‘I haven’t seen my mother in seven years. As far as I know she’s in San Francisco.’
‘She wasn’t there for you?’
She picked up her wine glass and stared at the burgundy liquid. ‘I don’t think she’s ever been there for me. Aislin and I spent more time with our grandparents next door than we ever did with her. Two weeks after Aislin finished high school our mother scarpered to Asia and never came back.’
Even the edge to her voice, never mind her words, struck Tonino like a blow. It was a tone he’d never heard before and he peered closely at her. ‘Never?’
The misery he witnessed on her face struck him like a second blow.
She swallowed before answering. ‘Put it this way, she’s never met Finn.’
A grandmother who’d never met her only grandchild? Surely not? ‘What about when you were in the coma and he was in Intensive Care?’
‘She texted Aislin for updates.’
That struck him even harder than Orla’s other revelations.
He imagined her hooked to machines, locked in her own head, unable to communicate, unable to respond to anything and his heart swelled so greatly it became an effort to breathe. To think her own mother had abandoned her to that fate without one single visit defied all humanity.
Little wonder Orla struggled to trust and open up to people. Of the two people whose job had been to love her and raise her, one had rejected her in the womb, the other doing the bare essentials until she could leave for good.
His throat moved before he asked hoarsely, ‘How did the accident happen?’
‘I don’t remember.’ She shook her head as if clearing her ears. ‘That period is still a blur. I don’t even remember where I was going. I know it must have been somewhere important because there was a bad storm and I’m not comfortable driving in bad weather. I know I had a collision with a Transit van but I don’t remember anything of the accident itself.’ Suddenly she grinned. It made her whole face light up. ‘Probably just as well. I’m terrible around blood.’
He returned the grin, glad of the lightening of mood.
But he couldn’t escape the feeling in his guts that there was more to Orla’s injuries than she was sharing with him.
As they left the cosy warmth of the Bally House Hotel restaurant, the breezy chill in the air outside came as something of a shock, especially as Orla had neglected to bring a jacket with her. She looked up at the sky and was disappointed to find all the stars hidden under thick cloud. Summer was practically over, she thought wistfully.
Yawning as the long day finally caught up with her, she rubbed her arms for warmth. Eagle-eyed Tonino noticed and removed his charcoal suit jacket and placed it on her shoulders.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ she protested.
‘I’m not cold,’ he answered smugly.
And now, neither was she. Tonino’s jacket was so big and contained so much warmth that it enveloped her body like a giant hug.
Its warmth came from his body heat.
The driver noticed their approach and opened the back door for her.
She climbed inside and was about to reluctantly give Tonino his jacket back when he slid in beside her.
‘You don’t need to escort me back,’ she chided, smothering another yawn.
‘I want to see you home safely.’
The driver pulled away.
‘Don’t be silly.’ She smothered yet another yawn. She was utterly exhausted and yet…
Alone with Tonino in the confines of the back seat of his car, the partition between them and the driver raised…
Suddenly she was aware of the beats of her heart and the thickening of her blood.
Suddenly she was aware of Tonino’s cologne dancing through her airwaves. The urge to rub her cheek into his jacket still draped over her shoulders became almost irresistible.
And suddenly she was aware of his thigh pressed against hers.
She should move away from him. Edge herself to the door. Create a distance.
She knew what she should do. Her body had other thoughts and was refusing to take orders from her brain. She cleared her throat. ‘You’ve only got to come all the way back and it’s not like you’ll see Finn—he’ll be asleep.’ The car’s interior darkened as they drove through the thick woodland. ‘You should get some sleep too before all that travelling you’ve got to do…’
His hand closed over hers, stifling her words. It felt very different from the way he’d covered her hand in the restaurant. That had been for reassurance during what had proved to be a difficult yet ultimately necessary conversation. Since then, they’d spoken only of light, forgettable things and yet, instinctively, she knew she would remember every word exchanged.
If only she could remember those last missing pieces. What had happened with her father was becoming clearer. She’d waited on his doorstep for his housekeeper to find him. She didn’t need the actual memory to know the housekeeper had returned with the message that he didn’t want to see her. Orla knew it in her heart.
The memory she most wanted back was the accident. Where had she been going? She’d been two hours from home on the main road to Dublin…
Her desperate thoughts, barriers to help her pretend that the electricity bouncing over skin wasn’t really happening, dissolved. The weight and warmth of Tonino’s skin against hers made coherent thought impossible.
‘I would sleep much better if I was in your bed,’ he murmured.
A loose breath escaped her throat, barely audible above the humming in her ears.
She should move her hand from his and move her body away too. Instead she found her fingers lacing through his. When his thigh pressed tighter against hers and his shoulder leaned against hers, she smothered a gasp at the throb that pulsed through her abdomen and sent an ache rippling through the rest of her.
She didn’t dare utter another word. She didn’t dare look at him.
There was an excitement in her belly that was both new and yet familiar. She didn’t remember the feelings but knew, in the same instinctive way she’d known she was pregnant and that Finn’s father was Sicilian before the memories came back, that she’d felt them before.
His fingers squeezed then unlaced from hers to rest lightly on her thigh. The heat from his touch fizzed right into her veins.
Her fingers spread themselves over his thigh before her brain could compute what they were doing.
Slowly, slowly, his fingers crept upwards, gently caressing until they reached the apex of her thighs. She squeezed reflexively and gasped
