Page 94 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

‘Very well,’ he said, reaching across the table for the jug of home-made lemonade that sat next to the bottle of his favourite red wine. ‘What would you like to know?’ He poured the lemonade into a heavy cut-glass tumbler and pushed it over to her, before pouring himself some wine.

‘You mentioned being brought up in the foster system.’ She reached for the tumbler, took a careful sip, then looked at him in sudden delight. ‘Oh, this is very good!’

Again, satisfaction tugged at him, that she was pleased with what he’d given her. It made his chest burn. He tried to ignore the feeling, but his mouth twitched all the same. ‘Lemonade,’ he said. ‘My housekeeper makes it from the lemons in our grove.’ He nodded to a small bowl in the middle of the table next to some fresh bread. ‘That is olive oil from our olive groves.’

‘Looks amazing.’ She reached for the bread, tore a piece off it, then dunked an edge into the olive oil before taking a bite. ‘Mmm... And tastes amazing too.’

‘My housekeeper is an amazing woman.’

‘She is.’ Nell leaned forward, elbows on the table as she tore off another chunk of bread. ‘Okay, so tell me about you, Bear.’

Bear yet again. She seemed wedded to it, which was ridiculous. Then again, a part of him liked it. Cesare called him Ari, but that was as close to a nickname as he’d ever had. He’d never been a man to invite anything more intimate than that.

Bear, though, he could live with.

‘I was born in Athens,’ he said. ‘I never knew my father. He and my mother split up before I arrived. I don’t remember much from my time with her, but we had a large house in the hills. It had a garden. My mother was kind and loving—I never knew a moment’s unhappiness. Then one morning she took me to church and left me there.’

Nell, in the process of dunking more bread in the oil, went still. ‘What do you mean left you there?’

‘At the end of the service, she told me to sit still in the pew and she’d be back soon, so I did. Except she didn’t come back.’

Nell’s eyes widened. ‘What? You mean, not ever?’

‘Not ever,’ he confirmed, picking up his wine glass and leaning back in his chair. ‘I was eight. Eventually the priest came over and asked me my name, and why I was sitting there. To cut a long story short, they eventually discovered that my mother had gone. The house was empty, there was no sign of her. I had no surviving grandparents, no other family, so I was made a ward of the state.’

A crease formed between her brows, her eyes dark and soft with what he very much hoped wasnotpity. ‘Oh, that’s awful,’ she murmured. ‘How could she have left you?’

A question he’d asked himself many times. A question he would never know the answer to.

Aristophanes lifted a shoulder. ‘The why isn’t relevant, only that she did. So I went into the foster system and my experience was...imperfect, to say the least. I never stayed long with a particular family. I was always being shifted around. Eventually, I decided I’d had enough. I’d taken part-time jobs here and there while I was at school, and I’d managed to save quite a bit of money. I made a few astute investments and soon found I had a knack. I’d always loved mathematics as well, and the two seemed to go together for me. That was the start of my company.’

She stared at him as if fascinated, making the pressure in his chest take on a kind of warmth and this time he liked the way she looked at him. He liked it a lot.

‘You must have been very determined to leave all of that behind,’ she said.

‘Oh, I was. I wanted to leave my childhood behind, make my mark. I also liked numbers and the idea that you could make money with numbers. Money, too, is an interesting idea. You have physical money, obviously, but much of it exists in the ether. You have some, you lose some, you get more... It doesn’t really matter, because it wasn’t real to start with.’

‘I know plenty of people who would disagree with you.’

‘Of course. I’m talking about the idea of money, you understand. That’s not really real or tangible, but the effects of it are. I like making it, I like controlling it, and I like doing things with it. It’s a game.’

She leaned her chin in her hand. ‘But it’s not really about the money, is it?’

The question was unexpected and it made him think. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not.’

Nell stared at him through the flickering candlelight. ‘What is it about, then?’

‘Challenging my mind, my intellect.’

‘Why is that so important to you?’ she asked. ‘Genuine question.’

‘Because there I have the most control,’ he said slowly. ‘I am the master of it. The numbers do what I say and on the rare occasions they don’t, I make them.’

‘Control is important to you?’

He shifted uncomfortably, finding the conversation vaguely unsettling. ‘Yes.’

‘I suppose it would be, considering how little control you had over your early life.’

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