0263249026 (R) by Bella Frances Page B

fire’s dying embers, heard the tick of an old clock, heaved on the rusty bolts that had held the door closed.
    She’d come down to stand in the doorway to the hall with a haunted look—as if the heart had been ripped out of her. He’d stopped then—aching to go to her, to make her feel better, to take away the hurt, take away his own hurt.
    But he’d been young—only twenty-one! He’d spent so long getting to that point, working through his own pain. La Colorada had finally been ready. His polo career had been taking off. He hadn’t been able to stay there, to ally himself to a woman—a girl. He’d been only just beginning to taste the chance of a sweet future. It would have been madness to go to her.
    So he’d turned back to the door, hauled it open and stepped out into the early-morning rain. She’d come rightout into the daylight, onto the huge slabbed courtyard, called his name one final time. But he’d just slung his bag onto his shoulder, taken one final look at her, wrapped up like temptation’s gift. And then gone.
    ‘He was just standing there—then he went into the guest bedroom, saw you were gone and the state of the room. Saw me in the sheet.’
    She turned her face away.
    ‘He slapped me and called me a whore.’
    Rocco sat up, but she’d turned onto her side. He scooped her in close, feeling the shock of those words.
    ‘Hermosa, lo siento mucho,’ he soothed, furious that he had not known this.
    ‘It’s fine,’ she said—too brightly. ‘I lied. I said you must have left ages earlier. That I’d just pulled the sheet off. I don’t know what else I said. I made it up.’
    He kissed her shoulder, cursed his stupidity. Of course they had been heard. They’d been wild for each other—then and now. And he’d thought they hadn’t been. Stupid.
    ‘It’s not fine. I apologise.’ He pulled her back and turned her round, right round, until her head was tucked under his chin. He rocked her, hating the thought of her hurting. ‘What did he do? Were you punished?’
    She gave a hollow little laugh.
    ‘If you can say being sent away to a convent for two years is punishment, then, yes, I was punished.’
    He struggled to get his head around this, but knew he had no small part to play.
    ‘And he made sure that Mark sold Ipanema. That she went to you was coincidence, but it made it all the harder.’
    Rocco squeezed his eyes closed, feeling her pain.
    ‘I see. Now I see. I didn’t think … Angel, I’m sorry. If you’d got in touch I could have sorted it—I could have spoken to him. I wish you’d let me know.’
    ‘You made it quite plain that the last thing you wanted was for me to get in touch, Rocco. Anyway, it’s totally in the past—it’s fine. I served my time.’ She laughed. ‘Honestly. It’s done.’
    He pulled her close. He couldn’t deny that. Any more than he could deny how deep the scars of childhood could wound. How hard they were to heal. His own were like welts under his skin. No one could see them, but they were always there—always would be. Despite the ‘luxury’ of enforced therapy for five years. Five years until he’d learned to say what they wanted to hear: that he didn’t hold himself responsible, that it wasn’t his fault his baby brother had died.
    Who else was to blame if not him? Who else had dragged him from doorway to doorway, scavenging, begging, stealing and worse? Who else had got caught up with the gangs, the drug runners and the killers?
    He glanced past Frankie’s scooped silhouette to the tiny battered photo of Lodo that he carried with him and placed at his bedside wherever he was. Precious life snuffed out before he’d even turned four years old. Being responsible for him, letting him down, losing him—it was the hardest lesson he had ever learned. But he had learned it. And he would never ever forget it.
    The knowledge that Martinez, Lodo’s killer, had never been held to account was like a knife to his ribs every day. But he would