‘You saw a lot of him?’
‘Err...’ He caught the wry bafflement his question caused. ‘Of course I did. We all lived under the same roof. We were a family.’
He grimaced. ‘I’m sorry. My family...we were a family too but not, I think, as you experienced family. It wasn’t unusual for us all to be on separate continents when I was growing up.’
Damián and his brother had been raised by their own personal nannies and a fleet of dedicated staff, and educated in an English boarding school. An annual skiing trip in Switzerland had been the only sacrosanct family time, and even that had been full of his parents disappearing to take calls. He remembered numerous occasions when he’d flown to one of their family homes on a school holiday only to find one or both of his parents had already moved on to another country. To Damián, that had been normal. He’d grown up longing for the day he could take his place as his father’s side within the business. When that day had finally come, the day his father had appointed him head of Banco Delgado, his father had patted his back and said, ‘You’ve made an old man proud.’ After a lifetime of antipathy from his brother and being made to feel second best by his mother, those words had validated his entire existence. When, within a year, he’d increased Banco Delgado’s profits by forty per cent, his father had looked through the accounts confirming this, risen from his desk and shaken Damián’s hand. That was the moment he’d known he’d made his mark and that the respect he’d always craved from a father who was neither emotional or demonstrative had been his.
What would it have been like to be together as a family for more than a few weeks a year? To share meals every day? To go to bed every night knowing your parents and sibling were safe under the same roof as you?
‘His death must have been hard for you,’ he said heavily. He missed his father but their relationship had been too distant during his childhood for them to be close. As adults, they’d worked tightly together but there had always been a formality between them. The grief he felt for his father, he knew, was nothing to what Mia must have gone through with the loss of her father.
She nodded then downed the remainder of her drink and swirled it in her mouth before swallowing.
‘Another?’
She put her glass on the table. ‘One more then I’m going to have to call it a night.’
He fixed them both another drink. By the time he laid her glass on the table between them, she’d stretched her legs out and placed a cushion under her head. For a moment, he found his attention caught by her bare feet, which were resting slightly off the edge of the sofa. They were pretty feet, the toes painted a pretty coral colour. Did they ache, he wondered with a pang, after an evening spent on stage? Did they ache now? Did the rest of her ache...?
He took a deep breath and removed his gaze from her feet. These were not thoughts he should be having. Keeping his attention fixed on the conversation between them while ignoring the swell of desire that was constantly pulsing through him was proving incredibly hard.
Mia was just too damn desirable, that was the problem, and the stillness of his apartment and lack of external distraction was amplifying everything he felt. Every movement she made stirred his senses. He’d never before been in the position where his desire had to be stifled, and his weakness at overcoming it infuriated him. He’d always been able to compartmentalise. With Mia, though, he was failing to compartmentalise in a spectacular fashion.
He sat back on the sofa and hooked an ankle on his thigh, feigning nonchalance. He must not let his wayward feelings show on his face or in his body language. Mia was finally relaxed in his company and he had no wish to put her back on edge.
‘How did the daughter of a physics teacher become an actress?’ he asked. ‘Was it something you always wanted to do?’
‘Not really.’
He waited for her to elaborate.
She sighed. ‘After Dad died...things at home...they changed.’
‘Understandable.’
Her eyes met his. ‘It was awful,’ she said softly. ‘We all pulled together to begin with but then I guess we all got lost in our own pain for a while. I signed up for the school production of Romeo & Juliet on a whim. I couldn’t believe it when I was given the role of Juliet, and I still don’t know if I got it because they felt sorry for me or if they saw some kind of talent in me. Whatever...it doesn’t matter. I got the part and...’ Her throat moved before she continued. ‘It’s hard to explain but being on that stage... By inhabiting Juliet, I lost myself. I stepped into her shoes and for that short time all my worries and pain were gone. It was an escape. I knew that, even then. But it helped me.’
He digested this. ‘Then why did you turn to drugs?’
Her eyes widened fractionally and suddenly he realised what it was he saw whenever he mentioned her criminal past. Fear. A rabbit momentarily frozen in the headlights.
She stretched an arm out for her drink. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s too personal.’
More personal than discussing her father’s death?
Somehow she managed to drink from her gin and tonic while laying flat out without choking or spilling a drop. When she laid her cheek back on the cushion she rested her hand beneath it and drew her knees in before her eyes locked back onto his.
‘You don’t have to tell me about the drugs if you don’t want to,’ he said. ‘But I’m glad you’re clean now. That must have taken a lot of strength.’
Her face contorted and she pressed her face into the cushion. ‘Please, Damián,’ she said. ‘I can’t talk about it.’
A lump formed in his throat at the distress he detected in her muffled voice.
‘We need never speak of it again,’ he promised quietly while his mind raced as to why she wouldn’t talk about it and why she found it so distressing. ‘Not unless you want to.’
Her shoulder blades rose before she turned her cheek to face him again. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
He stared closely at her. ‘Are you okay?’
Her lips drew in tightly but she nodded.
‘Okay.’ He drank a third of his pint, then, in a lighter tone, said, ‘Tell me your long-term plans. What do you want from life?’
He read the gratitude in her eyes at his change of subject. Her voice back to its usual melodious strength, she said, ‘Another role would be a good start.’
‘Haven’t you got anything lined up after this tour?’
She pulled a face. ‘Nada. I’ve got an audition Monday morning—and, before you get cross about it, it’ll be over before you get back to London—but I know who I’m up against so I don’t rate my chances.’