The Ruthless Gentleman(48)

“What’s your home like back in London?” I asked the question before I realized how personal I was getting. The barrier between guest and stewardess dissolved more and more with each second. I’d been here before, the divide between us lowering to the point I forgot myself and risked too much. Desperate to maintain distance from anything that might cost me my job, I’d spent a lot of time and effort putting that barrier back up. But here, with Hayden, it didn’t feel so wrong. In fact, it felt completely and absolutely right.

He frowned as if he were trying to remember his own home. “It’s more like the yacht I guess,” he said, as if he’d never thought about it before.

“Do you like it?”

“I don’t think about it.”

“Is this you trying to pretend you’re not fussy again?” I elbowed him, but he caught my arm and slid it around his back while putting his hand on my hip. The familiar way he touched me caught me off guard. It was as if he knew my body already, understood how we fit together.

“I’m just not fussy about everything. My home office chair was very expensive and is incredibly comfortable, and my bed is huge and handmade.” He pulled me toward him. “Some things I obsess over—others I don’t notice. But when I decide I want something, I won’t settle for less than exactly what I’ve set my mind on, and I won’t rest until I have it.”

It was meant to be light conversation but what he was saying had weight. It revealed a lot about him and although I hadn’t been digging, it was almost too much to know. I twisted, pulling away from him, and headed toward the exit.

“But the huge bed is important because it gets so much action.” I wiggled my eyebrows and dipped under his arm as he held the door open, trying to lighten our conversation. I wanted the day to be fun.

“Grazie,” Hayden called over his shoulder to the store owner, who was reading his paper behind the counter. “You seem to have a poor impression of me,” he said, dipping to speak directly into my ear. “I think you of all people know that my bed hasn’t been getting much action recently, but it seems I might have to try harder to impress you.”

I grinned but didn’t respond. Everything about him was impressive.

“Tell me about your work and why you’re on the yacht,” I asked as we wove our way through a group of children all dressed in school uniform, heading in the opposite direction. Hayden seemed so committed and obsessive about what he did, I wanted to understand what drove him.

“It will make me sound paranoid if I tell you,” he said, grinning at me.

“Try me. Maybe I’ll like paranoid.”

“It’s a long story,” he warned.

“Just give me a little shove if I doze off,” I said, nudging him with my elbow.

He paused before he spoke. “My mother and father fell in love when my mother was engaged to another man.”

Was he changing the subject? I’d thought I was going to be hearing about his business.

“They met at a charity gala. Apparently it was love at first sight. The stuff that only exists in fairy tales.”

“That’s romantic,” I said, wondering if the instant pull I’d had for Hayden had been what his mother had felt for his father.

“Yeah, I think it was for them. But she was already engaged to a business rival of my father’s, so things were a little complicated. I don’t know the details, just that my mother and father ended up together and that pissed off her ex-fiancé.”

“I imagine it would. He must have been annoyed.”

Hayden squinted and slid his sunglasses over his eyes. “Annoyed was the least of it. He wanted revenge. And he didn’t stop until he’d destroyed the business my father had worked so hard to build up. It took a decade, but when I was about seven my father was declared bankrupt.”

“And it was your mother’s ex-fiancé who caused it?” I slipped my hand into Hayden’s.

“I didn’t find out the story until years later. I’d never understood why we moved from a comfortable house in a nice street to a cramped flat above a chip shop. We’d just been told that dad had to find a new job that didn’t pay as well. Our parents shielded us from the evil there was in the world. But apparently, ruining my father wasn’t good enough. He wants to bury me as well.”

“Shit, Hayden. So you’ve come to the yacht so he can’t spy on you?”

He squeezed my hand, acknowledging the connection between us. “Yeah. To buy this company I know he’d steal from under me if he got the chance.”

“It must be awful to still be so bitter after so long. Did he ever marry?”

Hayden shrugged. “Yeah. He did. I guess it wasn’t about love. It was about power.”

I got the feeling there was more he wasn’t telling me, but he’d confessed so much I didn’t want to push. I liked the idea that he hadn’t grown up with money—it made his lack of focus on certain things make sense and why he found it so odd that I would offer to unpack for him. I wanted to know more, but I wanted him to enjoy the few hours he had off rather than focus on the reason he was working so hard, so I swallowed my questions.

We walked up and down hills, hand in hand, for hours as if we were just two tourists, enjoying everything Taormina had to offer—dropping into shops, admiring various vistas. It was everything I’d expected and just a little bit more because I was sharing it with Hayden. He was surprisingly interested in the details around us—the people who all seemed to be in such a good mood, the way some of the houses slanted so much it looked as if they were about to collapse.