More confused than ever, I watched my dad walk out of the kitchen, pondering his question. No answer came. With shaking hands I picked up a couple of bowls and ventured back into the dining room, glad when I got there that Marco was no longer the topic of conversation.

CHAPTER 10

A lull in the discussion during the night’s adult literacy session made me smile. “You know, for people who complain that this is the worst part, you certainly had a lot to say.”

Duncan smirked while the others laughed. With the exception of Lorraine, who’d barely said a word all class.

I’d found that a good way to help along the class reading skills was to have them read something for homework and come in and chat about it as a group. These guys had very basic reading skills, but they were coming on by leaps and bounds. I found that in discussion they unearthed a better understanding of the words they’d read because what one didn’t understand, another did, and they helped one another out without even realizing it.

“Well done, folks.” I stood. “Read chapter six for next week, please, and I shall see you all then.”

We bade one another a good night, the class filtering out until only Lorraine remained. Since the night I’d spoken to her, she’d turned up for every class. Still, she stubbornly refused any one-on-one assistance, and the reading challenges I set them made her uneasy. I’d quickly discovered that she was the kind of woman who preferred someone to be straightforward with her, rather than pussyfooting around her.

“Is it me?” I asked her.

Her head jerked up from her bag and she frowned at me. “Is whit you?”

“Am I the reason you don’t want to speak up in class?”

She shrugged.

I raised an eyebrow. “It’s not the others. It can’t be. You’ve seen them struggle, and you’ve witnessed how patient and kind the class is with one another. You yourself have shown patience. Kindness. So if they’re not the ones who make you uncomfortable, who make you afraid, is it me?”

“I’m no afraid,” she snapped.

I strode toward her and gently took the book out of her hands. Opening it up to the chapter we’d just been discussing, I handed it back to her. “Read the first two sentences out to me.”

Lorraine looked at me incredulously. However, I saw what she was so desperately trying to hide. I saw the fear.

She snatched the book out of my hands and pulled it toward her face. She swallowed. Hard. With painstaking care she began to read to me. Almost near the end, she faltered on a word. Glancing up at me warily, she flushed.

I kept my face perfectly blank. “Sound it out.”

The anger flashed in her eyes and yet she looked back at the page. “It’s no a word.” She frowned. “Fuh-ri-gid,” she said, pronouncing it almost like “frigate.”

“Do you remember the rules for hard and soft g’s? Usually, when g meets a, o, or u it’s a hard g. The guh sound. Like gap. But usually when it meets e, y, or an i, it’s a soft g. The juh sound.”

Lorraine stared at the word. “It’s an i. Fuh-ri-gid. Fuhrigid.” Her eyes scanned the sentence that preceded it and the tension melted out of her as she said, “Frigid.” She shrugged. “I always thought that word wis spelt wi a j.”

I took a step back from her. “That was well done.”

She ducked her head. “Aye, whitever.” Abruptly she grabbed her bag and brushed past me. “See ye next week.”

I stared after her in thought for a while after she left the room. Lorraine was definitely rough around the edges, lacking in good manners and social graces, but I couldn’t help but respect someone who pushed through despite her fears.

With my heart pounding and my stomach roiling with waves of nausea, I settled onto my window seat in the living room, staring out at the dark, glistening street. Pools of light glimmered here and there where streetlights glanced off puddles made from the recent rainfall. I clutched my phone in my hand and sucked in a deep breath.

Scrolling through my recent call list I found the number, and with Lorraine’s perseverance and Dad’s question at the forefront of my mind, I pressed the CALL button.

It rang three times before… “Hannah?” Marco answered, pleasant surprise in his deep voice.

“Hi,” I replied quietly, willing my heart to slow. “I…”

His voice was filled with a concern I remembered all too well as he asked, “Are you okay?”

I exhaled slowly. “I’ve decided I do want to know why you left me that night.”

He was quiet for a moment and I was just about to break the silence when he said, “I want to ask why the sudden change of heart, but I’m not going to in case I scare you off. I’m glad you called, but I’d rather discuss it in person. Would that be okay with you?”

“If I say no you’re only going to turn up at my next dental appointment, right?”

He laughed quietly, a seriously delicious sound that made my scalp tingle. “Whatever it takes.”

“I still can’t believe you came to my book group,” I muttered.

“It got you to call me, didn’t it?”

“Tread carefully, Mr. D’Alessandro,” I warned.

He chuckled. “Fine. I’ll be good… if you invite me over to your place tomorrow night to talk.”

Trepidation shot through me at the thought of us being alone in my flat. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Hannah, what we have to discuss is personal. What I have to tell you is personal and I don’t particularly feel comfortable with the stranger behind us in a café listening in.”

I processed that, and unfortunately had to admit that he was right. I didn’t want a stranger listening in on us either. “Fine,” I grumbled, giving him my address. “Six o’clock.”

“Does it include dinner?” he asked hopefully, a boyish cheekiness in the question that surprised me.

“We’ll see.” I hung up without saying good-bye.

I felt much too hot all over and suddenly restless as adrenaline pumped through my body. I hadn’t felt this awake in a long, long time.

School was a blur. I was so preoccupied with the thought of Marco being at my place that night that I don’t even know how I got through the lessons. Somehow I made it, and with my stomach a jumpy, jittery mess, I hurried home after work and began preparing dinner. I didn’t know what to cook because I didn’t want Marco to think I was trying to impress him, but I also didn’t want to poison him with something he was allergic to.

I’d settled on pasta and salad. Surely you couldn’t go wrong with pasta and salad.

It went against the manners of being a good hostess (which my mother had ingrained in me from the age of three) not to dress the table when I was having someone over for dinner, but I also didn’t want Marco to think this was something it wasn’t.

Who was I kidding? I didn’t even know what this was.

I changed from my work clothes into a pair of well-worn jeans and a long-sleeved thermal top. Twisting my hair up into a messy bun, I looked in the mirror and nodded, pleased with my reflection. The jeans made my arse look great, the top was form-fitting and made my boobs look good, but overall the outfit said “I’m just hanging at home and I could give a shit what you think about me.”

“Perfect.”

I spun around, marching out of my bedroom toward the kitchen, and my door buzzer sounded, drawing me to a halt.

I was going to throw up. I was going to upchuck all over my nice hardwood floors.

“Deep breaths,” I coached myself, turning back toward the door.

“Hello?” I asked upon lifting the receiver.

“It’s Marco.”

Yup, definitely going to upchuck. I pressed the entrance door key, letting him into the building.

With blood rushing in my ears, I attempted to prepare myself to see him again, and drew on my powers of indifference. Opening my door, I listened to his footsteps as he climbed the stairs to my flat.

I saw his head appear as he ascended the staircase and my stomach dropped. His eyes lifted from his feet to my face as he climbed higher, and he gave me a small smile in greeting. Damn it. Why did I have to be so attracted to him? Why did I have to have so many good memories of him?

His gaze drifted down my body and back up again, and I got the distinct feeling he wasn’t disappointed by my outfit. Not at all. Pretending I didn’t give a crap, I stepped back. “Come in.”

He moved inside, making me feel tiny, and despite his defection, safe. “Did you get taller?” I grumbled, moving away from him and the attractive cologne he was wearing.

He shut the front door behind him and shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”

As my eyes took him in, it occurred to me that it had nothing to do with his height. It was his muscle. I gulped at the sight of his biceps, nicely displayed in the form-fitting hooded Henley he was wearing. “This way,” I almost wheezed, abruptly turning my back at the sight of his amusement.

He followed me into the sitting room, where I’d set the dining table at the back of the room. “Nice place.” His eyes hit the piles of books that I had in nearly every corner, and he gave me that familiar half smile that made me feel things I didn’t want to feel. “You need bookshelves, though.”

Ignoring that comment, I gestured to the table. “Take a seat. I’ll get dinner.”

Marco raised an eyebrow. “You cooked after all?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Only because I’m hungry.”

“Of course.”

Pissed that I was doing a very shitty job of coming across as being unaffected by his presence, I marched out of the room and into my kitchen, where I clutched the edge of my countertop, taking in a deep breath.

You can do this. He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy. I chanted that mantra over and over in my head while I grabbed the bowls of pasta and salad.

“This looks great,” Marco said after I strode back into the sitting room to dump them on the table.

I made a harrumph sound and then grunted, “Beer?”

His lips quirked up at the corners and I could see the laughter dancing in his stunning eyes. “Sure.”

I returned with the beer, slammed it down in front of him, and then shoved myself ungracefully into my seat opposite him. I gestured to the bowls. “Eat.”

Not hiding his amusement any longer, Marco grinned as he reached for the salad bowl. “You seem agitated.”

No, do I? Outwardly, I just shrugged. “Well, I’m fine.”

His look said he didn’t believe me for a second. I took the salad bowl from him, dumping vegetables onto my plate as he scooped pasta al pomodoro onto his own. We were silent as we served ourselves and started eating.

I felt like any second I might just jump out of my skin and throw my skeleton arse out of my bay window. I kept waiting for him to start speaking, to start explaining himself, since that was the whole point of him being here in my sitting room, eating my food and affecting my girlie bits. Finally, I’d had enough of his seemingly comfortable silence. “Four years?” I snapped, glaring at him.

Marco contemplated me, appearing to memorize every inch of my face in a way that made my skin feel hot and tingly. He laid his fork down and sat back, twisting the cap off his beer with little effort. He took a sip, his eyes never leaving me. “Maybe we should start with the night at India Place.”

Unexpected pain shot across my chest at the mention of India Place. It stole my breath, that pain. Ever since I’d lost my virginity to Marco, the pain and humiliation of that night had really only ever belonged to me, because he hadn’t been around to face afterward and no one else knew about it.

Discussing it with him for the first time made it feel like it had just happened.

I must not have been able to keep that pain out of my expression, because Marco tensed, and something like regret flickered in his gaze.

He set the beer down, his entire focus on me. “I want you to know that being with you that night was one of the best nights of my life.”

I froze at that shocking confession, only for anger to quickly unfreeze me. “Don’t you dare try to sweet-talk me with bullshit and pretty words. I just want the truth, Marco.”

His features hardened. “That is the truth. You can be pissed off at me all you want, but don’t question what I tell you tonight because I’ve never lied to you.”

“For all I know.”