built your business up from nothing. That must have taken some doing and it’s something I can use. But I need to know more.’ Her business mind was beginning to take over, to leave the timid and vulnerable Bianca in the shadows, where she belonged.
Creating an image for her clients was what she was good at, and right now, keeping things on a more professional level was far more comfortable than the simmering tension which arced constantly between them, making her think again and again of that kiss.
‘I was eighteen when we entered a new century and was determined to put my past behind me, so I started a computer repair business. I was self-taught and good at it. Those years with my father had served me well, and as you can see today, my company is very successful.’
‘Self-taught?’ She picked up on something she could use.
‘My father was in the business and I grew up with computers as a big part of my childhood.’
‘You must have missed your father. How old were you when he died?’ She probed deeper, even though she sensed him shutting her out second by second, question by question.
‘Twelve years old.’
Bianca recognised the fierce tone of his voice which covered up hurt. It was exactly what she did, but she also knew he wouldn’t appreciate her saying she understood. How could any person understand what it was to lose a parent when you were young unless they, too, knew the pain? ‘That must have been hard for you and your mother.’
‘She died before my father. I had no one after he died.’ Each word was clipped and short and her heart constricted for him.
She had lost both her parents, but as a two-year-old it didn’t have such an immediate impact on her life, not when Allegra had stepped neatly into the role of mother and her grandfather had always been around. It must have been so much harder for Liev. She looked at him, imagining the young boy, alone and grieving.
‘You were totally alone?’ The whisper her voice had become revealed the sadness he’d evoked within her, bringing painful memories of her own to the surface.
He nodded slowly, the thin line of his lips showing the control he was using, and she knew she should stop, but with her heartstrings tugged by the thought of him alone in the world as a young boy, she couldn’t.
‘How and where did you live after your father died?’ she asked, but seeing his jaw clench, she almost dreaded the answer. Surely he’d had some distant family who could have taken him in. Surely he hadn’t been like those kids at the homeless shelter her business sponsored.
‘I survived by doing whatever was necessary.’ He was aiming to shock her. She could sense it in him, the way he sat, the way he looked at her, but she wasn’t shocked. This man was a survivor, a born fighter, and she had the distinct impression that if everything were taken away from him right now, he would reinvent himself and become even more successful.
* * *
Liev had to stop thinking about Bianca like this, as if she was the woman he truly wanted to be with, the woman to share his past and build a future with. Each time she asked a question, she unlocked something inside him, prised open the door to his past a little more. It was a door he’d slammed shut and locked years ago. He had to stop opening it now, stop her digging into his past, because she would find far more than she ever expected, far more than he wanted to reveal.
Instead of dwelling on what she might find, he steered the conversation the way he wanted it to go. ‘I soon realised I had an aptitude for making money as well as working with computers. It wasn’t long before I had my own premises and began selling my own software.’
‘When did you begin selling globally?’ Her attention was well and truly caught, and he found it a pleasurable change for a woman to be interested in what he did rather than how much money he made. He had met too many women like that lately and begrudgingly admitted that Bianca may not be quite as frivolous as he first thought, that perhaps she wasn’t a carbon copy of the woman who’d broken his young and inexperienced heart, shattering it beyond repair.
But she wants the bracelet. Those words goaded him to reconsider.
Inwardly he breathed a sigh of relief. The questions she was asking were coming from Bianca the businesswoman. If they were coming from Bianca the woman, they would have led in a very different direction—somewhere he didn’t go, not with anyone.
‘Almost immediately. It was my aim from the very beginning.’ That had always been his aim, more than that it had been to become so successful and wealthy that no other company could swallow him up, spitting him out and casting him aside, as had happened to his father.
‘Was it something you had always wanted to do?’
‘I always wanted to show the world I was a fighter, that whatever life threw at me I’d get back up, become more successful. I’ve gone from nothing to being able to buy whatever I want. I’m proud of that achievement.’
Everything he did, every deal he made, every new programme he produced and every office he opened around the world was for his parents, for what they should have had. Just as being here with Bianca was.
‘That’s very impressive. The press will love it.’
There was genuine warmth in her voice, but he ignored it, instantly on alert. ‘The press don’t need to know. I will not have my parents’ names dragged up just to sell a product.’
Her eyes widened as she raised her brows in question. ‘A certain amount of your story will have to be told, but I understand about wanting to keep your parents out of it.’
‘You more than most should.’ He pushed his half-eaten starter away; his taste for fine dining had diminished rapidly. He might as well be eating stale bread again.
She reached out and touched his hand. ‘And I do.’
Her dark eyes met his, their gazes locked and her hand remained over his, the warmth of it strangely comforting. This was a woman who did truly know the pain of growing up without parents. Although he’d bet she hadn’t had to live rough and fight for every scrap of food that passed her lips.
She wouldn’t have had to endure time in prison because of being forced to steal food, not just for herself but for other homeless kids, some much younger. She wouldn’t have had to forge herself a new identity just to be able to shake off the past and make it in life afterwards. She’d had the cushion of a successful family business, something he could have had if it hadn’t been for the underhand dealings of another business.
‘Then you know it’s not easy. You don’t need the full details to appreciate that, and I’m sure with your ability to focus on what’s important for a successful launch, you can leave them out.’ He kept his tone firm and pulled his hand from beneath hers.
The look of hurt which rushed across her beautiful face, one less made up than the previous time they’d seen each other, snagged at his conscience. He shouldn’t be so hard on her. She was only his key to gaining the revenge he’d first vowed on as he’d laboured in prison. She wasn’t the ultimate goal.
‘I won’t focus on your past, but the present. It will be the press who will do that, which I’m afraid is all par for the course.’ That tough mask of professionalism was back. For a moment he thought he’d seen real vulnerability in her eyes. ‘And I have the perfect opportunity to show the world the man you are now. Leave it to me.’
‘Do not forget, Bianca, that it is in your interests to keep negative press coverage at bay—if you want the bracelet.’ Anger simmered at the thought of his past being exposed, something he’d lived constantly with, but for the first time, it mattered what someone else would think. It mattered what Bianca would think.
Never before had he cared what anyone had thought of him, and now the very woman he’d forced himself into close proximity with was making him care. He pushed the newfound emotion down and watched as she glared back at him.
‘I will do whatever is necessary