How?’

                ‘Shortly after putting me in the hospital with a broken arm and concussion, my father fell down the stairs in a drunken stupor and broke his neck.’

                ‘I don’t recall any of this ever being in the newspapers.’

                ‘It wasn’t,’ he confirmed abruptly. ‘No one outside of my close family has ever known about the abuse.’

                Sam was absolutely horrified at the thought of this man’s childhood. ‘Xander.’

                ‘Samantha, I didn’t tell you this so that your compassionate heart would feel sorry for me.’

                ‘It doesn’t,’ she assured swiftly, knowing that Xander’s pride was such that he wouldn’t want, or welcome, pity from anyone. That the self-confident man he had become, the caring man he was towards Daisy, the empathy he had just shown her, were clear evidence that he had risen above his abusive childhood.

                ‘Not even a little bit?’

                ‘Well, of course a little bit!’ Sam replied exasperatedly, a large part of her wishing that Xander’s father were still alive, so that she could verbally upbraid him for his treatment of his son.

                As a way of slaying Xander’s dragon for him in a way that she couldn’t seem to slay her own?