Page 20 of Be My Traitor

“Amber likes curry too?”

“She’s an absolute fiend for it!” I laughed. “She can’t get enough of the spicy stuff. But what I want to know is how you managed to get the entire restaurant to yourself when I have to pull strings to get just one table.”

“It’s like you said. It’s all about who you know,” came the enigmatic answer.

I looked pointedly at him.

“All right.” Lucas shrugged sheepishly. “I got my assistant to ring round everyone who had a booking tonight and buy their table from them. People were more than happy to make a couple of grand just to stay home and enjoy a takeaway.”

“So it’s who you knowanda ton of cash,” I said.

“Exactly,” Lucas said. “Maybe it’s not the most ethical thing to have done, but I wanted to spend some quality time with you without having to deal with the noise of dozens of other people talking in the background. I heard this was the best curry house in town, so I did what I had to do so we could enjoy a night out together. I want to get to know you again, Milly, start from the beginning as if we were strangers.”

“We pretty mucharestrangers,” I pointed out. “When we were at school together, you were married to Ivy and aside from the occasional dance together, we didn’t exactly get to talk much. That night in the club… well. Talking was the last thing on either of our minds.”

“True, true.”

We’d finished our starters and Dave came to whisk our empty plates away, expertly laying out the things for our next course in record time. Soon, we were alone again.

“So, if you want to start from the beginning, why don’t you start by telling me what you’ve really been doing for the past few years?” I said. “I don’t believe you’ve been nothing but a teacher. You’re Lucas Donatello. Scheming is practically in your DNA.”

Lucas laughed. “I don’t blame you for being suspicious, but I promise you, I’ve been focused on my Academy. Most of the time.”

“And there it is.” I slapped the table, leaning back in my chair. “What have you been doing with the rest of the time?”

“Figuring out where I came from,” was the surprising reply. “I don’t know if Ivy told you, but I’m adopted. I’ve been trying to track down my birth mother to find out where I really come from.”

“Seriously?”

Lucas nodded.

“You’d think with all the money I have, it would be easy to find my family, but despite hiring the best detectives in the world, there’s been no trace of my mother.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that.” I spoke gently, reaching out to put my hand on Lucas’s. “Has it occurred to you that she might be…”

“Dead?” Lucas shrugged. “Of course, it’s possible that’s why I haven’t found her. I mean, I know very little about her except that she was willing to give me away in exchange for money. Sometimes I wonder whether she spent it all on drugs and alcohol and wound up dead with a needle in her arm.”

“And how would you feel if that’s what happened but you could never know for sure?”

“I guess I’d just keep doing what I’ve always done – live with it.” Lucas took a sip of his wine. “But my gut tells me that’s not what happened to her. It wasn’t the only fantasy I had about her, you know. Sometimes I’d imagine that she used the money to get back on her feet, started a business, became a success in her own right and the only reason she didn’t come looking for me was because she didn’t want to ruin my supposedly perfect life.”

“Another poor little rich boy?” I arched an eyebrow, not wanting to let Lucas have an easy ride.

“Maybe that’s how it was for your brothers, but life really was hell with Penelope Donatello.” Lucas toyed with his cutlery, not meeting my gaze.

“Did the billionairess take parenting lessons from Joan Crawford?” I laughed, but it tailed off when I saw Lucas’s expression. “Wait. Did Penelope abuse you?”

“I don’t like to talk about it much,” Lucas said. “In fact, the first person I ever told was Ivy. It doesn’t help the Donatello brand for it to be common knowledge that I have a weakness.”

“It’s not a weakness to have been abused.”

“If people see you as a victim, it’s a weakness.” Lucas clenched his jaw, still not looking at me.

“Do you want to talk about it? It might help.”

Lucas said nothing for a while, but just when I was about to change the subject, he spoke up.

“Penelope adopted me when I was eight,” Lucas told me. “Everyone told me how I lucky it was that I was going to be living with someone so rich, but I knew things weren’t going to be as perfect as they seemed when the first thing Penelope said to me as we drove away from my foster home was that if anyone asked, I was her nephew who had moved in with her after the death of her sister in a car accident. If anyone found out the truth, she’d send me straight back to foster care – and make sure that I’d be somewhere far worse than the place I’d just left.

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