Vincenzo felt something inside him shift and tighten. He’d asked her how often she refused to do her father’s bidding and she’d said not very often. He could understand why if that panic attack was anything to go by. There were many ways to break a person’s spirit, and leaving them alone locked up in the dark would certainly do it.
Except she wasn’t quite broken, was she? There were glimmers of defiance and stubbornness in her hazel eyes, and certainly a broken woman would never have got up the gumption to escape her father in the first place.
Brave. He’d give her that at least.
‘I’m drinking, see?’ She lifted her cup again.
‘Good.’ He gave her a critical look, noting the colour in her cheeks. Probably she wouldn’t faint again, and certainly not if he didn’t threaten her with a cell. ‘Are you going to give me the information I want?’
‘About my father?’
‘Si.’
Her gaze turned wary. ‘I’m not sure. You might hand me over to the authorities if I do.’
A strange restlessness took hold of him and he wasn’t sure if it was irritation or something else. ‘I told you I would give you a week and I meant it.’
‘A week of what?’ She peered up at him from beneath her lowered brows, her wealth of dark hair curtaining her face again. ‘A week of being in a cell?’
‘There will be no cell, I’ve said so already.’
‘But you didn’t say what else there will be. I operate best with clear parameters, Mr de Santi.’
It was definitely irritation, he decided. ‘Are you trying to bargain with me, civetta? Because I should tell you now that you are in no position to do so. You are only out of a cell at my pleasure and I can put you in one at any time.’
She continued to glare at him, but her hand was shaking a little, the tea in her cup rippling in response. And he had the oddest urge to put his own hand around hers to steady her. Or perhaps gather her into his arms again and hold her until she’d stopped shaking. Ridiculous. Where on earth were these urges coming from? He’d thought he’d put his protective instincts behind him a long time ago, especially when it came to women. Women were treacherous—more so than men, as he had good reason to know. His father had been ineffectual and weak, while it had been his mother who was the dangerous one. Small and exquisite and utterly merciless when it came to putting the de Santi name and its poisonous history before everything.
Even before her own son.
‘But if you do that, I won’t tell you anything,’ Lucy pointed out. ‘And you want me to tell you things, don’t you?’
He gritted his teeth. ‘I do not make bargains with prisoners.’
Lucy put her tea down, the saucer clattering on the table as she did so, tea spilling on her hand. She gave a little hiss of pain and he found himself instantly moving over to the table and reaching for one of the napkins on the tray, taking her small hand in his and dabbing the tea away gently.
She tried to pull her fingers from his, but he held on. He shouldn’t give in to these urges and he knew it, but the hot liquid had burned her.
Because you are scaring her.
But he scared a lot of people. Why should scaring her feel so different?
‘Let me go,’ she murmured. ‘It’s just a little burn.’
He ignored her. Beside the tea and the plate of biscuits was a glass of water with ice in it, so he took one of the ice cubes out of the glass, wrapped the napkin around it and then pressed it gently against the burn on her hand.
‘What do you want?’ he heard himself ask, even though he’d told himself he wouldn’t. That he definitely would enter into no negotiations with her.
Her hand trembled lightly in his grip and then, slowly, steadied.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her voice husky.
‘You wanted a week of a normal life, you said. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?’ Her fingers were slender, her skin pale. Her hand looked very small in his. He couldn’t think why he was tending to a tiny burn in this way. What was it about her that was making him do this? She wasn’t beautiful and she wasn’t charming. She didn’t flutter her eyelashes and seduce him the way some women did. She didn’t weep and she didn’t scream. She was only scared. And wary. And guarded. Trying to stay in control even when he had all the power.
‘You can’t give me a normal life,’ she said. ‘You’re going to hand me over to the authorities.’
He glanced up from her hand. ‘You don’t think you deserve to face justice for your crimes?’
Colour tinged her cheekbones and her gaze wavered. But he could read her very easily. She was ashamed and he thought that was genuine. Which meant she also thought she was guilty.
Your mother never thought she was guilty.
That was true, she hadn’t. Not once. Not even when the police had dragged her away. It was a war, she’d kept telling him. And sometimes in a war there were casualties.
But it wasn’t a war. Because if it had been, he’d have felt like a solider and not a murderer.
‘No,’ Lucy said, a little less certain now. ‘I don’t think that. I mean, I—’
‘You have broken the law, Miss Armstrong. Numerous times.’ Her hand in his pulled against his hold, but he didn’t let her go, and he didn’t look away. ‘Do you think you should not have to answer for that?’
He could see her pulse beating very fast at the base of her throat, and as he watched she swallowed. She was radiating fear again and that angered him, though he didn’t understand why. Because she had to fear him. She was supposed to.
As if she hasn’t spent most her life being scared.
He didn’t know if that was the case or why he should care even if it was. She wasn’t any different from any other criminal. Her father might have forced her compliance by locking her in a dark basement, but that didn’t change the fact that she had committed a crime.
Your mother used the same tactics on you, or had you forgotten?
No, that had been different. This little brown bird had only been locked in a room, fear keeping her in line, while his mother had used a far sharper tool. His mother had used his own love for her against him.
But Lucy didn’t do what you did...
‘I know I broke the law,’ she said quietly. ‘I know that. I hid his money for him and I helped him make more, and no I didn’t do it legally. And I...’ She stopped and pain flickered through her gaze. ‘I know what he did with that money. But I was forced into it. I didn’t want to do it, not any of it.’ All the breath went out of her then and her shoulders slumped. ‘I guess if that doesn’t make a difference to you, then it doesn’t. All I wanted was...a taste of what it would be like to be free.’ Her voice had got soft, her fingers lax in his. She was staring down at her lap, all the defiance and mulishness leached out of her.