“It sounds as if you loved him very much. What did he do for a living?”
“He trained horses. We had stables. Dad got up every morning before dawn, even Sundays. His only vice was betting on the track. Not a lot, but always a few dollars each week.”
Perhaps Scarpini had inherited his thirst for gambling.
Ella gripped her cutlery tight. She would not let memories of that man intrude tonight.
“I’ve never understood some people’s need to gam-ble,” Tristan said. “If they thought it through, did the research, they’d understand you lose more than you win.”
Her smile was wry. “I think it’s more to do with the high when they do win.”
“Like a drug?”
She nodded.
“You like to gamble?”
She shook her head fiercely. “Not at all.”
“I’m sure you’ve already guessed, neither do I. I only bet on sure things.”
His gaze roamed her face and a delicious fire flared over her skin. While she fought the urge to pat her burning cheeks, he poured the last of the wine and changed the subject.“ Do you have any brothers or sisters, Ella?”
She inwardly cringed. Not her favorite subject. “It’s a matter for debate.”
One dark eyebrow hitched. “Sounds intriguing.”
“It’s a long story.”
He pushed his nearly clean plate aside. “I’m a good listener.”
She studied him across the table, the encouraging smile, the thoughtful dark eyes, and right or wrong she wanted to share—truly be more than the house staff, if only for a night.
As the waiter cleared their plates, Ella searched for words and the courage to say them.
“I have a half brother.”
“Doesn’t look as though you approve.”
“I have my reasons.”
His eyes rested on her, patiently waiting for more.
Did she want to get that familiar with Tristan? she wondered. She was a private person, too. The quiet one at school. The wallflower at the dance. But she wasn’t sixteen anymore. She was almost twenty-six and dining with a man she didn’t know a whole lot about yet trusted nonetheless. If she was ever going to stretch her wings, now was the time.
Her fingers on the stem, she twirled her glass on the table. “Over two years ago I gave up my job to care full-time for my mother when she was diagnosed with cancer. The disease metastasized to her bones and…” Ella swal-lowed against the emotion swelling in her throat. “It affected her organs,” she went on, “including her brain. Toward the end she sometimes forgot what year it was.”
Since her fall down the back stairs eighteen years ago, Roslyn had been “delicate.” She’d broken her col-larbone and both legs and had lain in a coma for six weeks. Her bones had slowly mended, but her cognitive functions never fully recovered. She’d still been a happy, loving person, just a bit…slow.
A pulse beat in Tristan’s jaw. “Taking care of your ill mother…that must’ve been hard for you both.”
At times unbearably hard, watching the person you love most withering away, losing any capacity to care for herself. “Finally she begged me to find a place for her in some facility. I couldn’t do it.”
His voice deepened. “She was lucky to have you.”
When he sat back, she could feel him waiting for the half brother to make an appearance.
She’d thought if she could banish that horrid man from her thoughts, memories of him might fade. She hadn’t spoken his name in eight months, but the image of his face was as vivid as the day the police had banged on her door, Scarpini smirking alongside of them.
But rather than bottling it up, perhaps talking about it would help exorcise some of the pain, humiliation and anger she still felt.
She concentrated on the candlelight casting sparkling prisms off her crystal glass. “A few weeks before my mother died, a man showed up claiming to be my father’s illegitimate son.”
“You didn’t believe him?”
That familiar battle raged inside of her. Was he? Wasn’t he? Did it make a difference if they were related? she wondered. After the agony Scarpini had put her through, she had no desire to find out.
“He was very convincing…” She thought back. “But I didn’t trust his eyes.”
“The windows to the soul.”
She looked from the candlelight across the table. Tristan’s eyes were clear and filled with unswerving strength and sound purpose.
“Drago Scarpini’s were empty. He seemed to look right through me. And his smile…” Icy tendrils trailed down her back and she shivered. “His smile was cold. But he charmed my mother and tried to convince her that my father would want her to acknowledge him now.” In a lowered voice, she confessed the rest. “I heard him speak with her about changing her will.”
Tristan’s chin kicked up. “Sounds as if he was an expert at befriending vulnerable women. A real predator.”
“The doctors had given her a few months more to live but she died sooner than expected.”
“And Romeo didn’t get a slice of the pie.”
Her throat constricted. She wouldn’t tell Tristan the whole story. He didn’t need to hear how she’d been accused of murdering her own mother. It was just too ugly. “After a lot of soul-searching, I decided to gift him ten thousand dollars from the estate.”
Tristan looked disappointed. “Ella, you’re not even sure you share the same father. Even if you do, he shouldn’t have expected anything from your mother’s estate.”
“My lawyer said the same. But right now I don’t have any desire to go through the ordeal of finding out if we are related, and the money was something I felt compelled to give.” She half shrugged. “I guess to settle my conscience and be done with it.”
There was no right answer, just the memory of her father and what he might have done.
“I’m surprised he hasn’t hassled you,” Tristan said.
“Those types usually don’t know when to back down.”
A chill crawled up her spine. She had the urge to check over her shoulder, but she shucked it off and instead announced, “It’s all in the past now.”
The waiter took dessert orders and the rest of the evening they spoke about Tristan’s work—the same important project he needed to discuss with the mayor. Ella was sorry when the evening ended and they arrived back home.
As
