her knees up as his were. He didn’t lift his head. She thought about asking him yet again what pain and secrets he was hiding, but she didn’t think there was much point. Luca didn’t want to tell her and, truthfully, she didn’t blame him. She had pain and secrets of her own she didn’t want spilling out. Still, she felt she had to say something.
‘The petits fours weren’t actually that good,’ she ventured after a moment. ‘So you really didn’t miss much.’
Luca let out a soft huff of laughter, and somehow that sounded sad too.
‘I know what it’s like to grieve, Luca,’ Hannah said quietly.
‘Is that what you think I’m doing?’
‘I don’t know, and I won’t ask because I know you don’t want to tell me. But...’ she let out her breath slowly ‘... I know what it’s like to feel angry and cheated and in despair.’
‘Do you?’ Luca lifted his head to gaze at her speculatively; she could only just make out the strong lines and angles of his face in the moonlit darkness. ‘Who do you grieve, Hannah?’
It was such a personal question, and one whose answer she didn’t talk about much. Yet she was the one who had started this conversation, and if Luca wasn’t able to talk about his pain, perhaps she should talk about hers.
‘My father, for one,’ Hannah answered. ‘He died when I was fifteen.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Luca stared straight ahead, his arms braced against his knees. ‘How did it happen?’
‘A heart attack out of the blue. He went to work and dropped dead at his desk. It was a complete shock to everyone.’
‘Which must have made it even harder.’
‘Yes, in a way. My mother wasn’t prepared emotionally, obviously, or financially.’
Luca glanced at her. ‘Your father didn’t leave her provided for?’
‘No, not really. He’d always meant to take out a life insurance policy, but he never got around to it. He was only forty-two years old. And savings were slim... He wasn’t irresponsible,’ she hastened to add. ‘Just not planning for the disaster that happened.’ And she’d decided long ago not to be bitter about that. She’d simply chosen to make different choices.
‘So what did your mother do?’
‘Got a job. She’d been a housewife for sixteen years, since before I was born, and she’d been a part-time preschool teacher before that. It was tough to find work that earned more than a pittance.’
‘And what about you?’
‘I worked too, after school. We sold our house and rented a small flat. That helped with expenses.’ But it had been hard, so hard, to go from the simple, smiling suburban life she’d had as a child to working all hours and living in a small, shabby flat.
‘I’m sorry,’ Luca said again. ‘I never knew.’
‘I never told you.’ She paused, waiting for him to volunteer something of his own situation, but he didn’t. ‘What about you?’ she asked at last. ‘What happened to your parents?’
Luca was silent for a long moment. ‘My mother died when I was fourteen.’
‘I’m sorry.’
His cynical smile gleamed in the darkness. ‘We’re both so sorry, aren’t we? But it doesn’t change anything.’
‘No, but sometimes it can make you feel less alone.’
‘How do you know I feel alone?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Because I do, sometimes.’ Another breath. ‘Do you?’
Luca didn’t answer for a long moment. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Yes, all the time.’ He let out a hollow laugh. ‘And no more so than when I was looking at Andrew Tyson and his damn kids.’ His voice broke on the words and he averted his head from her, hiding his face, shielding his emotion.
‘Oh, Luca.’ Hannah’s voice broke too, for her heart ached to see this proud, powerful man brought to such sadness.
‘Don’t.’ His voice was muffled, his head still turned away from her. ‘Don’t pity me, Hannah. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘I don’t—’
‘I’d rather someone attacked me than pitied me. It’s the worst kind of violence, cloaked as something kind or virtuous.’ He spoke scathingly, the words spat out, making her wonder.
‘Who pitied you, Luca?’ she asked quietly. ‘Because you seem the least likely person for anyone ever to feel sorry for.’
‘I wasn’t always.’
‘When you were a child? When you lost your mother?’
He nodded tersely. ‘Yes. Then.’
But she felt he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. ‘What happened to you after your mother’s death? Did you live with your father?’
‘No, he wasn’t around.’ Luca expelled a low breath. ‘I went into foster care, and managed to secure a scholarship to a boarding school in Rome. It saved me, lifted me up from the gutter, but not everyone liked that fact. I stayed on my own.’
It sounded like a terribly lonely childhood. Even though she’d lost her father, Hannah was grateful for the fifteen years of happy memories that he’d given her. ‘How did your mother die?’ she asked.
He let out a long, weary sigh and tilted his head towards the sky. ‘She killed herself.’
Startled, Hannah stared at him in horror. ‘Oh, but that’s terrible—’
‘Yes, but I could understand why she did it. Life had become unendurable.’
‘But you were only fourteen—’
‘I think,’ Luca said slowly, still staring at the starlit sky, ‘when you feel that trapped and desperate and sad, you stop thinking about anything else. You can’t reason your way out of it. You can only try to end the sadness.’
Tears stung Hannah’s eyes at the thought. ‘You have great compassion and understanding, to be able to think that.’
‘I’ve never been angry with her,’ Luca answered flatly. He lowered his head to gaze out at the sea, washed in darkness. ‘She was a victim.’
‘And were you a victim?’ Hannah asked. She felt as if she were feeling her way through the dark, groping with her words, trying to shape an understanding out of his reluctant half-answers.
‘No, I’ve never wanted to think of myself as victim. That ends only in defeat.’
‘I suppose I felt the same,’ Hannah offered cautiously. ‘My father’s death left my mother in a difficult situation, and I wanted to make sure I never ended up that way as an adult.’
